Hellooooooo strangers! I realise I’ve been absent for a
crazy amount of time, not sure whether to say sorry in case no one noticed/
cared ha ha! But I haven’t lost the blogging bug so I’m going to try my hardest
to make a comeback… woop woop.
I’m currently writing this one-handed while I feed the poop
machine with my other hand, so it’s crazy to me that the last time I blogged
was my 27 week pregnancy update! Oops ha ha. I now have a 13 week old little
bubba called Eva…
…so although I have loads of blog ideas I should probably
start with my labour and delivery story? I always love reading these anyway!
(another cheeky Eva pic because... why not?)
My Labour &
Delivery Story
So it was the 26th November and my last day at
work before maternity leave, as although I wasn’t due until the 16th
December and only 37 weeks pregnant I decided to use my leftover holiday days
and go early-ish to get some much needed rest and relaxation before bubba
arrived… ha ha ha… it didn’t happen!
I got home from work all emosh from saying bye to my work
buddies and being given lots of lovely gifts, and cooked a sweet and sour
chicken meal for Sam and I (exciting stuff I know ha ha) and as I was cooking
it I was getting some Braxton Hicks (fake contractions that don’t hurt too
much). I didn’t think anything of it but decided to take my make-up off, tie up
my hair in a gross bun and get in my PJs. As I was doing this I literally
thought to myself “imagine if I went into labour just after doing this and I’ve
gone from looking moderately OK to disgusting at a time when I definitely won’t
be bothered to make myself look nice again but definitely will have loads of
photos that will be looked at forever… ha ha ha just imagine!” STUPID ELLEN.
So about 10 minutes later at around 9pm the Braxton Hicks
turned into more period-like pains and actually started to hurt quite a bit.
Sam half-joked about me being in labour and I told him “obviously not - I’m
only 37 weeks” as I had convinced myself bubba was going to be late and make me
be in hospital over Christmas. STUPID ELLEN.
The period pains quickly became worse and I was switching
between lying in bed making cow noises while Sam secretly timed how far apart
the pains were (5-6 minutes) and sitting on the loo convinced I needed a wee
every 2 minutes. This went on for around an hour I think until Sam informed me
(while relaxing watching the football, the cheeky poo brain) that Google
reckons I’m in in the VERY early stages of labour as I could talk through the
contractions and that these pains could last up to 2 weeks. To which I replied “2
weeks?! I’m not doing this for 2 farting weeks!!!” Or something along those
lines ha ha. So I forced him to ring the midwifes, who basically said that
because my waters hadn’t broke, I hadn’t had a bloody show – lovely, or any
other labour signs, that there was nothing they could do yet. So I then forced
Sam to ring my mum who said to go in as it sounded like it could be labour, so
I forced him to ring the midwifes again and basically tell them I’m coming in.
I managed to put on some leggings, tie my hair in a plait and hop in a taxi. I also
somehow managed to keep the cow noises at bay in the taxi and to not release my
wrath on Sam when he told the driver he didn’t think I was in labour ha ha! (He
claims he did this so Mr taxi man wouldn’t be worried about blood and guts
going on his nice taxi..pssshhhh.)
So a mere 2 hours after the pain started, at 11pm, we got to
the hospital where it all kicked off. As the midwife examined me through my
cries of “I can’t do this! Please help me!” …cringe… my waters broke among the
other lovely labour signs that happen. But praise the Lord I was 4cm dilated
and allowed the drugs – wahoo! I had Diamorphine injected in my leg which was
AMAZING and was taken to the delivery room.
This is where it gets a bit blurry due to the lovely drugs,
but I think I pretty much slept/ felt like I was sleeping in between
contractions, which still really frikking hurt, until not long later when the
midwife came back in the room and I declared “I feel like I need to poo!” … oh the
cringe, the cringe… so she examined me and I was somehow 10cm dilated and ready
to push – so crazy! Sam was amazing the whole time watching everything and
obeying my demands of “don’t touch me” and “I need water” to which he panicked
and brought 4 bottles ha ha which I had one whole sip of! Oops.
I started pushing and was totally crap, it really stung so I
kept stopping before I did a good amount and I was doing really embarrassing screaming!
Haaa. So the midwife suggested that I put my screaming energy towards pushing
instead, to which I weirdly replied “I’m sorry I know I’m not doing very well,
I’ll try better next time” ha ha ha!
And I did, wahoo. I silently pushed and it only took a few
of these great pushes before her head was out – OUCH by the way – and I had to
do the small pushes to get bubba totally out. And at 12:50am on Wednesday 27th
November, only 4 hours after the labour pains had begun, my little munchkin Eva
entered the world at 6 pounds 11 ounces! N’awwww. She was so cute and lovely
and all perfect. But I decided to continue to cringe myself and asked “Is she
small?” “Does she have 5 fingers and 5 toes?” … why do I do these things? Ha
ha.
After all the excitement was over it dawned on Sam and I that because
we hadn’t expected to be in real life labour, and once we had realised we
assumed it would take many hours so Sam would be able to pop home at some point…
we hadn’t brought the hospital bag(s). I’m a heavy packer!
So while I lay naked, covered in blood, holding my new baby
and staring thirst-strickenly at the 4 bottles of water that were JUST out of
my reach for an hour and a half, Sam went back and got everything. He came back
with his Dad who tried to come in before I shouted “Don’t let Eddie in, I’m
naked!” Haaaa. And then I hobbled into the shower, introduced Eva to her
Grandad, drank some water and was wheeled through to the maternity ward where I
stayed for the next few days.
Sam was forced to leave really quickly so I was all alone
with a new baby which was pretty scary, and although I don’t remember much
because of the lovely drugs my texts to Sam indicate that I had a pretty bad
first night with a crying baby and no clue what I was doing ha ha. And I do
remember waking up like “where the hell am I?!” then rolling over and seeing my
lovely little monkey and remembering!
This is mega long so I won’t jibber on about the stay in
hospital, but I will say that the midwifes – one in particular – were AMAZING
and despite dreading staying there beforehand, I have really good memories and
they helped me and Sam (and of course Eva) out soooo much.
If you managed to get this far I hope it wasn’t too long and
weird to read ha ha, and I definitely consider myself lucky to have had a 4
hour labour! It definitely hasn’t put me off doing labour again and I actually
think being pregnant was worse ha ha.
I’m going to try and blog once or twice a week – we’ll see
how that works out – so I WILL see you soon!!
xx
