Couple more photos

So another quick snap shot of our new edition, the first with his dad when we were moved to the transission room. He is such a great dad he has taken on a lit of things as I haven’t been feeling to great since returning home and he has done a couple of the complete nights to let me try and catch up. I am a very lucky woman to have found someone so special.

This next one is a shot to show how long Pete is 

and you can see one of our tie dye numbers and Jans blanket being put to good use.

I am starting to feel a little more human, only a little and we are starting to settle into some sort of routine, unfirtunately this didn’t work to well yesterday as Pete wasn’t too well but seems a little better today.

We had some wonderful presents over the last couple of days some very cute outfits and a sponsered tree from my mum, a great very technical baby moniter from My Dad and brother, we also got the cutest knitted jacket and booties from Jill, a lovely going out outfit from Yvonne and an amasing parcel from Canada from Meno, I promise pictures of all tomorrow as I have left the camera upstairs at the moment.

Now I thought whil little Pete is asleep for a bit I might start his birth story, now some of you aren’t going to want to read this so probably time to click away, I promise you won’t miss anything else.

Ok well although I have heard of far worse birth stories mine was quite eventful well to me it was. I want to point out from the start all the medical people I came into contact with were amazing and I can’t compliment Queens hospital enough.

My contractions first started 5am Monday morning, nothing major and very erratic and to be honest they were so insignificant that I didn’t even mention them to Andy till Monday evening when they had settled down into a twenty minute sort of pattern. I dodn’t tell him earlier as I had read so much about false labour I thought that this was a force alarm and they weren’t very painful but by about seven o’clock in the evening they were staring to be a bit painful, so we spent the evening timing the contractions which seemed to fade out again, so I sent Andy to bed as I felt that at least one of us needed to get some decent sleep, I had been sleeping in my armchair anyway for the last week so I sat up watching terrible TV, I got a couple of hours of sleep on and off and then at 4am on Tuesday the contractions kicked in properly at about ten minute intervals. Now I wasn’t worried at this point as I had been told by the triage department that there was no point coming in until my water broke, so no sign although I had had my show on Monday, the pain wasn’t to bad just thing of the worst period pain (I get very bad period pains) that just last for two minutes, its bearable. Andy came down about 7am and they were about eight minutes apart, so I was till ok with it all. I got to six minutes apart by midday and I decided maybe we should call the triage and ask advice as I really didn’t want to go in and be sent home, they said that maybe taking a shower would help my waters break, well actually they also sugested a bath but I would have got stuck in our bathtub, but basically not to worry and come in when I couldn’t take the pain anymore. Now although the pain wasn’t pleasent it wasn’t unbearable so I had a shower which I have to say eased the pain a little but then at 1 in the afternoon I was suddenly hit by a huge pain and I couldn’t move, I was fine sitting or standing but trying to get between the two I just couldn’t do, at this point I threw up, not that I had eaten anything, it was just from the pain. So Andy called the triage again who suggested we call an ambulance (probably a good job as I am not sure if I could have got in a car at that moment) So Andy dialed 999 and they gave hiome instructions not to let me go to the toilet again and get ready as they would be there in minutes.

Now I feel really bad about calling an ambulance as I see it as a purely emergency service and I felt like a fraud but to be honest I really glad we did as I never would have got to the hospital. They were lovely it took me forever to walk to the ambulance and we won’t even talk about the steps onto the back, but we got to the hospital and it was one of the most painful journeys I have ever taken, Andy was with me all the way though. Then I had to walk up to the labour ward, another long journey by which point the contractions were coming mire than one a minute and really really painful, put it this way it was all I had to stop screaming out (it didn’t stop me later). The staff took one look at me and we passed straight pass Triage straight to a delivery room. where we discovered that I was 9cm dilated already and it was far to late for any pain relief except gas and air, now I know before all of this I said I wanted to do it all naturally but to be honest by the time I got to the hospital I would have taken anything they offered.

Andy at this point had made sure that my consultant had been contacted as she had specifically requested that even if she was not on duty she was to be called, luckly she was actually on the ward, and as soon as she cam in she said I was to have a bigger room and I was quickly pushed along the corridor to a much bigger room with a wonderful sky light so I could see the sky, but to be honest the gas and air was kicking in quite well by this point. Within the hour I was fully dialated and ready to push, it was at this point they took away my gas and air (looking back this may have been a mistake ) and then the fun started the bottem half of the bed started to collapse and I an telling the midwife who doesn’t believe me and ANdy has to tell her that its true as I was slipping off the bed slowly at which point she grabs my legs holding me up and hollering for help at which point the room starts to fill up and there are people trying to push stools and chairs under that end of the bed others holding onto me when the consultant comes in and says lets put up the stirrups and they we won’t need the lower half of the bed, after a bit of a fight we got there, still my waters hadn’t broken so the consultant did this, no big gush of water though, but they did attach a baby moniter to Pete’s head, then the bed started doing ots own thing all over the place, Andy said he could see the controls and they were just lighting up all on their own, by this point there are at least seven people in the room, I am screaming in pain (trust me it helped) finally the bed settled down.

This is the point where I think I really missed the antenatal classes, especially as I was absolutely exhausted I had been up almost 40 hours and hadn’t eaten in 24 and I was so tired I was finding pushing almost impossible, well I wasn’t pushing in the right way and I had had enough, Andy was wonderful he was being as supportive as he could but I no longer had it in me and the consultant decided the suction cup was the way to go. In hindsight she was absolutely right but at the time it felt like the most invasive thing ever and it still gives me nightmares now.

Ok sorry we are going to have to have part 2 tomorrow as Little Pete is stirring 🙂