keep it simple

my first mother's day! it's taken such a lot to get here but I am so lucky and so so happy with our little life.

On day 3 of solo maternity leave - yesterday was not successful, I spent 2 hours nap trapped and covered in spit up, tried to go out in the pram but she screamed so much that I ended up carrying her back and pushing ice cream in the pram. Finding it hard to let go of getting house stuff done and not feeling guilty when I just want to crack on.

So F was delivered onto me, she was doing great, they gave me the injection to help deliver the placenta. The doctor started pressing hard on my stomach to help (ouch) but part of the placenta was retained and they needed to take me to theatres to remove it. I had the option of either a general anaesthetic or spinal block - I chose the block as I didn't want to be away from F and O for ages and wanted to stay awake. The anaesthetist was so great - helped reassure me and talked me through everything.

I got taken into theatres, O didn't want to leave me so he came in with F and she had all her checks in theatres. She was 8lb 13, thankfully smaller than her growth scan! They did the spinal block which was not my favourite - my feet felt freezing and I couldn't move them around to warm them up.

The doctors started trying to remove the retained placenta, which felt like it took ages. All I could feel was a load of pressure, sometimes really high up - which makes sense given that there were literally hands inside me. I think at one point they were worried they were going to have to leave some behind so they gave me an oral spray to relax the uterus. This seemed to help and they got the last bit out but it also made me bleed a lot, so they then gave me a suppository to make the uterus contract again. Eventually they sewed me up, which again took ages, and then they sent O and F out into recovery to wait for me. O said at one point an alarm went off and a bunch of people ran into my room - I have no memory of this but it might have been when I started shaking uncontrollably from the suppository. I was also having episodes of feeling sleepy but not sure if this was a problem or I was just exhausted.

Turned out that I lost just over 2l of blood (yikes) and had very low blood pressure so they were pumping me full of fluids and antibiotics as I'd also had a raised temp during labour. Eventually they took me out to join O and F in recovery - the midwife helped me feed F, which was amazing, and then they slowly brought my blood pressure back up and sat me up. When they were happy we got to go back to labour ward and I had some food/drink. Eventually we got moved to the maternity ward, once everyone was happy I was doing better.

So we had our final growth scan on the Thurs, baby girl was measuring 9lb9 and everything was all planned for balloon induction on the Friday (39+1). I was really keen for the balloon rather than the pessary as I wanted to be able to go home after and chill in our own environment.

Went in on Friday, had some monitoring etc and balloon was placed. She said my cervix was quite posterior so she kinda pulled it forward, which was uncomfortable and made insertion tricky. Also she said that the cervix was definitely closed, couldn't get her finger tip through at that point. Headed home after - worst car ride of my life as the balloon was so uncomfortable sat in that position. Chilled at home all day, sat on the birth ball etc, felt uncomfortable but it was manageable. Nothing changed overnight so we headed to the ward early on Saturday for balloon to be removed - at that point I was 2cm dilated and she could stretch it to 3-4cm so felt we were making progress. She again pulled my cervix forward (ouch) and said my waters were right there so could go at any time. No spaces on labour ward at that point so again we headed home to see if we could make progress and await a bed - which she didn't think would be until Sunday cos they were busy.

No news or change by the early eve so Ollie walked to the shop to pick up dinner - ofc right as he got there they called me and said they had a bed, so he power walked back and we got to hospital about 6:30/7pm. Went into the delivery room where the midwife broke my waters. I was 3cm by this point but was having 2-3 contractions every 10 mins, which I didn't really realise, so we agreed to hold off the drip to see if breaking my waters did anything. Contractions built gradually, used my birth comb and TENS machine to help, but when she checked me again at like 21:15 I was still only 3cm so the drip was started.

Things felt like they ramped up pretty quickly for me pain-wise by this point - had gas and air but tbh I didn't notice much change and it made me sick one time. I also had the morphine injection, which made the gaps between contractions feel more like breaks, but it was still very intense. They weren't due to check me again until gone 1am but by 23:45 I was starting to naturally bear down and get a strong urge to push. At this point, if she'd said I was only like 5cm I was going to get an epidural cos I couldn't comprehend how I would cope for several more hours but amazingly I was actually fully dilated in 2.5 hours! 🥳

Got ready to push - moved into some different positions but after like 60+ mins F wasn't making much progress through the last bit and they asked the doctor for some support. I was happy for ventouse (said no to forceps in my birth plan) but in the process of prepping for this I managed some really good last pushes and she was almost there! They did an episiotomy for the ventouse, attached it to her and helped her out. I got to feel her head, which was surreal and I think I just said "she's all wet!" 😅. She was delivered onto my chest at 02:08 and Ollie cut the cord. She did a tiny cry and then was just looking around at everyone fussing about!