Elias

 The day leading up to going into labour I had cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, eaten a spicy curry and most of a pineapple and even forced down a cup of raspberry leaf tea (brave given that I don’t drink tea or coffee!). At approximately midnight I started to notice a regular tightening across my stomach, coming every 10minutes before subsiding. They weren’t painful but regular enough for me to realise that labour had started.

I waited an hour or so and then took two paracetamol before getting into the bath. This kept me occupied until about 6.00am when the contractions began to become more uncomfortable. My biggest concern at this point was the frequency and length of the contractions as they were coming regularly every 3 minutes and lasting for at least a minute. Due to this we headed off to hospital, a 10minute journey at that time of day.

Upon arrival I was examined and found to be 3cm dilated but as I was coping well with the contractions, advised to go home until things progressed further.

Once we got home I put on the TENS machine I had borrowed from a friend and paced about upstairs, trying to stay away from any decent carpets in case my waters broke! I phoned the hospital again once the contractions increased in pain to advise them that we would be returning and under the impression that I had had my show, I advised them of this. However as soon as I moved from sitting down…then I had my show!

We returned to hospital, parking in the furthest car park as things still weren’t that painful and I was coping happily. This time I was shown straight to a labour room and once examined the midwife estimated I was 5/6cm dilated. I was asked what I wanted to do next and remembered a friend had had a bath whilst in labour at the same hospital so asked if I could do the same. The midwife offered me the use of the birth pool and once seeing my look of disgust said that I didn’t have to have the baby in it, but could labour in it or at least try it. I agreed (having asked what I was supposed to wear as I had not packed a swimming costume! Yep – a baby is going to be able to navigate a full length costume upon its exit!) and whilst the pool was filled, continued to manage the pain of the contractions with my TENS machine and moving around the room.

Once the pool was ready (in another room) we walked along to the next room and I climbed in. As soon as my body hit the water I instantly relaxed, the heat providing my body with another way of de-stressing. Suffice to say, despite my initial reservations, I never got out of the birth pool! The TENS machine had been removed before I got in and eventually I progressed onto using the gas & air to get me through the last few hours of contractions.

My biggest difficulty by this point was persuading my midwife to examine me sooner than the standard-procedure 4 hours (I think it was this long – however long it was, was too long!). My body was telling me that things were happening but she would not examine me any sooner, until I threatened to request more extreme pain relief methods such as an epidural. I told her that I needed to know how much further dilated I was so that I could decide if I wanted to have anything stronger for the pain. We eventually agreed to meet half way and she would examine me at 4pm.

By 3pm I complained of feeling an urge to poo. There is no other glamorous way of putting it. The midwife decided to examine me, only to find that I was fully dilated and that my waters had gone at some point since I had been in the water. Putting the fear of God into my husband that he may miss the birth, he ran to the toilet and back whilst she prepared her equipment. Once my husband had returned we began the pushing!

45 minutes later, and apparently after complaining that ‘it stung’ my baby’s head was born fully submerged in the water. The contractions suddenly seemed to disappear and the midwife looked curious as to why I wasn’t pushing when I had any more. I asked if I could just push on my own steam rather
than wait for a contraction, to which she looked surprised but by this point and with a baby’s head sitting weirdly between my legs, I wanted to get on with it!

At 3.52pm on Friday 26th February 2010 and with a big push my baby was born, caught by the midwife as my arms were simply too tired to risk dropping it back into the water. He was lifted directly up in front of me (think ‘The Circle of Life’ from Lion King the film) and his gentalia displayed for all to see which meant I got to tell my husband and the midwives that he was a boy.

He was placed straight onto my chest for a few minutes whilst the cord was cut and then passed to his daddy for his first cuddle and to be weighed. Throughout all this I don’t recall him crying very much, if at all and he seemed quite relaxed about the whole experience. Whilst daddy-baby bonding occurred, I climbed out of the birth pool to deliver the placenta and be examined by the midwife. It was certainly a surreal experience to have to climb out whilst holding the umbilical cord still attached to the placenta inside me, in my right hand! I have been told that this isn’t the case for all water births so don’t be put off!

Luckily, by listening to my midwife’s advice about pushing and the lubrication created by the water, I didn’t require any stitches and had only suffered some minor internal scratches during the birth. The midwife asked if we had a name chosen but we although we had our girls name chosen, we still hadn’t yet decided on our boy’s name – Elias or Theodore? Throughout the whole of the labour I didn’t want to raise the subject of the boys name with my husband in case we disagreed or it was girl so the midwife made up the tags with just the surname on and we left it to be discussed.

We returned to our room next door and had ‘the’ discussion as to what we were going to name him. All I could say to my husband was ‘I prefer Elias. He’s too butch to be a Theodore’ and luckily that was my husbands preference too – Elias Patrick had arrived. The obligatory phone calls to family were made, before having a shower and feeling much more human! I stayed in overnight as Elias didn’t take to breastfeeding brilliantly and was discharged the next day, heading home to introduce my beautiful baby boy to his family.

Due Date - 3rd March 2010
Born - 26th February 2010
Weight - 7lbs 7oz