The arrival of Charlie James
I've been a bit slack at getting this organised but here it is...
On Friday 6 March we had dinner with family and I felt a few lower pains and twinges towards the end of the night. Saturday I had pelvic pain all day, lots of twinges as I moved around. Sunday I had nothing at all which made me disregard the pains from Saturday as just movement of the baby and maybe my body preparing. Then i had pains most of Monday, they were kind of constant cramps that I felt all over my stomach but i was unsure that i could relate them to labour pains or contractions. I just went about my day not trying to think too much about the pains. I went to sleep that night still feeling the pains a bit but woke up at about 3am and no longer feeling them. I was disappointed that the pains had gone, I figured it was just another sign of my body getting ready.
I woke up on the Tuesday morning with no pains at all so DH went to work as I didn?t think anything was happening yet. I got myself and DS1 ready for our day, I had a Dr?s appointment and DS1 had to go to FDC. I had a shower and when I got out the shower and was drying myself I saw a trickle leak out of me which I had no control over. At this point I got a bit excited and scared all in one. I called DH straight away to tell him but I told him not to worry too much about it just yet, I was not in any pain at all and I knew that you could go a day or more after your waters break before anything happens.
I took DS to FDC and made my way to my Dr?s appointment. When I saw my Dr I told him that my waters had broken and when I explained that it had a bit of a green tinge to it he said that would mean I had merconium (sp sorry) in my waters. So after checking my blood pressure and measuring my belly he said I?d have to call the hospital and go in straight away. At this stage I was still in no pain at all and I was hesitant about having to go into the hospital as i knew this meant I?d have to be induced and I was a bit afraid of that. But really I had no say in it, my body was saying otherwise.
So I got back in the car and called DH and told him he?d have to come home. We met at the house and I packed up my bags and we headed to the hospital. At this stage I was still relatively painless, I could feel slight pains coming but they were tiny. When I arrived at the hospital (It would have been about 11am) they took me into an examination room and at this stage my waters were leaking quite a bit and it was quite mucky so the Dr was a bit concerned. They thought for a minute that the baby might have been bum down. After being examined they discovered that it was my hind waters that had broken and that my fore waters were still intact and that the head wasn't as far down as they'd have liked it to be.
By 11:15am I was in the labour suite and beginning feeling regular contractions. By 11:30am they put a drip in my hand to be able to give me the drug to induce the labour. At this stage the contractions were getting fairly intense and I was feeling the pain in my lower stomach/pelvis area, they were firm but I could talk through them. Just before 12pm they started the drip and my contractions changed, they became harder and faster and the pain was much more sharp and intense. The nurse left us for a bit then and we just sat there chatting while I breathed through contractions, giving the babies? head time to move down so they could break my waters. If they broke them before the head was down far enough the cord could fall out before the baby. DH and I were talking about having our baby in our arms and predicted it might be here by about 5 or 6pm!! It was exciting to think it wasn?t going to be 23 hours away like DS1 was.
About 12:30-12:45pm the Dr came in and broke my waters and after that things became really intense. The contractions were much stronger (the midwife explained they needed to be 4 good strong ones within 10 min), I started to get really tired and just wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. I also began to feel sick, very cold and shaky. Up until this stage I hadn?t even had any gas which I hadn?t felt I wanted but the midwife suggested that if I had some it may help control my breathing and shaking a bit. So I had what felt like a few puffs of gas at this stage. After what seemed like a very short amount of time I started to feel like I wanted to push which was so surprising, things were happening really quickly.
I?m not too sure about what the time was when I started pushing but it may have been about 2ish. I don?t think it took too many tries until the head appeared. I remember the first feelings I had of the slight burning sensation that told me the head was right there. Feeling that I knew we were so close and I became quite excited, i was beginning to realise that this baby was going to be here very soon. I pushed through a few more contractions and before I knew it I felt the head come out and then the shoulders and the rest of the body and then my baby was in my arms.
Our beautiful little boy had arrived in just over 3 1/2 hours of labour!! Our Charlie James was here, born at 14:39pm on Tuesday 10 March 2009. Charlie weighed 7lb 3.5, was 53cm long and his head was 34cm round, he was born at 39 weeks and 1 day. He laid on my chest for i don't know how long, i wasn't watching the clock. I had to be stitched up and i have a feeling i tore a bit more than i did with DS1, it was a bit more painful this time also. The midwife advised that i had some more gas while they did this but that made my head spin which i didn't like at all as i had Charlie in my arms and was feeding. Once i was stitched up i had a shower and felt as good as new. My DH, my parents and inlaws all had hugs and we just looked at our boy in amazement.
Charlie is now 3 weeks old and we are loving being a family of four :)
