My apologies, this post has been a long time coming! I'm also hoping to catch up on all the blogs I've missed reading so comments to come soon :)
As I'm sure you have all guessed, my baby boy is here! Born Sunday 24th June at 12.30am, 7 pounds 7 ounces. I'll attempt to retrace the birth so if you're not into that kinda thing, scroll down a bit further!
My husband was due to start holidays (2 weeks) from Saturday 23rd June. He finished work at 11.30pm on the Friday night and for some reason my son woke up at about 11.00pm so when hubby got home I was trying to put the little mister back to bed to no avail. So the 3 of us watched a bit of tv and had a chat and hubby and I were saying how good it was that he is now on holidays because I was getting so tired and unable to pick up the little mister anymore due to the size of my belly and all the aches and pains I was getting. We finally all started to drift off at about 1.30am and at 2.00am I heard a tiny little pop. I proclaimed that I thought my waters had broken, but that it was possible I was dreaming it. I went to the bathroom and sure enough there was a big gush! Luckily it didn't happen in bed! So up we all got again and headed to the hospital. We met my mother in law there and she took the little mister for us. I should point out at this time that I could barely feel any contractions, just a bit of a pang every now and then.
I was examined straight away and bubs wasn't even engaged yet. This was a problem because last time I had a cesarean and so could not be induced this time around. It was either labour naturally or another cesarean. The doctor was called in (because it was a Saturday my OB wasn't on so I was feeling pretty annoyed at having an OB I'd never met before after paying a small fortune to be assured of having my OB! Not their fault but still annoying all the same.) but he didn't get there until about 8.30am. I still wasn't really having contractions and when I first came in bubs' heart rate was dropping off a bit so he said I had until mid afternoon to go into labour naturally or else it was straight in for a cesarean. So the waiting game began.
I spent all day trying to bring on labour, and even though I wasn't technically in labour yet I was starting to get contractions roughly 5 minutes apart the entire day and they were strong enough to knock the wind out of me. But I was denied any kind of pain relief - including a bath - for fear of staving off labour. I went for a stroll outside and a really strong one came on. When I came back in I let the midwives know and they were going to check with the doctor again what the plan was as it was heading towards 6.00pm. I was checked again and I was finally 1cm woohoo! But I was really getting exhausted from having contractions all day and no sleep for 36 hours. I had to decide what to do knowing that it still could be at least 12 hours before I give birth but I decided to still try for natural labour. So finally I was able to jump in the bath and have some gas.
The contractions had definitely stepped up but I was managing with the bath. The midwife told me that bubs was posterior (his back against my back) and this makes for a very painful labour so laying on my side in the bath might help him to turn. As soon as I laid down my head started spinning and I very nearly passed out. I felt as though I was drowning and when I sat up I vomited. It was a very scary feeling! So I sat up in the corner of the bath with the gas and was doing ok for a few more contractions.
About 10 minutes later I had a contraction that lasted about twice as long as the last one, I commented to hubby that I thought it was a bit weird but I could barely get the words out before an absolutely excruciating pain came over me! It was unlike anything I had ever felt before and I could barely breath through it. As soon as it was over I was begging for an epidural. We called the midwife back in and I was checked again. I was now 4cm, this had happened in about half an hour! Things were moving quite quickly so I was granted the epidural and that also meant I was stuck in bed for the rest of the labour. Unfortunately for me the epi was stronger in one side than the other so one leg went really dead while I had a little feeling in the other one. And because of the posterior position of the baby I had to lay on my left side, something that I hadn't been able to do during pregnancy as it had been painful so I was extremely uncomfortable even though the pain had been taken away. I just couldn't wait for it to be over.
Fast forward a couple of hours and I could start to feel pressure down below so I was checked again and bubs was ready to go! It had all happened pretty fast. The doctor was called and about 45 minutes later my little man was born! He was placed straight on my chest and then everyone left the room. We were left alone for about 2 hours before he was weighed and measured, so different to the last time. In that time he fed quite easily which made me happy as I had a lot of problems breastfeeding the first time around.
The next morning we were moved into the ward and got a double bed (yay!) and planned on going home after 2 nights (supposed to stay 4) but bubs got pretty bad jaundice and had to spend 2 days under UV lights in a humidicrib. That was pretty hard going as he wouldn't settle most of the time and I didn't get much sleep over those few days. But finally we could come home after staying the full 4 nights.
Since being home the feeding has been going well, even though it's every 2 hours during the night so I am surviving on 4-5 hours sleep! Hubbie is back at work but for the next few weeks he is doing afternoon shift so we can spend the days together.
I've lost a few kilos so far after putting on 25kg in total! I have 17 to go and I'm very determined to lose them but because I am breastfeeding I don't want to compromise my milk supply. Will have to find a happy medium and I've heard from most people that breastfeeding will help me to drop the kg's pretty easily anyway. This blog will help me keep track of it all and I hope you'll stay with me for the next chapter :)
