We haven't been very good at keeping in touch with everyone about news.
Sproglet was born on Monday 14th January 2008 at 12.43am.
I had woken on Saturday morning to find my waters had broken (definately not as dramatic as in the movies, in fact we didn't even need to change the sheets let alone the mattress!). The hospital asked us to come in sometime to check that Sproglet was doing OK, but he was kicking about fine so we took our time. I went back to bed (we'd been up till 2am faffing on computers) then we drove to the hospital via the library so I could return my audio books!
We spent a long time waiting to be seen, which was fine but I was regretting not having lunch before we turned up. When we were seen I was put on a monitor to do a fifteen minute check and I was asked to press a button every time Sproglet moved about. Sean was amazed how much he actually moves about! The midwife disappeared to help someone else. 50 minutes later she hadn't come back and I decided I needed the loo so took all the monitoring equipment off. We were told to come back the next day to be monitored again unless contractions started.
At 10pm on Saturday night the contractions started, although not very strong (I was starting to think this labour thing would be a piece of cake if the contractions continued at that strength!). I stayed up for a while with Daliah who had been out partying that evening. We watched YouTube videos to pass the time. We started choosing the next video only from the list of suggestions of the last video, but we then moved onto YouTube greats like OK Go's "Here It Goes Again", which seemed apt every time a new contration started :-)
On Sunday we stayed home as long as we could, finally heading in after I threw up quite spectacularly three times (the FIRST time I have thrown up during the whole pregnancy). The contractions were starting to get too much for me to deal with at home and the thought of drugs were very tempting!
At the hospital a midwife check me out and declared that I was 4cm dialated, which was aparently unusual for first timers to wait so long before coming in. I'm not sure she wasn't just saying that to try and make me feel better though! She checked out room availability and found out there was a room with a birthing pool available, so I was moved upstairs to the laour ward.
I arrived at the hospital at half three. It was after 8pm before they would let me have gas and air. I started telling the midwife she was evil for not giving me drugs! By the time I came out of the birthing pool about 9pm I was 9cm dialated. The midwife expected Sproglet to turn up within the hour but it took till quarter to one in the morning. I spent that time screaming for drugs but to no avail!
We listened to music on my iPod during the labour. It wasn't a special playlist, just all the music on the player shuffled. At one point "Here It Goes Again" came just as a contraction started. It made both of us laugh :-)
The strangest thing that I didn't expect was to get blisters on my knees! I spent about three hours kneeling on the bed leaning on the upright back. I really didn't like the whole 'lie down and push' approach, and gravity was on Sproglet's side when I was kneeling.
After Sproglet appeared I was fairly out of it. Sean cut the cord and held him, but all my energy seemed to be needed just to turn around!
There was then problems as the placenta wouldn't come out and the cord had snapped. I ended up being wheeled to theatre to have a spinal injection (FINALLY they gave me drugs! Would have been nice earlier but given how long it took to inject me properly I probably wouldn't have been able to stay still for long enough). Theatre was actually really fun! There was a great banter with everyone there. It took over an hour for a procedure that should have taken far less than 30 minutes.
By the time I was wheeled back to the labour ward Sproglet was getting very hungry but Sean was coping really well. I finally got to hold Sproglet and see him properly!
Soon we were wheeled to the postnatal ward, where stayed until Wednesday evening. The staff were great, showing us ways to hold, feed and change Sproglet. Monday night was pretty rough, as Sproglet wouldn't sleep or settle. The next night was a lot better and Sproglet slept more and I figured out how to have him sleep next to me so we could both fall asleep safely after feeding.
We had to wait a while on Wednesday as suddenly everyone wanted to go home on the same day, but we eventually had completed all the checks and tests and paperwork. We then realised how shattered we both were so called my parents and asked my mum to drive us home (a bit cheaky seeing we were borrowing her car but she didn't seem to mind :-) Sproglet didn't stir once in his car seat on the journey home, even though it was very warm in the hospital and very cold outside.
We are now home, and gradually realising how to look after Sproglet. Yesterday Sean's parents kindly went and hunted out all the stuff we realised we needed on our first night home. We're getting visits from all the relatives, and after Sunday we'd love visits from friends.
Everyone keeps doing the "oh he looks like..." but I'm finding more and more that I look in the mirror and think I look like him rather the other way round. I think it's the grumpy half-asleep look :-)
Oh, and I know its taken us a while but Sean is an indecisive person and it is a particularly huge decision to make! Sproglet's name is... Louis Alexander Farrell.
