Well what a weekend. Its hard to believe its only Tuesday time seems to have flown by, it feels like so much has happened how can it be only 4 days ago I was waddling around the place with a big (ok huge) belly! Where to start? Well while we weren’t really going in for all the old wives tales on how to induce labour there are only 3 things I did that I can think of that might have encouraged baby out.
Old wives tale #1 - Friday was a glorious day so, I took Louise off for a wee jolly down to Portobello prom stopping via the coffee shop and pub along the way. We didn’t venture in for a paddle but were tempted it was that warm and sunny. Any way back to the point that was old wives tale #1 - go for a long walk (OK ordinarily that’s usually just a nice stroll but when you feel like the size of a house it’s a long walk!).
Old wives tale #2 (sorry mum) – get it on! Sperm is the hormone Prostaglandin in its natural form. I don’t think I need to elaborate further on that one.
Old wives tale #3 – ok so I made this one up - a nice glass of Fresita to end a lovely day on. And I know it’s hard to believe dad but yes there is still left over wine from the wedding in the cupboard!
So that brings us round to Saturday morning, I’d woke up at 4 to go to the loo as you do, but felt quite crampy which I just put down to having a bit of a tummy upset but after 3 trips later and an inability to lie down without getting really bad pains I thought there may be a chance that things could be happening but wasn’t really sure whether it would lead to anything. I padded around the house a bit watching TV and had a bath and made it til about 8 until I woke Chris up to suffer with me! We timed the contractions and tried to hold off but as we got them at 3 mins apart we thought we should ring the hospital. They didn’t seem that bothered and said it was up to us whether we came in or not. Being our first baby we (or I) felt better going in although having contractions in the car isn’t the easiest thing to cope with! Surprisingly triage was really quiet when we got there and I was taken in straight away for an examination and found to be 4 cm dilated – that was at 11am. We got taken up to the labour rooms to get settled in but couldn’t get a birthing pool unfortunately, the bath did the trick for a wee while but I think the pool would have eased the pain in my hips better. The pain from the contractions was all in my hips which made staying in one position or some of the active birthing positions a bit difficult. I found that getting settled on the birth ball was out of the question as I had to get off it while I had the contraction! In the end I spent half the final stages of labour kneeling on the bed bent over a bean bag but ended up giving birth on my back because my hips couldn’t take the pressure!! Chris says it took about 20 minutes in all to get the head out and the rest just followed in a couple of pushes. No cuts or tears thankfully and the only damage to mother and baby was a bit of bruising on baby’s head caused from the pushing. We chose to wait until the cord had finished pulsating before it was cut (yes Chris did cut it).
Nathan was on my chest for a good 30 mins before he was swaddled up and passed to daddy for a cuddle while the placenta was sorted out. We were left alone a while before the midwife came back to weigh, measure and give the vitamin k injection to Nathan.
Old wives tale #1 - Friday was a glorious day so, I took Louise off for a wee jolly down to Portobello prom stopping via the coffee shop and pub along the way. We didn’t venture in for a paddle but were tempted it was that warm and sunny. Any way back to the point that was old wives tale #1 - go for a long walk (OK ordinarily that’s usually just a nice stroll but when you feel like the size of a house it’s a long walk!).
Old wives tale #2 (sorry mum) – get it on! Sperm is the hormone Prostaglandin in its natural form. I don’t think I need to elaborate further on that one.
Old wives tale #3 – ok so I made this one up - a nice glass of Fresita to end a lovely day on. And I know it’s hard to believe dad but yes there is still left over wine from the wedding in the cupboard!
So that brings us round to Saturday morning, I’d woke up at 4 to go to the loo as you do, but felt quite crampy which I just put down to having a bit of a tummy upset but after 3 trips later and an inability to lie down without getting really bad pains I thought there may be a chance that things could be happening but wasn’t really sure whether it would lead to anything. I padded around the house a bit watching TV and had a bath and made it til about 8 until I woke Chris up to suffer with me! We timed the contractions and tried to hold off but as we got them at 3 mins apart we thought we should ring the hospital. They didn’t seem that bothered and said it was up to us whether we came in or not. Being our first baby we (or I) felt better going in although having contractions in the car isn’t the easiest thing to cope with! Surprisingly triage was really quiet when we got there and I was taken in straight away for an examination and found to be 4 cm dilated – that was at 11am. We got taken up to the labour rooms to get settled in but couldn’t get a birthing pool unfortunately, the bath did the trick for a wee while but I think the pool would have eased the pain in my hips better. The pain from the contractions was all in my hips which made staying in one position or some of the active birthing positions a bit difficult. I found that getting settled on the birth ball was out of the question as I had to get off it while I had the contraction! In the end I spent half the final stages of labour kneeling on the bed bent over a bean bag but ended up giving birth on my back because my hips couldn’t take the pressure!! Chris says it took about 20 minutes in all to get the head out and the rest just followed in a couple of pushes. No cuts or tears thankfully and the only damage to mother and baby was a bit of bruising on baby’s head caused from the pushing. We chose to wait until the cord had finished pulsating before it was cut (yes Chris did cut it).
Nathan was on my chest for a good 30 mins before he was swaddled up and passed to daddy for a cuddle while the placenta was sorted out. We were left alone a while before the midwife came back to weigh, measure and give the vitamin k injection to Nathan.
His official stats are:
Time of birth – 20:27
Weight – 8lb 3oz
Length – 55cm
Here on in was a bit of a pain, it was after midnight before we eventually got to the recovery ward. There were no showers in the labour rooms’ just baths so I had done my best to clean myself off over the beide and basin but I felt a bit mingy all night. For some reason the midwife said not to have a bath but the recovery ward couldn’t understand why they’d said it or that they hadn’t shown me how to do the first breast feed. I let Chris go home by this point as it was getting on for 1am. There wasn’t much sleep to be had on the ward – not through Nathan’s fault I should add he slept the majority of the night only waking up once or twice. He was sick in his sleep though a couple of times which was a bit scary so I got the nurse to help me clean him up and put some new sheets on, only for him to promptly puke all over them too! I think I got about 3 hours sleep if I was lucky. Nathan was a bit ‘mucusy’ all the next day but one of the midwifes was going round spending time with of the each women on the ward helping with the breastfeeding and showing us first timers the ropes. Incidentally she also told me off for getting out of bed and doing too much and promptly installed me back in bed. – I did mange to sneak in a shower though before she did this and before everyone else was given their towels! The feedings been a bit hit and miss mainly because Nathan sleeps so much that you have to wake him to feed when he’d rather just sleep so ends up stopping and starting throughout the feed. We did get one really good feed in so that was encouraging. We also got shown how to bath Nathan by one of the midwife’s so he looked a bit ‘tidier’!
Partners are excused from the ridged visiting times so Chris came in at about 10 and spent the day with us popping back to Danderhall for his tea before coming back with Lesley and Jean for evening visiting.
Even less sleep was had on Sunday night as there was much goings on, on the ward with a new arrival in the middle of the night who just happened to be one of the girls from the NHS antenatal class I was on, and one of the other babies having a lot of problems. This made me feel that providing the feeding sorted itself out it would be definitely be better to go home and get some decent sleep. Thankfully after a boring day we had another couple of good feeds so asked to be discharged in the early evening and were back in the house by 8pm on Monday.
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