GIRL!
I went into labour on Tuesday 27th April, and Baby Girl was born on the same day; weighing 7lb 8oz, 48cm long and with lots of blonde hair. I know everyone says it, but I am so in love.
I woke at around 8am on Tuesday feeling cramps in my lower belly. Although not painful, I couldn't sleep through them, so chose to get up. When I got up they intensified, so hoping it was the real thing, I showered and waited as long as I could before waking Hubby. The poor guy had a migraine, so he was almost as useless as me as we tried to finish packing my hospital bags.
We had our 39 week appointment with the midwife at noon, and decided we would still try to go. As we were walking to the hospital, my mother-in-law passed and picked us up, taking us the rest of the way. The midwife took one look at me and realised I was probably in the early stages of labour, but too early to stay, so advised us to go home and wait it out there.
We headed back to spend the afternoon with my in-laws, but straight after lunch I went to bed, and then the contractions got stronger. You may know that my mother-in-law was a midwife until her retirement, so she spent an hour or so coaching me through my contractions and reminding me to breathe; something you're not normally coached on here until you get to the hospital.
When the contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute each, we headed to hospital. Walking into the hospital was hard, because the contractions were coming every minute or so at that point, and I was having to stop and breathe through them before I could continue.
Arriving, my lovely midwife Tina booked me in, and I got straight into a warm bath, took some co-codamol and waited it out. Pretty soon I was on the gas and air (good stuff; I strongly recommend it). When my waters broke in the bath, I got the "sudden urge to push", which I promise you, you can't ignore.
They wheeled me through to the delivery to examine me, and smacked me into the door on the way in... whoops!
At this point I was inhaling the gas and air so much so that I was falling asleep with it in my mouth. I heard them saying I was fully dilated, and in my head I was laughing at the poor woman that had to deliver a baby without any more pain relief. Had I not been so high at the time I would have panicked, realising it was me that had to push this baby out with nothing more than Entonox in my system.
I spent about 40 minutes pushing, and towards the end I was getting lazy, telling them I couldn't possibly do it (I bet everyone says that). And when I thought I'd pushed out half the baby's head, they tried to motivate me further by saying "you're doing so well, we can see a coin-sized part of the baby's head!"
Then I started freaking out again. That much pain for a coin-sized amount of head?!
But Tina and my mother-in-law were incredible; they knew exactly what to say to spur me on, and I found the determination to get there when Tina told me she wanted the baby out in the next contraction. She only meant the head, but somehow (I still don't know how), I managed to have the entire baby born in the next contraction.
The midwives had to catch her because she came out so fast!
My labour was 6 hours, but only 2 hours were spent at the hospital. I spent three days in hospital, and came home yesterday. Hubby and his family have been so wonderful while I've been away; painting, cleaning and clearing the house for our return, and it's finally starting to look like a home fit for our little family.
But now for the photos; my beautiful baby daughter, Chloe:
