I had my baby on the evening of 01/03/08. This is how it happened.
On Saturday morning I started having contractions, but I wasn't sure. I'd had a false alarm the day before so my cervix was sore from being prodded. After and hour or so, it was clear I was really in labour this time.
We called Mum and she took our first born away for the night. I spent ages pacing up and down. We attached the TENS machine. The TENS works wonders and really allowed me to stay at home much longer.
I ate some food, watched some telly, but found I needed to keep walking around to keep the contractions coming.
I phoned in and told the hospital I would be coming in later but wasn't ready yet. They were fine with this. We finally ordered at taxi for 6:30pm. Then at 6:10pm my waters broke. It was a proper gush, soaking my trousers and going everywhere. And it just kept coming. I finally got dry enough in time for the taxi. Then the taxi was late. It didn't turn up 'til 6:50pm.
Luckily we got to the hospital dry, but once there I was awash with amniotic fluid again. So I was left hanging around in reception in drenched dungarees, waiting for the staff to find somewhere to put me.
Wythenshawe hospital was full on Saturday night. I was the last one in and all other labouring mums were being sent to Stepping Hill in Stockport.
They put me in the recovery room, where they bring people after surgery, but I had to be moved because they needed the room for it's intended purpose.
We allowed them to move us up onto antenatal (C3) on the premise that the room where we were going was big enough to push back the bed and labour on the floor. We got there and it wasn't. So T and I started kicking off. We got pushed around like this last time aswell.
One midwife suggested we could remove the bed from the room entirely so I could get a foam mat on the floor. This worked really well and we managed to make the space our own.
I was finally brought some gas and air, not before time. I managed really well labouring on my hands and knees with the TENS on full blast and pulling hard on the entenox.
I was aware of going into second stage of labour and really pushing. This hurt but I was coping well and just wanted to stay where I was. I told T that we should just carry on and to call the midwife when baby got here.
I was grunting loudly, so midwife checked on. I told her that I was pushing and that I was doing fine. She stayed in from this point, which I didn't mind.
The pain changed from the dull pain of contraction to a sharper pain as baby travelled down the birth canal. I kept going, relieved it would be just a few more pushes now.
Baby was born, purpley-grey and the midwife dried him off an put him on my tummy. I had a little look and I had a baby boy! He cried and gradually went pinker.
He managed to breastfeed within an hour of being born, which helped me deliver the placenta. I chose not to have the injection to hurry it out.
I had a post-partum fit about two hours after baby was born. It was about midnight and I had been getting twitchy for a while. T is rather cross that the midwife was dismissive of his urgency to get me to bed.
It wasn't an enormous fit and I only have about an hour missing from my memory, but I would still have rather avoided it.
We were moved into a very nice room, still on the antenatal ward where baby was born. It had a bed, a reclining chair which T managed to sleep in, and an en-suite bathroom, which was a luxury.
We stayed Saturday night and came home on Sunday afternoon. We were threatening to discharge ourselves, so were glad they rushed us through the neo-natal checks and paperwork so we could go home without upsetting too many more of the staff.
We are doing really well and Donald is asleep in my lap as I type.
