Thomas Andrew

Thomas Andrew
Originally uploaded by Highlanddancemom

Baby Boy made his very prompt arrival into the world on October 7th, 2010 at 11:09am.

Imagine that... being born on one's due date!

I went to bed on Wednesday night feeling pretty good - had oodles of plans for getting tons done on Thursday. I had an OB appointment in the city in the morning and then I was going to come home and tackle some much necessary housework and get things done. Ha ha ha...

I was woken up at 3:00am by what I assumed was a doozy of a braxton hicks contraction. I got up, went to the loo, came back to bed, crawled under the covers and had another. Feeling kind of annoyed that my sleep was being interupted I tossed and turned for a few minutes then had another contraction. Glancing at the clock I figured they were about 8 minutes apart. (BF)G was just getting up to go to work and asked if he should stay home. I figured why bother. I wasn't in labour... first off labour contractions would be stronger, closer together, and in another week's time or so.

About 40 minutes later I was calling him telling him to turn back, I was kind of sure it was "showtime". Contractions were now 3 1/2 minutes apart. He came back home, we got the dogs all sorted out, Little Toddler Man woke at about 5:00am, so we got him up and dressed, gave him breakfast and around 6:00am headed to the city. We dropped LTM off at his auntie's house, and then continued on to the hospital, where they admitted me. I was still not sure if it could really be labour given contractions were still 2 1/2 minutes apart and I could sort of talk through them. But according to the triage nurse I was 5, almost 6cm dilated and definitely in labour. Who am I to argue? They walked me over to one of their "luxury suites" in the Labour Delivery Recovery PostPartum ward - I've stayed in fancy expensive hotels that were not as nice as the room I had!

I hung out there for awhile without a care in the world. Contractions were down to about one every five minutes, baby's heart rate was good. The OB on call came into see me, of course there'd been no progression from where I'd been at in triage, (thankfully no regression either mind you!) and so she offered to break my water. I figured why not - let's get this show on the road.

So, the water was broken at 10:10am, then I stood up and woosh. Instant hard core labour!! Contractions were one on top of the other. Forget joking and laughing like I'd been doing only five minutes before, forget thinking that I'd kind of like a snack. Forget anything except focusing on getting through each contraction! Within half an hour the nurse checked again - I was a bit hesitant because the last thing I wanted to hear was that there was no change, but the nurse was fairly certain things were moving along. She was right. I was well into transition. A few more contractions and the OB was called back in, and I was instructed to push when I felt like it.

Push I did. Twice.

Then the OB told me very kindly, "Open your eyes, see what you've got" Somehow I managed in two pushes to give birth to my 9 lbs 3 oz, 22" long baby boy and not realize I was done. As I opened my eyes she was putting Thomas on my chest and I couldn't believe my little boy was already here!

It was an amazing birth experience! Like Little Toddler Man's only easier and better. (BF)G of course was as always amazingly strong and my rock that I clung to. He's pretty good at this "labour coach" thing... perhaps he should consider a sideline career. He always is so calm and reassuring and can keep me focused on things when need be. Well, not just with labour come to think of it. That's kind of our life full stop. I'm pretty lucky that way!

Only thing I wasn't happy with was that they put an IV in me in triage. I was worried that would make it far too easy for me to accept pain meds, but I told my nurses and the OB my goal was to make it without anything other than the gas at the most. The nurses never even offered anything else. I did tell my nurse at one point she could bring the gas in, but then it sat in the corner never used. With LTM I did use the gas a few times to get through contractions. With Thomas I didn't need anything at all. In the end the IV came in handy too, as I had to be given Oxcytocin(sp?) for some issues with bleeding. I guess that's common both with big babies and the fact that I've done this a few times before! I can easily tell you I was feeling incredibly pleased with myself about that, given one of the worries I had leading up to my due date was that I would have to have pain meds and somehow I'd be disappointed in myself.

So life as a mom of five begins for me and so far I'm loving every moment of it... although I could use a touch more sleep! ;)