Apologies for serious lack of posting but I HAD A BABY!!!
(yes, okay, nearly 11 weeks ago but honestly, its mental having a newborn baby, but don't worry, I will do my best to blog about key things from the first few weeks as and when the baby chills out long enough for me to do anything for myself!)
The last few weeks of pregnancy were mental. I barely slept, I was grumpy, it was AUGUST- the heat was incredible and I generally just had to lay down and moan most of my life.
However, lets not dwell on that, it's time for the main event! The blog I have been building up to since I started I guess- the birth!
NOTE: I didn't know what sex the baby was however I imagine during this blog post I will refer to the baby as her/she because I obviously know she's a she.
It all started on Saturday 27th August, during the day I felt weird but couldn't put my finger on why and just carried not he day as normal, I even had family over in the evening to have a BBQ and sleepover. By bedtime I was restless and uncomfortable but that wasn't anything new but as we turned off the light I said to Mr WB "I feel like I used to feel before a period... either that or I need a massive poo" (such romance!) and we went to bed. I didn't fall asleep and about half past midnight I had a funny pain in my body. I use the term 'pain' quite loosely at this point because it didn't actually hurt, it was just uncomfortable. Ten minutes later, the pain came back... and again ten minutes after that... and then ten minutes after that... you see where I'm going with this. So I woke up Dav and told him maybe something was happening. He ended up going back to sleep (I told him to, I said if this was it he needed to be awake so to get some rest) and I laid there trying to find a comfortable way to rest (there wasn't one)
At about 6am I got in the bath, thus waking my brother in law and my best friend who were as excited/nervous as we were. My lovely friend helped me keep busy and we re-packed my hospital bag to make sure everything was ready. It was so nice to have my best friend with me in the early stages and she knew exactly what I needed to be doing to keep calm and happy. What a gift she was to me that morning.
The next few hours all kind of merge in my memory, I was uncomfortable but not in agony, some tightenings were worse than others and I put on the tens machine and began to think maybe I could be in labour (but not really believing it) My mum arrived at about half 11 and we set off for the birthing centre after another bath (without tens machine) comforted by the dog. (MY HEART!)
When we arrived at the birthing centre they hooked me up to a monitor just to check out what was going on. They confirmed I was in labour (I still didn't believe them) and that the baby's heart beat was slightly faster than they would like it to be and with each contraction it was sharply declining. Because of this, I was not allowed to deliver at the birthing centre in the pool per my original birth plan. Initially I was so crushed, I'm still gutted I didn't get to when I think about it now, but I had to make a new plan because this was happening and I didn't have a lot of choice.
So we rock up at the hospital and they hooked me up to another monitor and see more of the same from the baby's heartbeat. Dips during contractions, but they weren't overly concerned which threw me a little given the concern at the birthing centre but what do I know. They said to me, you're probably in early stages of labour and we can probably send you home, we will do a quick examination first just to see what's what though... OH you're 5cm dialated! Established labour!" I didn't really know what that meant but it was at this point that I was finally starting to accept I was probably in labour... HA!
So I toddled on round to labour ward, got put on another monitor and carried on me and my little tens machine quite calm, breathing through the pain lalala then it got to the point that the midwife wasn't happy with the baby's heartbeat so decided to "speed things up" by breaking my waters. Basically, crochet hook up the foof, pop, water everywhere. It's really warm and felt quite nice, like a relief... not for long though.
After my water broke things got a bit wild in there. I turned into some kind of creature. I was calling out to strangers in the corridor for help. At one point there was two midwives, two doctors, a health care assistant, my mum and my husband and I yelled "WHY IS NO ONE HELPING ME?!" Ahem. A room full of people all there to help me ! I can laugh about it now but at the time I felt like something out the exorcist. I turned to a particularly lovely anesthetist at one point and very seriously looked into her eyes and said "I am losing my shit."
So around 9cm dilated (at 10 its go time) I asked (begged, I wont lie to you) for an epidural because the gas and air I had been using for all of 30 minutes wasn’t up to scratch. I think they said yes but I also vaguely remember being told there might not be time...
Through this whole thing there seemed to be an air of anxiety in the room, not mine, I was on another planet, but something was happening. What was happening was a distressed Plum. The heartbeat didn’t have time to come back up between my contractions because they were so close together and this was causing concern for everyone. I was given an injection to slow things down and the doctor told me there was a possibility the cord was round the baby's neck, possibly a couple of times, and she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. This is when an element of panic set in and all around me people were moving very quickly and I was being told to lie this way, breathe that way do this, don’t do that, sorry Mrs Winter-Bates, you need an emergency c-section.
Carnage.
I ended up having a very quick c section, she was out within minutes and thank god for a spinal block and a fast thinking anesthetist who enabled me to be awake for the op as at one point there was talk of being put to sleep for the whole thing. I have to admit when they said that there was a small part of my brain that said "good... put me down... I'm lame!" Like some kind of animal at the vets.
So after a dramatic entrance (I didn't expect anything less from my child!) holding and squeezing the cord in her hand, Annora Bird Winter-Bates was born at 17.28 on 28th August 2016.
Talk about love...!
Here she is now at almost 11 weeks old
Hopefully soon to come will be some back dated posts about my hospital bag, the early weeks, recovery from surgery and the other new thing that’s taken over my life... breastfeeding.
Please bear with me, Annora doesn’t like for me to have free hands for typing and one handed typing takes an age!
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