My baby boy is here!
6 days before his due date!
After the longest pregnancy I have experienced, I then went on to experience my longest labour, and have my heaviest baby at 8lb 5oz.
Want all the gory details?! Read ahead…
Monday 10th June – 1 week before my due date.
Woke up at 7am, turned on to my side to get up, struck by a wave of pain in my stomach, it went within a minute or so.
“Ok, this is nothing new” I think to myself. In this pregnancy I have quite often had a sharp stomach pain if I move suddenly. Especially when getting out of bed. So, I decide to stay in bed and relax a bit, then wham, pain strikes again. Then again, with a ten minute break in between. I realise these are contractions. I am torn between the thoughts of “please go away and stop hurting me” and “please come more often and let’s get this baby out”.
Jack and Charlie are at nursery today. I am home alone, thankfully, don’t think I could handle parenting and birthing at the same time. The nesting urge kicks in massively. I no longer care that I can’t bend over to do things. I am going to it anyway. And to be honest, it’s actually easier than it has been to move.
By lunch time I have repacked my hospital bag, cleaned the bath room, hoovered the floor, cleaned the boys rooms, put all of the clothes I ironed the night before away, put more washing in, ironed the remaining clothes in need of ironing, cleaned the kitchen and living room and mopped the floor and had a break every ten minutes to lean against a surface standing on my tip toes (I am not sure why I feel this helps me, but somehow it does) and breathed my way through a contraction. They are much more painful than I remember. I kept myself well hydrated and eat plenty of carbs, hoping they will benefit me with energy later.
I am wishing I had a TENS machine. I take paracetamol every 4 hours, but it barely touches the surface of the pain.
I send the hubs regular updates, I think he is shocked to hear me say “I think this is the real thing”.
After lunch I decide to have a nice soak in the bath, the water will help bring the labour on. Wrong! Came out of the bath they slowed down to one every 20 mins. What the heck??? I begin to question if this really is labour!
David comes home from work, we get the boys and do a much needed supermarket shop. The contractions are now ranging from 20 to 10 mins apart. I text my friend to see if she has a gym ball I can borrow, hopefully that would help speed things along. She doesn’t, although she does offer me a space hopper. I explain the situations and she informs and had the same experience for a week before she gave birth. Contractions all day, getting closer together, and then further apart. She then had to be induced.
I try not to build my hopes up, I had already decided after my last midwife appointment that I was going overdue, so the same thing must be happening to me. I figure that this has been going on all day, it’s my 3rd baby. Surely if it was going to come it would have come already. 3rd babies are supposed to come out fast, right?
Tuesday 11th June – 12:30am-bed time. I actually manage to fall asleep but then at 1:30am I wake up, go to the toilet half asleep, change my underwear because I think I may have wet myself. Clean up. Get back into bed and try to recall just what happened. Did I just wee myself or did my waters just break???? I am not sure. I was so sleepy. I couldn’t remember what actually happened. I am not in the habit of wetting myself and there was a lot if clear fluid, who knows. No more water has escaped from me since. But then the contractions go to a new level. More frequent and more painful. It must have been my waters breaking.
I run a bath to try to take the edge off the pain. The contractions are coming very close together. I wake David up to come and time them. They are about 5 minutes apart. I decide I can no longer cope with the pain and need to go to the hospital. I call them, explain whats happening. Receive an invitation up. Have a show.
David’s mum comes to stay with the boys. The contractions are a couple of mins apart, and she arrives mid contraction. Not a state I really enjoy people seeing me in. I feel like a fool, but not much I can do. I get to the hospital about 3am, begging for gas and air. Only to be told that I need to go on the monitor for 20 minutes, then they would examine me to see how far on I was, and then they would give me the gas and air. This was not a good idea in my opinion. With every contraction I yelled at the midwife (who was a student) and told them I wanted the gas and air now! A few times she repeated how I needed to go on the monitor blah blah blah, I am not interested. I told her there was no chance I could lay still for 20 minutes without any pain relief. She listened (thankfully!) and came back into the room saying she had been given permission from another midwife to let me have gas and air as her mentor was on her break. I think that was the real reason she didn’t give it to me when I first asked for it.
I wouldn’t have minded so much, but in my birth plan which was filed out by the consultant midwife the week before, it stated that I didn’t want monitoring until they had examined me, so that then they would be able to fill up the birth pool whilst I was monitored if needed. I pointed this out, but was ignored. After monitoring me they found I was 7cm dilated, then started to fill the pool up.
Anyway, when they did bring the gas and air, I huffed and I puffed away and not long after this point I gave birth-on land. There hadn’t been enough time to fill the pool up! Grrrrr! The actual delivery is all just a blur to me. I remember little pieces of the story.
According to David I was coming out with all kinds of random and amusing comments. And was very adamant we were not having more children (which I still am!).
I remember being told several times to only use the gas and air when I was having a contraction. But that was a risk I didn’t want to take. The thought of not having the gas and air in my system when a contraction started scared me to death! Although I think the fact I never let go of it could be the reason I don’t remember delivering my baby.
I do not remember crowning. For that, I am very grateful. I remember it from the first time and I remember it hurt. A lot.
I do remember the baby been born and thinking “you need to sober up now Gemma”. Then I let it go. I let the mouth piece out of my reach. At least until they delivered my placenta and they checked me over.
Me and baby enjoyed skin to skin right away. And when I couldn’t hold him I made sure he enjoyed skin to skin was Daddy.
My birth notes said I was only pushing for 13 minutes, and his little face has bruises on it, apparently from the pressure of coming out so fast. Bless him!
I loved the cuddles that followed the birth. It’s such a precious time and it feels fab being such a comfort to someone you have only just met 🙂
We came home after 6 hours and enjoyed a busy afternoon of meeting 2 big brothers, grandparents, a hand full of cousins, a couple of Aunties and an Uncle. Mummy was grateful he slept from 11-5 that night.
It was a very long and tiring day.
But one of the best days of my life.
Our family is complete.
I am blessed to have them, I just need to make sure that I am a blessing to them too.
MY STORY OF BECOMING A MUM FOR THE THIRD TIME 