Throw back Thursdays

I love the idea of throw back Thursdays – it’s a great excuse to trawl back through pictures and memories. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit old, and that I’ve gotten a bit boring. Sometimes I just cringe at the things I used to get up to. I don’t need to delve into those for this blog though, because this blog is for my boy.

So for this inaugral throw back I’m going to see what I can recall from the day – an actual Thursday, funnily enough – it all began; the third of March, 2011. Or, thanks boy, the 1st of March at around 8pm…

I was due on the 1st of March, and had a painful braxton hicks at around 8pm, much to my dread (I was terrified at the thought of becoming a parent – more on that another day when I’m feeling brave) but nothing materlialised so we went to bed.

The next morning after M had gone to work, I started having small, regular back pains. There was no food in the house, and due to my morbid fear of my waters breaking in public I decided not to venture out in search of weeto’s. Big mistake.

I was having 10 minute apart regular pains when M came home around lunchtime, so we put the TENS machine on. I loved that thing – it was one of the ones that buzzes continously, that you gradually ramp up but that also has a button for you to blast when you’re having a contraction – I think it was one of these. It totally helped me focus, and it definitely helped with pain relief.

The pains continued regularly all day, and by midnight they were 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute, which was the point our NCT teacher had told us we should go to Triage. So off we went in the taxi, and into Whipps Cross. The midwife checked me – no progress. None. “Oh it needs to be a LOT more painful yet darling” she said in her lovely Jamaican accent before rubbing my back as she pushed us out the door. The guy on reception said “better luck next time!” I wanted to kill him. We also saw one of my NCT mums also in labour funnily enough – the boys looked at each other a bit wild eyed and we just looked at each other with sympathy.

So home we went. I sat up all night in the rocking chair – another good labour help! Rock rock rock rock. My Mum turned up about 11am the next morning and things were getting a lot more painful. We went back up the hospital around 1 o’clock – I didn’t need an internal that time, the midwife took one look at my face and sent me up to the birthing centre. I met my lovely Irish midwife there, and her trainee, who I agreed could shadow her, not entirely realising that it meant I’d be getting TWO hands up the foof to gauge dilation. I was 5-6cms, and the trainee midwife caused a water leak, which in turn caused things to become even more painful – wah!

We got into the pool room and I got straight on the gas and air, which was great. By this time I hadn’t eaten for 36 hours, and I hadn’t managed to go to the loo for nearly as long either – I was desperate to, but it wouldn’t work! So the midwife was getting Mark to force feed me some horrible hospital slop they claimed was cottage pie while I was mooing that I wanted to push – and pushing I was, involuntarily which I didnt know could happen. I also insisted on taking off ALL my clothes!!

They managed to get me in the pool – via a hilarious interlude where M and the trainee midwife attempted to remove the TENS machine without switching it off – the pads got stuck to them and they were yelping from the electric shocks, which to them must have been pretty strong!

I had to hold off on pushing for what seemed like hours til I was fully dialated. Once I did start pushing, I could feel him coming down and then going back up, it was awful. They could see his head at about 3, but I was still pushing at 5, so the midwife got me out the pool to try some different positions. They also realised at this point that my bladder was the size of a small football, so they had to give me a catheter (the relief!) and the midwife also reluctantly decided to cut me.

This seemed to make the difference though, and I managed to get his frankly enormous head out finally – the midwife told me not to push at this point, but my body was having none of it and gave an enormous shove, and the boy was finally born at 5.45pm on the 3rd, almost 48 hours after my first pain. He was accompanied by an enormous explosion of amniotic fluid, which totally drenched the poor trainee midwife – funny in hindsight, mortifying at the time!

I went into a trance of some sort at this point and was hardly aware of M telling me we had a little boy (I *knew* that anyway) and them laying him on my chest.

The midwife was concerned at the state of things downstairs; alongside the episitomy, I’d managed to tear. Badly. So after my terror of possibly having to have an epidural during labour, I ended up having one afterwards to stitch up everything! I fell asleep on the operating table, so can’t really remember the indignity of being flat on my back with my numb legs up on stirrups and two doctors poking me with needles and thread.

I was wheeled back down after the hour or two it took to sew me back up to properly meet my boy. Daddy had managed to dress and nappy him, and I got to have my first proper cuddles. We had to stay in hospital for two nights as they wouldn’t let us out til I’d managed to poo without my bowels falling out or whatever it was they were worried about. It took forever after the stress of labour and not eating for 48 hours, but eventually we were done, and the real journey was about to begin!

baby RJ

tired mumzilla

sleepy baby
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0 thoughts on “Throw back Thursdays

  1. How amazing. To think I will be giving birth to my little boy in 4 months is scary but exciting! Lovely post.
    Thank you so much for linking up with #pregnancyandbeyond

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