Helloo :)
Yay! I'm finally a mummy! At long last!
My beautiful baby son Ethan made his way into the world on Friday 27th April 2012, around 14 hours after writing the last labour post!
My labour and delivery story actually follows on from that post, as my contractions got stronger and more and more regular, until at about 4.45am, i decided i had better wake Simon, as the contractions were 5 minutes apart, and had been for around an hour!
I think i still didn't really believe it was 'proper' labour, as i had had so many false alarms, so i decided to get a bath (as we were due to ring the maternity assessment ward at 7.30am anyway, to get an induction time) and then ring the hospital afterwards,which i did around 6am, as my contractions were getting stronger.
The hospital told us to make our way there, which we did for 7am (after i decided i wanted to go through the hospital bags we were taking, 'just to check' everything!)
Once there, we went to the Maternity Assessment, where we waited. and waited. After taking my name, nobody came to 'assess' me, or even took my pregnancy notes, and i was left to pace up and down the assessment area, contracting, until i decided to put my tens machine to use.
(I found that it didnt help with the pain very much, but was more of a distraction, so i probably wouldnt bother using one again, as it was fiddly and uncomfortable, and the benefits of the machine didnt outweigh this for me)
after around an hour, a midwife came t tell me to go to another part of the maternity floor, which we did, just to wait yet again. i was getting fed p and annoyed, as i still had not been assessed, and my contractions were getting stronger and more painful.
as i had only been given [aracetamol, by this point i was wanting something stronger, so i asked simon to get the midwife.
when she finally came, she seemed surprised to see me in pain, and when i said i was having strong contractions, she decided she wanted to hook me up to the machine that does the babys heartrate and monitors contractuions, for at least half an hour before deciding on a course of action. arrggghh!!
(this time on the machine, it was awful, because it not only monitors the contractions, but also when they were building up, and how painful they were (the higher the number, the stronger the cntraction)
after what seemed like ages, she decided that i propbably was in labour, and after much asking by me, decided to examine me (by this time it was half past ten in the morning) and told me I was 4-5cm dilated and she seemed shocked!
