The Birth of Emily Scarlett Rose

Hi!

My little lady has finally made an appearance! Here is the story of how it all here is how it all happened............

My water broken in the early hours of Saturday morning...........I went to the labour ward at 8pm Saturday night, and had it confirmed that my waters had broken and that i was 2-3cms dilated. The midwife wanted to admit me to the labour ward but i asked if i could go home till i couldn't cope because my contraction were very light, so she said that was ok and i went home at 10.30pm Saturday night.........

I had woken up at 5am Sunday morning with contractions every 7 minutes and this kept up until 7am but then they started slowing off again and by 9.30 I was probably having 1 or 2 if lucky per hour. I got sick of waiting for the next one to come along so I suggested we go to the car boot sale to take my mind off it and hopefully the walk round would help. We managed to get 2 fab bargains while we were there, even though I was having contractions again by this time. A Galt playnest (like new) for £2 and a Happy Land farm for 50p!!

After the car boot we called in at my mums, just to let her know what was happening and just as I walked through her gate I had a strong contraction. We didn’t stay, but gave her an update and then went straight back home. I did a bit of tidying up and made lunch and had a chat to Nik about what we should do. I was going to have to be induced at 8pm that night if nothing happened naturally anyway, so we were not panicking. Then the contractions started getting closer together again and were lasting longer and were more painful. I phoned my mum about 1pm and asked her to come up as soon as she could. I called the labour ward and asked if I could come in and one the way to the hospital we called in to Tesco for some food supplies (2 BLTs and 2 bottles of orange) because we really though that it was going to be a long day again.

When we arrived at the labour ward we were introduced to our midwife (the lovely Davida, who we would only have till 7pm) and taken to a room and monitored for roughly 30-40 minutes. I told my midwife that my contractions were still erratic and about every 15-30 minutes. When she came back to read the chart she said they were happening roughly twice every 10 mins with 1 strong one and 1 milder one each time. I had an internal and told I was 3-4cms dilated, which didn’t seem very much because the previous evening at 8pm I was 2-3cms. Davida was really kind and showed up a chart of the cervix and different stages of dilation. There actually was a massive difference between the 2 sizes, which made me feel as if all the contractions and sleepless night had at least done something to help things along.

Davida then asked me what I thought about aroma therapy, to which my reply was, ‘I’ll try anything you suggest if you think it will help speed things up a bit!’ Davida went on to explain about Clarys Sage and Jasmine and how if she mixed them together with some grape seed oil and put them in a nice hot bath for me they would help my contractions get stronger and get me dilating. She also went on the explain that this method couldn’t be used before 37 weeks and could even cause contractions in women who were not pregnant! So after I agreed to give it a go she said, ‘Ok, I’ll go and get it out of the drug cabinet’ to which I remarked to Nik, ‘It must be powerful stuff if they have to keep it locked up!’ but I still wasn’t convinced and was more than a little bit sceptical.

Davida arrived back to inform me that my bath was ready and that when Nik got back from fetching my bag from the car (yes, I’d left it in the car because I thought they would send me home again till my 8pm appointment) he was to pour water from a jug onto my tummy whenever I had a contraction in the bath and that I was to stay in as long or as little as I wanted. Well……..the bath smelled gorgeous and my thoughts at the time were that if it didn’t work, at least I’d smell lovely and my skin would be lovely and soft!! I think I was in the bath for around 30 mins but had to get out as I hate it when the bath starts to cool down. As soon as I got out the bath I had a really strong contraction, but I still wasn’t convinced and just thought it was a flook, dried myself off and waddled back to my room. Then it all kicked off. They started coming every 5 minutes at first and were so strong I had to stand up and grab on to the wooden chairs arms as it was impossible to sit or lay down while I had them. They just kept getting closer together and stronger and when Davida said that maybe bouncing on a birthing ball would help when I had them, I agreed to try it. Oh my God! Did that make it worse or what! At that point I couldn’t sit on the ball or stand and asked Davida for my epidural!! She said that the anaesthetist was busy with a lady in another room and she’d get him when he had finished, so I asked for some gas and air.

Thank God for gas and air! Is all I can say because not long after I was given it to suck on they got so close together that I couldn’t get my breathe long enough to speak to Nik. Poor Nik later told that I sucked on it so hard that I stopped breathing twice for 40 seconds and gave him the fright of his life. Well, to cut a long story short 55 minutes after the contractions started (when I got out the incredible magic bath) Emily Scarlett Rose was born at 16.22pm weighing in at 9lbs 3 ½ ozs! and she is totally gorgeous!!!!!