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Hi Amy, nice hearing from you!
I was actually planning on emailing, but we have been caught up in a whirlwind of feeds / nappies / emotions / a few hospital trips and didn't get to message sooner.
Nilde was born on August 26th at 6.35 am, 3.8kg, spontaneous labour (no tearing!!) and vaginal birth in a pool at the Midwife Led Unit The Spires at JR.
The overall labour and birth experience has been an AMAZING experience, she came at week 41+4 just the day before we were booked for an induction, which was perfect. I actually could not tell when waters broke as I felt at least part of them go in the morning of August 25th, but the midwife at the Horton did not examine me and told us it may or may not be the early start of labour, and it may take up to 2 days to get into actual labour. On a funny note, this was the only information Tristan's brain retained, so that day, while I could feel contractions becoming more frequent and painful (nothing like the "mild period pains" the Horton midwife suggested they should be....) he went out and about in town, went to the pub, and encouraged me to come out for a walk and "take it easy", as the Horton midwife told us it may "take up to 2 days".... but I was on the bed in agony and couldn't even think of doing that for 2 days! Finally in the evening, I convinced Tristan to drive me to the JR as contractions suddenly became much closer together, from 7 mins to approx 2 mins apart - when they saw me at the MAU at JR, I was already 7 cm dilated!!
So they took me to level 7, and put us in a beautiful big room with a massive birthing pool - I had never contemplated a water birth and I actually put "no pool" in my birth plan, but I will be forever grateful to the lovely midwife who convinced me to at least give it a go - it was a saving grace!! That and of course the breathing techniques I learned from you - it meant I was able to cope with just gas and air, and actually be pretty active in between contractions!
6 hours later, our Nilde came out - with a scare right at the end, in that she had shoulder distocia, so after the head came out, her body got stuck in my pelvis, so the midwife shouted "get Serena out of the pool now"" and Tristan dragged me out as the midwife pressed the emergency button, all of a sudden 6 other people were in the room, they put me on a bed, pulled my legs back and out baby came. What a scare right at the end! If not for this, it would have been a truly perfect birthing experience.
So we went for some skin to skin time, and then they weighed and measured baby, then they moved us to a nice family room to spend some bonding time together, and at that point they noticed Nilde was breathing quite fast, so they took us to HDU for a check on parameters, and it turned out she had a quite bad chest infection, so they kept us in HDu for 6 days - it has been a very emotional time, constant monitoring, but Nilde is a real trooper and she started fighting off the infection with the help if antibiotics, they finally let us come home on August 31st and she has been fine since - taking well to the breast, feeding well, if anything some vomiting problems (which a paediatrician at the Horton said may be due to reflux) and gaining back all of her birth weight. She is a true delight, we couldn't be happier.
So here is a quick recap of our first (almost) 2 weeks as a Family, what a journey it's been, I loved every moment, even the scariest ones thanks to a dedicated and amazing HDU team who helped us a lot also with breastfeeding tips and ensured we went home off to a good start,
How about you? Have you sorted out the new yoga classes in Banbury? It would be great to keep in touch, please do let me know when you plan to start them!
Hope you enjoy the nice weather these days, and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Take care!
Serena
