Jacob Daniel's birth story
Well my last little long awaited bub has finally arrived and just turned 8 days old today. :)
Jake was due on the 16th March and as my other two children had both arrived on their EDD's I was expecting him to as well. The 16th came........and went. :doh:I felt nothing, occasional BH, occasional plevic pain but nothing regular and nothing that felt it was doing any good! On the 17th (as I was in a right mood, lol) my sister and Mum decided to come for a visit and take me out for lunch, nothing fancy just a salad roll sitting next to the river. So we did that, had a nice chat, had a drink and then they dropped me home. As I had the house to myself for a while I realised I hadn't felt Jake (Bubbles as he was then known!) move that day at all, not even when I'd indulged in a cold fizzy drink for lunch. I laid on the couch and did some poking and prodding but still nothing. DH and the kids arrived home with a bottle of Coke in tow, I tried that but still nothing. It made me nervous!! So feeling a little silly but still scared I called the Birth Centre. The lovely midwife suggested I come in and get monitored, just in case, and at the very least to make me feel better. So DH and I made the drive in, got checked and all was well, Jake was just lazy. Phew! At that point the MW offered to do a stretch and sweep if I wanted, no guaratees of course but she said it may help. We decided to give it a go. As she was doing it she told me I was 2-3cm dialated and that if need be later on it would be possible to break my waters, which came as a relief to know something had been happening and at the very least I would just end up having my waters broken and not a full-on induction of little Bubbles decided to hang in there. So S &S done we headed home.
When we were home I went to the loo and found a bloody show, no surprises though after the S & S so I didn't get excited as I still wasn't having any real pains. Went to bed and didn't sleep a wink as I was waiting for any sign of labour. Finally dropped off about 2am, woke at 3am with my first contraction. Next one was 5 mins away. After only 4 of them I told DH we needed to head to the hospital as after my last labour progressed quickly from 5mins to 2mins I didn't want to get caught out. So we headed off about 4am, and at the time the contractions were only period pain type. I felt a little silly heading off so soon but by the time we were halfway there the contractions intensified and I knew we were right to have left so soon!
Got to the hospital, were lucky enough to get the lovely Birth Centre Birth Suite. We went in, I walked around for a bit, ran a bath and hopped in there for a little while but soon hopped out when contractions were down to 2-3mins and I felt a little pressure as well. I hopped on the bed and the contractions became a little irregular, sometimes 2-3mins, sometimes 5mins, sometimes huge ones, sometimes little ones. What made it really weird was I always knew one was coming because I would start to shake before one started, then once it was over I would stop until the next one began. My waters still hadn't broken either. It was then (about 6am) my MW told DH he should go move the car to the carpark and not to dally!! I hated having him gone and I got really worried at one point when she said to me "I hope he makes it back!". I got all hopeful too at this point that Bubbles would arrive really quickly. Time went on and I kept labouring, it felt like forever! I had no urge to push and it was worrying me. So I asked her to check what was going on. She checked and told me I had a little of the cervix still there, like a little lip. She could push it back but it needed to recede itself. This worried me as my first DS's birth I had the same thing and he ended up being a ventouse delivery because of it. Luckily after a couple more contractions it receded and I felt the urge to push. At about this point my waters decided to break and came out with this massive pop and went flying out onto the bed. Very bizarre as I'd never had my waters break before! After quite a few pushes (he was not as easy as my DD!!) I finally felt his head coming down and then heard the news that his hair could be seen. A couple more pushes and he was crowning. The MW wanted me to touch his head but I couldn't move, I tense up heaps during labour! I just wanted him out! A couple of little pushes and his head popped out, I felt him turning and then his shoulders slid out! Bubbles had arrived!!
So, Jacob Daniel was born at 7:50am 18th March 2008. His weight was 6lb11oz (3075g), length 49cm and HC 35cm. He was welcomed into the world, placed on my tummy skin to skin and attatched to the breast for a suck. After a while when his cord had stopped pulsating it was clamped and DH cut the cord. Our final addition to the family was here and we are complete! :D All in all it was a 5 hour labour (well 4hrs 50mins!) but in all honesty this one felt like forever! We had no pain relief, no tears, nothing.
