Been a while and a somewhat eventful Easter

[stellar_muddle]

Last post was 39 weeks pregnancy-wise. Didn't even make it to 40 weeks (so much for alpha_angel getting to attend as she was still at Festival) as little AJBM decided to turn up a few days early. All went well and we are still slightly stunned at apparently how textbook things went, continuing the boring normal pregnancy trend. Healthy 3.8 kg baby girl born at 8:41 am on the Sat of Easter.

Trying to make notes/describe the experience for posterity/future reference before I forget too many of the details - She is already 9 days old, but it has taken this long to be awake enough to settle down and type.


Good Fri: Had started like any other late pregnancy day. There had been an appointment with the midwife at 11:30am and everything checked out fine. Home direct due to emergency coffee provisioning for S&Ts guests and were greatly amused to get home and have 2 alpacas and a llama being lead around the yard, happily munching. There were apparently some strange looks from some neighbours, but the truly horrified party to this all was Babbage who took one look at the strange monsters, slowly backed away and then raced under the car to safely. He spent the afternoon being very cautious and wary whenever he went outside, checking if the monsters were back. I think the afternoon was spent plastering, doing laundry and loitering. Then headed off to S&Ts for dinner and providing company for their visitors from The Automatic Earth (blog). Much talking in good company. Headed home ~10:30pm. Car ride home back was getting grumpy at me and I thought it was just the usual Braxton Hicks contractions. I went straight to bed when we got home, though begged a hot water bottle off Z round midnight. Not much sleep after as just getting more and more sore.

Labour:
The home bit:
Got up for bladder run round 2am, to discover bloody mucus plug started dribbling out and contractions were started (varying strength and varying spacing). Made the decision to wake Z. Crawled back into bed, woke him and after some discussion we txted the midwife. She replied to stay home and to contact her when (strong) contractions were 5 min apart and try a bath. Bath helped a lot and we developed a scale of pain and timing system which was written up and Z started graphing (hand a scientist some data points...). By about 5am the bath wasn't cutting it (back was so sore), the contractions were consistently strong and about the right spacing. Contacted midwife - time for hospital. Z rushed around assembling things (we knew what we wanted in the go bags but...) and then we headed to the hospital. Luckily said hospital was only 10 min drive away cause contractions in the car when you can't change position to help are a right bastard.

Hospital onwards:
In via emergency entrance ~5:30am and up to the delivery suite. Midwife not there yet but had kindly phoned ahead for entonox to be started (it was 1st on the list of chemical painkillers after hot water/massage etc had stopped). We were curious as to how well it would work given I don't get drunk and the strongest recreational drugs I go for is chocolate. In luck. Made the world quite spinny (basically kept my eyes closed from now until AJBM was born, but took the edge off the pain enough that I could just concentrate on breathing. In fact for the next while, the main thing I remember is concentrating on breathing - the rattle as you breathed in and the change in noise as you breathed out, and how to time things best wrt to the contractions, balanced with occasionally just needing fresh air. At some point the midwife and student midwife both turned up (they were both great). I had been sitting on a chair leaning on the bed and really didn't appreciate having to get onto the bed on my back for the fetal heartbeat monitoring, so was happy to return to the seat. There were odd moments of lucidity mixed in where things were in phase/cohearent - I remember the fact that the background music was Enya (I figured it wouldn't hurt to spoil that) played on the laptop and there were issues with the screensaver locking and not being able to remember the password for unlocking it (it was written in the little book at home...). There were some good back rubs from Z and student midwife at some point (hampered by the back of the seat, but I wasn't moving). At some point (apparently 7amish?) I was pursuaded back up on the bed and to everyone's suprise (everyone was expecting things to take far longer), found to be fully dilated and it was time to push. I remember being on my hands and knees over the end of the bed and the pushing hurting (think shitting a bowling ball and you will get the idea) - Z's hand was a bit crushed at that point. I really wanted the gas and it took a lot to get it off me/pursuade me not to use it for the pushing bits. Then there was some time on the bed on my side when they started seeing the head, and I ended up on my back for the very last bit as the head came out and then the rest. It seemed to take ages from my end, but was apparently quite fast for everyone else. I have a distinct memory of being told to to reach down and I could feel the head partially out (I think they were trying to pursuade me that the pushing was progressing things - it worked). Apparently she was still in the amniotic sack at that point, and they had to break that as there was merconium in it. Then a bunch more pushes for the head and some more for the rest. As she came out Z caught her and brought her up to my chest.

8:41am, after a labour of around 6 1/2 hours... !?!

Somewhat stunned and exhausted I lay there (not caring about the mess I was lying in), just holding her. Much hugs. Z got some photos and there is one of me, Z and AJBM where me and Z just look stunned mullet. Z started phoning people (we had avoided telling people that labour had started) to tell them details (healthy girl, 3.8kg, time etc) while I just held her. Cord and placenta were left for a while, but eventually cord was cut by Z using his large viking knife made by him and his brother H. Midwife was impressed with how sharp and fast that was. Think placenta was delivered after that. Continued holding her, though she may have been put on the breast by then. This continued for a while, with an interuption of needing some stitches due to her having her hand up by her neck as she was born (this was only noticed later) and that tearing things a bit. There was also an interuption of checks, vitamin K injection etc. Mum and Dad came to visit round 10:40am (just as I was staggering into the shower). Much photoage. Mum and dad stayed with me while Z went home to grab more stuff and email/post to facebook etc. Decanted from delivery suite to hospital room.

Overnight at hospital:
Z eventually made it back in time for Mum and Dad to head off to cacti society meeting, then I (and AJBM) crashed with a nap and Z looked over both of us. When I awoke, there was some talking, then he headed home for a nap, with the intention of having dinner with Mum and Dad after (as had been originally planned prior to easter). He ended up also heading off to see his mum at the airport as she came through on the way to NP, before dinner and crash. I started getting lessons in breast feeding, got a bit of sleep overnight with people keeping an eye on AJBM. More breast feeding. Z dropped by, then went home and tidied in prep for her and me coming home that afternoon. She got her first bath, I took the first fumbling attempts to get her dressed and undressed and then round 3pm, Z came and picked us up. No issues with car seat and an advantage of leaving on a public holiday, was the free parking. The disadvantage was not being able to have the hearing test and hip check done directly, so appointments for those later. No issues driving home.

Long enough post. There may or may not be more details of the following week and a bit (breast ENGORGEMENT, odd milestones), but for now I suspect milk bar may be required shortly, given her (and Z's) nap between 2pm and 5pm. I may regret having stayed awake and typing this rather than sleeping, but I did sleep 6am-9am and 10-noon and was feeling the stress of just being a bundle of bodily functions rather than a thinking human being. I had been prepared for her being mainly bodily functions but not how much it would take me to the same level. I know it will get better, but I may be better off not thinking about on what time scale for now...

Comments

[staranise.livejournal.com]

In these early weeks it pays not to think in terms of days but in 3 hour blocks. So in this 3 hour block I will feed the baby and then A: sleep, B: eat, C: shower. If you manage anything else you are doing really well. I found it took me about 6 weeks to crash my body into coping on 4hrs of broken sleep a night. It does get better in that you learn to live on a lot less sleep and your baby does start to sleep longer at night or at least go straight back to sleep after feeding so you don't have to resettle them etc. It won't be long before she becomes much more alert and a bit more fun and less about the bodily functions.

Anyway enjoy your little girl and congratulations.

[etfb.livejournal.com]

Your comment about Z plotting the contraction times reminded me that I wrote a PalmOS app to do the same thing for the BatPup. Kind of briefly useful. Comments re: engineers also apply to programmers.