Jordi's birth story

**Elskan** · 17-06-2011, 09:03pm

On 6th June, when I was six days overdue and after a first unsuccessful sweep on my due date, and many many hours spent walking in the forest trails close to my home with the biggest belly you have ever seen, I had woken up in the early hours of the morning with some light cramping. I saw the doctor in the afternoon and he did an internal which confirmed there had been *some* progress, I was three cm dilated and he thought the baby would arrive in the next twenty-four hours or so.
I went home with some more cramping which I put down to the internal, and continued with my daily business as normal. In fact I was in early labour without me noticing much, and by the time I put my DD1 to bed my cramps were starting to feel more like regular contractions. I was not sure as they did not hurt much, but they were between 7/10 mins apart so I decided to go to hospital just in case, very much expecting to be sent back home.
I got to the hospital at 22h15 and walked into the labour ward (we even left the suitcase in the car, thinking we would not stay!) where a midwife showed me to a delivery room and asked me to wait a minute. It was a busy night for them, so I waited for a while and then my waters went. The contractions started to hurt a lot more and DH went to fetch the midwife again, who put me on the monitor to check the frequency and intensity of the contractions and she said she would be back in half an hour to do an internal.
As I waited, my contractions became closer and closer together, and a lot more painful. I tried remembering how to breathe through them, and I held my DH's hand so strongly I am surprised I did not break his fingers! Some twenty minutes later the contractions were coming every three minutes or so, and they were two or three one on top of the other, so I asked DH to go get the midwife as I wanted an epidural, and to go to the bathroom as I felt I badly needed to poo... cue midwife rushes in, examines me and starts preparing all the material for delivery, I was fully dilated and ready to push! I have never felt so scared in my life

, I was really scared of tearing, of not being able to push the baby out, of the pain... but there was no time for panicking, the midwife asked me to push with the contractions, and at some point to stop and go slowly as the baby was big, and I remember saying I could not do this, but in just a few pushes Jordi was born, the midwife had to do an episiotomy but I hardly felt anything at all. My baby was on my chest at 00.09 am, after less than two hours in hospital and I had a natural labour with no pain relief, I could not believe what I had just done

Jordi was 4.4 kg (I think that is about 10 lb) and 54 cm! I delivered the placenta (I asked the midwife if this was going to be difficult, and nope... out in one little push) and when the doctor arrived he stitched me up (three stitches, he injected a local anesthetic and congratulated me for the quick labour, which he had managed to miss!).
The three of us, Jordi, my DH and I stayed in the delivery room for almost three hours as the midwife was assisting some other births and it was such a lovely experience to be able to cuddle and just be together after the birth.