Thomas Alexander

Thomas was born at 1351 on Wednesday 22nd January 2014 after 3 long days in hospital.

I was 2 days overdue when I noticed that my feet were extremely swollen and a deep purple colour. I dismissed this as I had swelled up substantially and just put it down to being another pregnancy symptom. Three days later my mum convinced me to check my blood pressure & when I did I had a shock. My lower reading was 105 & had been 60 throughout the pregnancy.

I monitored it over night & when it didn't lower my partner called the hospital who instead of encouraging us to come in, instead criticised for using my own blood pressure machine!! I went in & was found to have pre-eclampsia.

On Monday 20th I was induced with a pessary, horrific! After 20 hours later it fell out. I was told I would have to have another put in for another 24 hours, I refused and asked to move on to another method. I would now be induced with a gel. Eight hours later the gel hadn't arrived & I was told the hospital had run out so instead they would use a pill. The pill sparked very minor contractions & my waters broke on their own. I was then wheeled off to a high risk room due to the pre eclampsia & the need for iv antibiotics due to group b strep.

I was then induced for a third time using a different method via IV drip & was told I should have an epidural due to the intense pain of the fake hormone, horrific! Thirteen hours later and 1cm dilated we all decided that enough was enough and I would have a c section. At 1351 big T was delivered weighing 8lb 2 oz. I'm still deciding whether I can face doing it again!!!!

Thomas Alexander
Due date 14/01/14
Birth date 22/01/14

Matilda Holly Wynn

On the morning of October 30th 2014, Matilda was born at 10:24am in our local General Hospital. She was four days late. After having two babies arrive early the lateness of this wee monkey was really frustrating. I had been having weeks of signs, cramps, sickness, backache and contractions. I had never had a show and my waters had never broken in my previous pregnancies so I wasn't expecting that to happen this time either. As I passed my due date all my symptoms stopped. Throughout my pregnancy I was being monitored by the consultants at the hospital because Matilda was measuring large for her age. Therefore I was hoping to get her out sooner rather than later.
At 6:30am on the 30th October I had a twinge that woke me up. Thirty minutes later I had another. By 7:30am the contractions had reduced to 20 minutes. Within, the next half an hour the contractions went down to 10 minutes. I started to get worried about how fast this was progressing. By 8pm they were coming every 5 minutes and lasting about two minutes long. I decided to get into the bath to try and slow things down but getting up out of bed actually sped things up and the contractions were every 3 minutes. I decided to get out of the bath and get changed. By this point we weren't sure whether to call an ambulance as they were coming so fast now. My husband ran round to get my neighbour to watch the two children and then ran to get the car. We dashed to the car and drove to hospital during rush hour so it was a slow trip. As soon as we arrived we rushed into the maternity ward and a midwife checked me to see how far along I was. I was 7cm dilated and my waters still had not gone. She plonked me into a wheelchair and literally ran me to the delivery suite.
Within 24 minutes Matilda was born. As she was born so quickly she went into shock and the crash team had to get her breathing but she soon came round and I got to hold her. We stayed in hospital for almost two days as Matilda had to be monitored after the scare but we were finally allowed home.
DUE - 26/10/2014
BORN - 30/10/2014
WEIGHT - 9lb