Guest Blog: The Birth of Olivia- By Louise Gray

Thursday 21st may 2009, went to bed normally about 10:30pm

Friday 22nd may... 4:45 am.... Woke up to a sudden big gush, lying in a wet bed I turn to my husband- " Jon, I think my waters have just broke??"
Jon - " oh ok" and rolls back over and goes back to sleep!

I get up to go to the toilet, where there is a second big gush... Jon shouts from the bedroom " are you having a wee "? NO!!! I've just told you my waters have broke! He then realises this is the real thing and dives out of bed.

At this stage I was still pretty calm, but still wasn't sure what I should do, as I wasn't experiencing any pain at all, I was 8 days early and had prepared myself to go over as it was my first baby.
We called my mum, waking her up to tell her the news, and she advises me to stay at home a little longer as the hospital would only send me back home at this stage.

A couple of hours later, I started to get really strong period type pains, and thats when it became real! I called labour ward and the told me to come in.
My mum and dad excitedly rush over, and drive us to the hospital..... This was the worst car journey ever! Lying down across the back seats, hitting every speed bump along the way, with my dad apologising after each one.
We get to the hospital, I was checked over and yes, my waters had definitely gone, and I was sent back down to the ward until I had progressed a little more.

I had a horrible midwife come and see me, she told me to take some paracetamol and go home!! She told me I would be at least another 3 days yet in slow labour... But I refused to go home, I was then offered a warm bath which I happily excepted, by now the pains were pretty bad, so a lovely midwife then came to examine me... I was 5cm... We better get you up to the delivery room she said, would you like me to get you a wheelchair?

NO!! I need to move! I said..... It took me about 10 minutes just to walk out of the ward, to find the lift up to the delivery room was " out of order " so I slowly made my way up 2 flights of stairs, stopping every 2 steps to have a contraction..... I eventually got there to find I had jumped to 8 1/2 cm within 30 minutes.

I tried some gas and air, and well that was it, I was away, and the room was spinning! 

After a while of midwifed calmly coming in and out of the room, I really felt I needed to push, my mum calls the midwife in, and she says I am ready to push, this seemed to be taking a while as baba kept playing peekaboo!!
I was told right from the start that I was doing really well, and that a doctor would only come in, if he thought me or the baby were in danger.
After about 20 minutes of pushing, a doctor rushes into the room, has a quick " look" and switches on the baby life support machine, now this really made me panic!!! 

I now had Jon and the midwife shouting for me to push, I don't think I could ever of pushed so hard, and within a few minutes, a healthy little girl was born, weighing 7lb 3 oz 

My darling husband, proudly cuts the cord and she is immediately handed to me... She's perfect... feeling ever!

By Louise Gray

Thank you to Louise Gray, guest blogger, Mum and Author.

Guest Blog: The Birth of Olivia Rose- By Michaela

From the first scan we had of our little monkey we had already got her name picked out (Olivia-Rose) and from her due date if we had gone over our two weeks for induction it would have been Christmas eve which was pretty exciting!! She was planned and conceived pretty quickly so every week was super exciting.

I am a keen x factor watcher and made a joke that it would nice to watch the final with her. So, the x factor final comes December 13th 2009, and I am now 40 weeks, 3 days and 100% desperate to have this baby and have my body back to myself! I am watching the final rubbing my belly, no unusual pains or any indication of anything happening so I went for a good old soak (and sulk) in the bath.

I must have been there about 5 mins before I had my first proper contraction. People never believe you when they say you'll know it's a real one when it happens and I bloody did! I felt like my whole body was vibrating with pain. So after a deep sigh and hoping this was it I struggled out of the bath, feeling like a ten tonne elephant when out of the water. I got dressed, dragged my hospital bag down and went downstairs eagerly awaiting the next one. At this point my hair was sopping wet and I told a rather relaxed Mike what had happened. He said let's sit down and see what happens... Before he could finish the sentence I was well into my second whopping contraction, this took me off the sofa onto my knees laughing my head off. At this point I thought what's all the fuss?! Little did I know.

So we called labour ward and traipsed off down there hitting every possible speed bump on route, which was not pleasant! So at the labour ward I'm put in the delivery suite to be examined and I was about 5cm dilated. And the pain really was kicking in by now. I had been in labour since about 10pm and it was now 1.30am. So now is the time to take advantage of the free pain relief everyone was banging on about. Diamorphine and gas and air. I love you! An injection in my leg which felt like nothing and a bit of gas and air left me feeling very strange. I then vomited all over the midwife.

This was extremely embarrassing!

But I knew with the current situation in hand they were going to see an awful lot more than a bit of sick! So from this point on with copious amounts of gas and air was pretty much a haze.

I vaguely remember sitting in the rocking chair and having to stand their naked while they put me in a different gown because I threw up all over my own nighties. I also remember crying to Mike and apologising for asking for an epidural as I'd sworn blind throughout my whole pregnancy I didn't want one.

The anaesthetist was a small lady with big black dreadlocks and a really gruff voice. After that the next few hours may as well have not happened. Until the pushing and then I became a trooper! I pushed for an hour and a half and was getting nowhere. Literally. So in came what seemed like an army of midwives and doctors, and my legs going up into stirrups- attractive! And then the dreaded ventouse! That was awful. The pressure from that thing was unbelievable. It took about another ten mins with that and a rather nasty episiotomy (which mike nearly passed out from seeing!) and she was here at 5:41pm.

My first born. I was so amazed. I cried and cried. I even made mike cry apparently...nothing to do with his first daughter being born.. Haha yeah right. She was weighed and past to Mike as I requested him to get the first hold. I'm not sure why because I knew it was a crucial bonding moment and they all end up daddy's girls anyway, but I got evens with my second daughter :)

I then held my baby girl for what seemed like forever whilst being stitched up and managing a slice of jalapeno and pepperoni pizza brought in by my Dad who missed Olivia's birth by five minutes.

It really was horrendous. Almost 20 hours of labour and worth every second.

By Michaela

Thank you to Wikipedia links and dictionary.com for definition links. Thank you to Michaela, guest blogger and author.