The Arkadian Childe (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} arkadianchilde) wrote,@ 2007-05-04 10:39:00 |
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[38w 5d] Baby is on her way!
A friend observed last night that if Freda is born today, she'll share her birthday with Audrey Hepburn. I must admit that thought pleases me immensely. :-)
We called the midwives out last night, and three of them attended - two senior midwives (my new CMW Amanda plus her collegue Sue) and a student (Faizia). Cats were herded out of the way, and L headed up to bed as it was likely to be a long night and at least one of us ought to get some rest! D hovered doing the anxious-but-excited father bit, offering tea.
Contractions were coming 2 minutes apart, lasting 20 seconds each, and the baby's heartbeat was good. Her head was only 3/5 engaged, but that's quite normal - often if it's not a first baby, the head won't engage fully until right at the point you start pushing.
We sat around chatting, midwives drinking tea, whilst waiting for things to progress. I was teased a little about the fact I was very relaxed and they couldn't tell when I was having a contraction - Amanda ended up sitting with her hand on my bump for short periods so she could feel the contractions and time them! About 3am I agreed to an internal check to see how dilated I was; somehow I had the feeling the answer would be "not very", and I was right - only 1cm. So the midwives decided the best thing to do would be to leave us to get some sleep, as it could take several hours for things to progress to active labour (4cm dilated).
I must admit D and I didn't get a huge amount of sleep; I had to get up to throw up twice (at 5am and then again at 6:30am), dozing in between, though I think I finally fell actually asleep after the second time. Had weird and wonderful dreams revolving around giving birth which included dancing attendant cats and trying to give Keith Richards a guitar lesson whilst having the baby.
Amanda and her student dropped by again this morning at 10am to check how things are progressing; contractions are about 30 seconds long now, so things are progressing slowly. I've a feeling Freda is likely to be born later today - probably sometime in the evening. D and I are probably going to go for a walk later to help get things moving. :-)
So, yes, it's not a false alarm this time. Freda is on her way. :-)
A friend observed last night that if Freda is born today, she'll share her birthday with Audrey Hepburn. I must admit that thought pleases me immensely. :-)
We called the midwives out last night, and three of them attended - two senior midwives (my new CMW Amanda plus her collegue Sue) and a student (Faizia). Cats were herded out of the way, and L headed up to bed as it was likely to be a long night and at least one of us ought to get some rest! D hovered doing the anxious-but-excited father bit, offering tea.
Contractions were coming 2 minutes apart, lasting 20 seconds each, and the baby's heartbeat was good. Her head was only 3/5 engaged, but that's quite normal - often if it's not a first baby, the head won't engage fully until right at the point you start pushing.
We sat around chatting, midwives drinking tea, whilst waiting for things to progress. I was teased a little about the fact I was very relaxed and they couldn't tell when I was having a contraction - Amanda ended up sitting with her hand on my bump for short periods so she could feel the contractions and time them! About 3am I agreed to an internal check to see how dilated I was; somehow I had the feeling the answer would be "not very", and I was right - only 1cm. So the midwives decided the best thing to do would be to leave us to get some sleep, as it could take several hours for things to progress to active labour (4cm dilated).
I must admit D and I didn't get a huge amount of sleep; I had to get up to throw up twice (at 5am and then again at 6:30am), dozing in between, though I think I finally fell actually asleep after the second time. Had weird and wonderful dreams revolving around giving birth which included dancing attendant cats and trying to give Keith Richards a guitar lesson whilst having the baby.
Amanda and her student dropped by again this morning at 10am to check how things are progressing; contractions are about 30 seconds long now, so things are progressing slowly. I've a feeling Freda is likely to be born later today - probably sometime in the evening. D and I are probably going to go for a walk later to help get things moving. :-)
So, yes, it's not a false alarm this time. Freda is on her way. :-)
