|
latest
friends fairyfish expatrica sezzy khazzy cassie spacebabe misstress liesal |
Lillia Charlotte arrives Well it’s been a while since I updated here but I have a good excuse – Lillia Charlotte was born at 1.04am on Friday 31st March 2006. She weighed 6lbs 7ozs and was born with thick brown curly hair. She is absolutely perfect. And here’s the story leading up to it… Week 39 Thursday: Friday: Saturday: We relaxed in bed for a while and I finally managed to unblock my milk duct!! The RELIEF! I got so fed up with it hurting that I soaked a face-cloth in boiling water, waited it for it to cool enough to put onto my skin and left it on my blocked nipple for about twenty minutes. Then I squished the blocked duct and out popped loads of dried up milk – there was loads of the stuff! The relief of finally unblocking it is indescribable! Hubby watched in fascination and thought it was amazing, he’s one of these people that actually likes squeezing spots and stuff so he thought it was a great start to his birthday! We got up and he opened all his presents and loved them all – I got him chocolate, several DVDs, several CDs, socks (for a joke), expensive wine, a framed picture (blown up from a photograph he took in New York) and an Orange County Choppers t-shirt, among other bits and pieces. He had fourteen presents from me overall and I loved watching him open them all. We spent the day relaxing and getting ourselves ready, then his Dad and step-mum and my Dad and step-mum arrived about 4pm. We all sat around with tea and coffee and then headed off to meet all our friends in a local bar in Wanstead. Then it was off to the restaurant for the 30th birthday dinner! It was a good night, Hubby got some brilliant presents from all our friends and the restaurant presented him with a mountain of cake with a candle on top and we all sang. By the time we all got back to our flat he was completely pissed and behaving very stupidly, but I guess that what birthdays are about. We finally got rid of everyone around midnight, I have to say I was glad – partying is hard at nine months pregnant and I was beginning to feel like a real grumpy-knickers trying to keep Hubby under control and to stay awake. Sunday: Hubby and I toasted out the week with a glass of wine in front of the telly. If only I had known the events about to unfold in the coming days…
I think it really all began on Tuesday (39 weeks and 1 day) whilst cleaning the kitchen. My Dad had bought Hubby a large and lethal meat cleaver for his birthday, don’t ask me why, it’s something he’s always wanted. I noticed that it needed a bit of wipe as it had chocolate icing dropped on it so I rinsed it under the tap. I should have known better, my track record with sharp things is not good. I don’t know how I managed it but I sliced the top of my little finger off so that it was hanging off and bleeding profusely all over the kitchen. I called Hubby in a blind panic, he was en route home from work and made a detour to Tesco for injury-mending supplies. Once he’d cleaned me up, secured the wound in a mound of plasters and mopped up the carnage in the kitchen I finally calmed down. But I am sure the shock of it all is what set everything off. I woke up in the wee small hours of Wednesday (39 weeks and 2 days) morning with some definite leaking going on. I ran to the bathroom expecting some gushing of water but nothing more than a large maternity pad could deal with emerged. I went back to bed and told Hubby that I thought my waters may have broken, then we slept on it. We drove to the hospital first thing, got there for about 8am. I was strapped to a monitor to listen to the baby and then after about three hours they examined me internally to see if my waters had broken. The consensus amongst the various professionals staring up my nether regions with a torch (yup) was that, no, my waters had not broken and that the trickling could just be the rupture of my “hind waters”. We had no idea what this meant but apparently it was no cause for concern and no sign of labour so we were sent home to watch day time telly and eat biscuits. I woke up at 1.30am on Thursday (39 weeks and 3 days) morning with period cramps. Nothing more than the normal stomach cramping I remember so fondly from last year when I was still getting periods. But they kept coming every twenty minutes of so, little waves of cramping in my tummy. I woke Hubby and said I thought I might be in labour and that I was going to go and lie on the sofa for a while and that he should get some sleep (I figured if I was in actual labour I would need him well rested later on.) So I curled up on the sofa with the spare duvet and watched Discovery Home and Health all night. The pains were still coming off and on by the time Hubby got up at around 7am. So he called work to say he wouldn’t be in and we settled in to see what would happen. The pains subsided somewhat in the middle of the day and then started again. I had a hot bath and Hubby washed my hair for me (had to keep my finger injury dry) which was rather lovely and I was beginning to think that I wasn’t in labour at all. Once out of the bath the pains kept on and I eventually hooked myself up to my TENS machine to help deal with them. They were getting more regular and definitely stronger and Hubby started trying to talk me into going to the hospital. I wasn’t keen to go as the pains were much better if I was leaning over the sofa on my knees and I knew they would strap me to a monitor on my back on a bed in hospital, which I didn’t fancy at all. Eventually at 8pm I gave in and we packed up the car with all our hospital and labour paraphernalia and headed to the hospital. By 9pm I was strapped to a monitor flat on my back in hospital. The pains were getting quite strong and making me feel a bit sick. I was beginning to wonder if I might ask for pain relief. Around 10pm a midwife examined me, which was very uncomfortable with the contractions and everything, and announced I was only 2cms dilated. They usually send you home if you’re under 3-4cms. However as I was nearly howling with pain by this point they decided to let us stay, notify the labour ward and get us a delivery room. By this point I was feeling very silly indeed – only 2cms dilated and already screaming for pain relief! As I was wheeled down to labour ward I had to carry a cardboard pot with me as I was feeling sick with the pain and the contractions were coming really fast. Only 2cms?! When we got to the delivery room they said that I could only have pethadine as I was so early on. I really didn’t want pethadine as I didn’t want to feel sleepy but it was the only thing they would offer me and the thought of gas and air was making me feel sick. So I accepted the pethadine. It didn’t work, the pains were on top of one another and I really wanted an epidural. They called the anaesthetist and then, just before she arrived, decided to examine me again. By the time the anaesthetist and her magic pain relieving drugs arrived the midwife was announcing I was 8cms dilated and it was time to start pushing. No time for pain relief. 2cms my arse!! (Literally!) The pethadine was making me sleepy and I was dropping off in between the pains. Then I remember shouting something along the lines of “I NEED TO POO!!!” and everyone in the delivery room got really exciting and started shouting “PUSH PUUUUSH!!” which seemed really surreal in my drugged haze. And so I pushed. I have never pushed so hard in my entire life, I thought my eyes were going to explode. But this did not seem to satisfy anybody! They all kept yelling at me to push harder and not to make a noise, internalise the noise and use it to push (a Scientologist hospital perhaps?!) I think I yelled back that I couldn’t push any harder but I can’t remember. Hubby had hold of one of my legs and some other midwife with fag breath had hold of my other one and the midwife at the business end said that three more pushes and the head would be out. I knew from Discovery Home and Health that once the head is out the body follows pretty damn quickly so I pushed even harder… Five pushes later the pain suddenly stopped and there was silence and Hubby and I looked down and there she was. Our baby; no doubt about that, spitting image of Hubby with loads of curly brown hair. Then she yelled out and cleared her lungs and the fag-breath midwife wrapped her up (even though I wanted her handed straight to me without being cleaned up) and then handed her over for a cuddle. I don’t really remember much after that. Hubby and I were in shock. The baby was wrapped and placed to bake under a heated grill. I was in a weird druggy place supping on gas and air (great stuff) with my legs in stirrups whilst a doctor stitched me up and chatting with the midwife who it turned out worked on the ward that I was incarcerated it in last Easter when I was sickly. Then everyone left and we were alone for the first time as a family. We just kind of looked at her in absolute amazement. Hubby helped me off the bed and into my PJs. We’ve yet to get the photos we took developed (I had my proper old fashioned black and white camera with us and not the new fangled digital) but I will no doubt be able to post the photos of the aftermath soon – exhausted looking me, cute looking baby etc. (But for now have posted some piccies taken during the day after the birth.) It was 4am by the time I was wheeled into my private room, Hubby was promptly sent home and I lay there for four hours not able to sleep, checking every five minutes that she was still breathing and counting the minutes until Hubby would be back. I couldn’t believe she was finally here – our Lillia Charlotte, the cause of all that heartburn and my inability to move properly for two months. Our baby.
last five:
www.bumpsadaisy.diaryland.com  
|