On Thurs 17th April, being 5 days overdue, I had to go to the maternity hospital to see the midwife to discuss my options. I got an internal and was found to be 1-2cms dilated so favourable for a sweep which I decided to go for. I was also booked in for induction for Wed 23rd April incase the sweep didnt work. We headed home and around teatime started feeling slight crampings but just wrote it off, not wanting to get my hopes up but come 11pm, lying in bed unable to get any sleep due to the pains, I decided that perhaps my time had actually come and got up so as not to wake up hubby, knowing that it could take hours for things to really step up a gear. The contractions were around 5-7 mins apart and lasting around a min by 2am so got hubby up and phoned hospital who suggested I had a bath and to get in touch again when I could no longer take the pain.
We turned up at the hospital at 0430 and was again put in the bath where I remained for around 2.5 hours, taking the option of gas and air after about the first hour and a half. The babys heartbeat started to speed up though so they got me out and back to our room around 7am.
Things progressed quite slowly and due to my cervix not dilating evenly was not allowed to push for over 2 hours which was really difficult but I found that lying on my side was the best position. By now I had had a shot of diamorphine and was pretty much out of it inbetween contractions. I later had a second shot and did not let the gas and air out my hand since first being given it - I went through 2.5 cannisters of the stuff in the end!!
Finally, after 3 hours of pushing, our daughter Hannah arrived at 1845 on 18th April weighing a healthy 8lb 8oz and 54cm long. She had a slight conehead initially having presented face up instead of down which is why it took 3 hours of hard pushing for her to make it into the world but by the next day it had practically disappeared.
Hannah was put straight onto my chest and then, a while later, due to getting a 2nd degree tear, was sutured up before the 3 of us were left to get to know each other. After tea and toast the grandparents were allowed in to visit and then I showered and was taken up to the ward around 10.30pm where I spent 3 days as we had some trouble getting the breastfeeding established although she now more than makes up for the slow start!
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