Baby R'S Birth

I know some of you will have no desire whatsoever to read about someone else's childbirth experience but since this was such an important event in our lives I thought I would share it with you anyway.

Baby R arrived on the 10th of January, 9 days early. Having had over a week of stop start contractions and discomfort I had gotten fed up enough to use the Evening Primrose oil during the day and had also mopped the kitchen floors twice due to some very stubborn chicken fat that I had somehow spilled the night before.

On the evening of the 9th at about 10:30pm I was reclining quite happily on the couch having finally accepted that this baby was not going to come until he was good and ready. I must have shifted position slightly I think when I felt the weird pop which I though at first was gas. Then I felt the undeniable trickle that followed the pop and called to my dh to grab me a towel as my waters had just broken all over the couch. LOL He naturally flapped around a bit in shock and denial but eventually managed to produce a towel and a sanitary pad for me.

I rang the midwife and told her what had happened and she urged me to go to bed and sleep until some contractions started. I tried to do this but I was too excited and half and hour later I felt the gradual onset of minor contractions. The contractions continued to annoy me for the next couple of hours, not really hurting and not all that regular but just annoying enough to stop me from sleeping. I decided to try and ignore them at about 1am and climbed into bed with my dh to try and sleep some. I was reluctant to lie down flat as I really wanted to keep the pressure on my cervix and was afraid that if I lay flat that everything would come to a halt so instead I lay semi relined which wasn't all that comfortable for sleeping. I think I may have dozed for about 30 minutes and then I started to notice that the cx were getting stronger and that I needed to move around during them. I got up and paced the floors for a bit and walked up and down the stairs trying to get things going a bit more.

After a while I decided that the cx were getting very uncomfortable and coming more regularly so I thought perhaps I would try having a bath. After about 10 minutes soaking I began to feel some distinct pains that made me too uncomfortable to remain lying in the bath and which were coming closer together. Still not enough to be considered painful just uncomfortable. Once I got out of the bath the cx became much more intense and I found that I couldn't ignore them anymore and needed to gyrate my hips during one. Although I could still manage to talk to dh during them whom I had woken after getting out of the bath.

Suddenly they were coming 3 - 5 minutes and although not lasting more than 45 seconds I was a bit reluctant to wait any longer to go to the maternity unit as it was a 20 minute drive which I didn't fancy making in full labour. I rang my midwife and told her we were coming in even though she felt we could probably wait a while longer if we wanted to.

When we got to the maternity unit at the charming hour of 4:30am my midwife examined me and told me I was in very early labour and only 2cm dilated and that I should try to rest for a while on the bed and that she would come back and check on me in an hour. I tried to lie down and both dh and I tried to sleep but I think we were too keyed up wanting things to happen to really relax enough to actually sleep. My cx had slowed down in the car and I was afraid it was all going to stop if I lay around too much, so during every cx I got up and gyrated my hips.

By 6:30am it was all go and the cx were no longer uncomfortable as they were definitely painful and were spreading down my thighs and buttocks making gyrating difficult so I asked dh to run the water into the spa pool so that I could try that out. My midwife was napping in the next room and heard the water running so she new things were progressing and came back in to check on me.

I laboured in the water for another hour and remember thinking "I just want this to stop NOW!" But all went very well and despite me trying to convince the midwife that I'd changed my mind and that she should just pull the baby out so that the pain would go away. Little Rosco was born safe and well in the birth pool and then placed on my chest where he lay gazing around him quite peacefully. Rosco was keen to get feeding so I moved to the bed and fed him while the midwife delivered the placenta and did her checks to see that I hadn't torn, which thankfully I hadn't. BabyR weighed 7lb 3oz the smallest of my babies so far which I suppose is to be expected since he came 9 days early. He was covered in "butter" and all hairy still, but very cute and although I am somewhat biased I say he is one beautiful baby.