So, its been a while hey? Long story short, my computer is busted and doing these posts from other devices is tedious to say the least! So since I last posted back in OCTOBER (!!) I've been pretty busy...
My beautiful baby boy Ettie arrived on the 20th December, four days after his due date. As I mentioned last time, I was hoping to give birth at the Maidstone Birth Centre...well best laid plans and all that!
I went to see my community midwife the day after my due date, expecting to be given a stretch and sweep. I nonchalantly mentioned that the baby's movements may have reduced slightly but that I was confident everything was OK as I was still feeling a fair few. This immediately made Sarah hesitant about doing the sweep and said she wanted me to go down to the hospital and be monitored to check baby was alright. I did my very best to convince her that it really wasn't necessary and short of dropping to my knees I pretty much begged her to still do the sweep, I was so done with being pregnant! She said she would have a listen in and a feel of the bump so I hopped up on the bed, but it soon became apparent that I wasn't having the sweep. The naughty little baby was not even nearly engaged. His head was totally free and in fact it was so high that Sarah couldn't even be sure it was his head and not his bottom she was feeling! So she called the triage unit at the hospital and sent me on my merry way for a presentation scan and to be monitored.
As I had expected, the monitoring revealed that the baby was just fine, but just as I thought I was going to be sent home, the doctor changed her mind due to the fact that the baby had changed position quite dramatically in the short time I had been there, so she diagnosed me with an unstable lie and I was admitted to stay in hospital until he arrived! The danger was that if my waters had broken while he was not in a head down position then there was a risk of cord prolapse, and apparently if that happens then they have about 7 minutes to get the baby out before there is a high risk of the baby being brain damaged or worse. So with all that in mind, the safest place for me to be was in hospital, and I was informed that they would break my waters in a controlled manner while baby was head down.
So I had left the house that afternoon thinking I was just going for a sweep...little did I know I wouldn't be home again for quite some time! The maternity unit was chocka block and unfortunately every time a bed came free on the delivery suite, a woman in active labour came in and stole it from under my nose! It soon became apparent that I was low on the priority list and was therefore going nowhere soon...
I got busy on the birth ball in the hope that labour would start naturally. After nearly three days of hellish boredom, broken up only by little visits from Beau and James, my sister and my mum, I was completely fed up. On that third day I had been getting contractions approximately once an hour but although they were actually quite painful, they weren't getting any more frequent, and I ended up sobbing tears of pure frustration on the shoulder of the lovely midwife Anna who had been looking after me during my stay. She had little comfort to offer me, but it felt good to get it out and so I dried my eyes and slowly waddled back to my room and settled in for yet another night in my cell of eternal pregnancy! The most torturous part of it was that from my room I could see the corridor leading to the delivery suite so every time I saw a lady being taken up to postnatal with her new baby I thought it might be my turn next...but wait as I might, nobody came to collect me to take me round.
At about 6:45pm I started to notice that those few and far between contractions had gotten slightly more frequent, and I started to wonder if something might be happening after all...then out of nowhere I was in agony and by 7:30 the contractions were on top of each other. A midwife came to examine me and confirmed I was 4cm dilated so finally it was my turn! I was taken round to delivery suite and shortly afterwards James arrived. By this point the pain was making me feel totally out of it and I decided that I needed to regain some control and that despite my previous swearing off it, I had an epidural. That was the best decision I could have made, and I soon felt calm and in control. My sister arrived to be my second birthing partner and at 1:20am while watching Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett in concert on the TV, after about 15 minutes of pushing, Ettienne Bay made his way into the world, sucking his wrinkled little thumb and screaming his tiny baby lungs out. He weighed 8lb 11oz, so a fair bit smaller than Beau who weighed 9lb 7oz at birth.
He is fair skinned and fair haired, in stark contrast to Beau who had a shock of long dark hair and was olive skinned from the get go. Like Beau was, he's a pretty chilled laid back baby who (touch wood) only really cries when he is hungry or tired. Beau slept through the night pretty much from 8 weeks old and I always knew I was onto a good thing there and it was unlikely I'd get that lucky again...and I was right :o) So Ettie is now 12 weeks old and I'm longing for a solid night's sleep, but apart from that all is good and I'm completely and utterly in love with my blonde haired blue eyed mini me...
peace xx
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