Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2004-11-08 - 1.40pm��previous entry��next entry
40 weeks, 3 days - labour, yay!!! :)
I'm sorry I let you guys think I had an uneventful night! I wanted to update before now but ow.
I am in labour!!!! Yay! Did not sleep at all last night although I stayed in bed the whole night. Contractions were too painful and were coming every 10 mins. can't write this for long as I'm still having painful contractions which make it hard to sit up at the desk.
Got up for cereal at 6am. Felt something leaking when I got up so went to the loo, and found a small amount of brown spotting. Came back to bed and stayed there till 8.30am. I managed to doze between 7.40 and 8am, so I guess either I missed a contraction or managed to sleep through one! Basically I'm tired. The contractions are more painful than I expected, although they did start out like bad period pains. They are now completely searing white hot things that slice me from my low abdomen through to my back, which isn't the greatest fun!
At 8.30 I phoned the community midwives to say I thought I might be in labour, even though common sense told me it was probably more like pre-labour. My contractions were too erratic, even though they all came between 5 and 10 minutes. I thought they were lasting a minute easily, going by how long the pain was lasting.
They sent THE loveliest midwife round (who I hadn't met till today) with her equally lovely student, and she took my blood pressure (normal - 120/80, yay!!) and felt my tummy and said that Arthur is in a "lovely" position for birth. She could palpate 3/5 of his head though - what?! I guess he's popped up again. So I have some work to do to get him down enough for labour to be super-effective. Ironically, I didn't have a single contraction for the first 15 minutes they were here! tsk! So they said it was probably just my body "gearing up" for labour and it could be anytime from now to a week's time! Yikes! But then I had a nice contraction when she went to take my blood pressure so she felt my tummy and timed it as only 15-20 seconds, which I was amazed at! The pain lasts longer than my tummy is tight, it seems.
I asked about the spotting (there was no mucus with it) and she said it was fine to have some spotting. She explained about losing the mucus plug and said when it comes away it might look like a huge gob of raspberry jam (nice!), or just be blood stained mucus. She asked me to pee on a stick, so I went to the loo, felt something gooey and wiped, and there was my textbook ENORMOUS gob of raspberry jam, just as described! Hehe! I was soooo relieved to have produced something indicative of "the real thing" that I rushed back out with it on a tissue and showed it to the midwife. She seemed very pleased and showed the student in some detail. Mmm! Neil came up and wanted to see it, and he seemed impressed but later admitted to feeling kind of ill when he saw it! It was kind of gross actually. But yay!
Okay then the midwife left and said she would phone before 4pm and if I wanted a visit she would come by after clinic (around 4.30ish?). It's 2pm now and I can't WAIT for her to come round. Contractions have become much less bearable since I lost my plug. My mum arrived shortly after they left - I phoned to tell her I was having contractions and that I wanted her to come over. I rocked on my birth ball with plastic sheets underneath it (!), and Mummy tried to figure out my TENS machine.
Urgh I have to cut this shorter. So Neil and my mum fixed my TENS machine to my back and I've had it on ever since. It's no less painful so I don't know if it's on right, but the buzzing of the TENS does provide a minor distraction, which I will take over no distraction at all at this point! I lost a bit more of my mucus plug a little later, and just before I came online I went to the loo and lost another huge chunk just like the one I showed the midwife. It makes me feel kind of queasy to see it for some reason!
I think that's all. I don't know if I'm going to be able to update any more until the baby is here, because it's too hard to keep writing at the moment and it was a huge effort to just come and sit at the desk to do it. But I wanted you to know what's happening! I have had 6 or 7 contractions whilst writing and I just have to keep stopping and get through them. I'm so nervous about how much worse they are going to get - they hurt so much. Neil is pumping up the pool. I have tried to sleep but my contractions are too painful.
Okay that's it. I have to go. I will write when I can! Please pray for me to have no delays and to manage the pain and tiredness, and that Arthur will be okay. He has been so so active, which is reassuring. I can't believe I'll be holding him in my arms today or tomorrow. It could be tomorrow though, because it depends how much progress I'm actually making, despite the pain. I could still be only 1cm dilated! I will be mortified if the midwife tells me that when she comes round! She didn't do an internal this morning because I'd written on my birth plan that I didn't want unnecessary ones, and she thought it wasn't necessary since I wasn't contracting frequently or regularly enough to warrant a check to see if they needed to get the homebirth stuff out yet. I just hope it's soon. I don't know if I can do this for another 24 hours! I would update after she's seen me this afternoon, but I feel fairly sure I won't feel able to sit here and type by then. It's still a minute possibility that things could fade out and if that happens I'll try to write and update you, but I might just want to sleep if I get the chance. Anyway, you'll know soon enough! I hope it won't be too long. Tonight maybe? Tomorrow morning? I can't imagine I'll give birth by tonight. Things feel kind of slow for that, but I guess you never know. Okay, contraction. Gotta go.
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25