Today I am half way there with baby number two which is very exciting but doing a review of my blog last week for its 1 year birthday I realised I never actually shared my birth story about Josh on the blog. It was featured in a parenting magazine and will be coming up on My Little Babog’s birth story series soon but I thought I’d post it here today and I can only hope that number 2 happens in a similar fashion.. It’s going to be sore, it’s not going to be pretty but I think all in all I had a pretty ok experience first time round! 

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So our little baby was due on 2nd November but for some reason I always had this feeling that baby Felton would take me by surprise and arrive a little early. When my due date came and went I began to become pretty impatient. I had been a happy go lucky pregnant lady but now I was a large, impatient mama to be! 
I was told at my last appointment before my due date that they would do a sweep on my next appointment so I was holding out for that however on the Monday night when rushing out to prenatal yoga I thought/hoped my waters might have gone. I called my midwives and they said to head to yoga, relax and pop into the hospital on the way back. It turned out this little baby was sitting right on my bladder so it was not waters at all.
Anyway we left the hospital and I was pretty disheartened. We stopped to get a pizza and brownie as a treat dinner as off we went home. I contacted my nearest and dearest and told them I was taking a duvet day the next day as Baby Felton was nowhere near coming as the midwife had told me my cervix was not favourable and there had been no effacement.
I went to bed that night looking forward to the rest day the following day.. Baby Felton had other plans. Whilst reading I felt a warm feeling and realised my pyjama bottoms had soaked through. Thinking it was the same case as earlier I changed to a pair of my husbands white boxers as they said this is what you should do and dozed off. 

I awoke a short time later, soaked again with some cramping but I had weeks of Braxton Hicks so again didn’t think much of it, it was 1am at this stage. Just as I was changing again the pains started to get a little worse, my husband suggested calling the hospital but I was too embarrassed as they had just said that there was nothing going on so I didn’t believe there could be. I decided to have a bath and see if the pains went away, before I got in the bath my contractions were 7 minutes apart when I got out they were 3! I knew it was time to call the hospital. The switch was down so by the time I spoke to the midwife I also had a ‘show’ and she knew by my voice it was time. 

With no clothes laid out we grabbed what we could, the bag was at the door and with a strong contraction on our front drive we somehow made it to Holles St over all those speed bumps! It’s only a 10 minute journey from our house but it felt a lot longer…
We arrived at Holles St at just after 4am. I was brought up to admissions and had 3 contractions on the way up the steps and while getting admitted. I am glad it was the middle of the night as I was on my hands and knees at this stage but no one was around to witness it except the very understand admissions staff and porter!I was brought up to the nurses station where they quickly assessed me and brought me straight to the delivery suite. 

Unfortunately my community midwives were labouring someone else so I was assigned to another midwife from the main hospital. I barely had time to get my nighty on as the contractions were coming thick and fast now. They checked me and at first thought I was 7/8 cm but then rechecked and I was 5. I went from 5-9 very quickly and as much as I fought it in transition decided the epidural was for me. My husband decided to tell the selected few that I was in labour and it wouldn’t be long now. I couldn’t breath, I was flayling around the room but baby Felton was happy and coming pretty soon so the anetigiolisgist came to me quickly and got me sorted nice and quickly, how I stYef still for that minute while the needle went in I’ll never know! 

Once I had the epidural they asked me to give a few small pushes as I was feeling pressure, they then left me for about 40 minutes to see if baby would move down and sure he did. By then my community midwives were freed up and I had a great rapport with them so it was great to have them for the pushing stage. Theresa was brilliant and I used gas and air for every contraction as my husband kept my cool with a damp cloth on my head. It was great because the pain was gone but I could feel the pressure to push. 40 minutes later the head popped out immediately followed by the body and our baby boy was born at 8.32am. My husband cut the cord, we named him Joshua Luca and a new family was created. 

A wonderful day with special memories and as it turned out he did give us a surprise by coming so quickly but just not in the way that we thought!