Life after...
It's taken a while to get here to update, for very good reasons. We have a son!
Brennan was born at home, 10 days after his due date. The birth was very different to Ember's which was a hard but steady build over 27 hours. After a few days of intermittent, mild contractions that warned it was imminent but never quite tipped over into full labour I was woken at 12:30am on Jan 31st by a massive contraction that had me writhing, lasted for several minutes and broke my waters. I got up and waddled to the loo where the next big contraction came a few minutes later. They were 2-3 minutes apart almost immediately and very strong. P was tasked to call the midwife, doula and my sister and inflate and fill the pool 'Now!' but it soon became clear that there was no way I was going to make it into that pool, or even down the stairs.
By the time our midwife and doula arrived, about an hour after that first contraction I was beginning to get an urge to push. Bren was still OP at that point and the urge often comes early with OP babies. Our midwife suggested that if I didn't want to give birth on the toilet then now was the time to move, so we raced to the bedroom in between contractions and I dropped to my knees, burying my head in the armchair we have in there. I sang, swore, swayed and pushed for the next two hours until our midwife asked if she could have a feel to see what was going on. There was a cervical lip holding the head back which the midwife pushed away and the head followed her fingers right out. Two contractions later Bren was born, awake and alert and clearly extremely healthy.
He weighed in at 8lb 13.5oz and is perfect, looking very similar to how Ember looked as a young baby which feels lovely. We are, of course, completely in love with him.
Aren't we lucky?
Brennan was born at home, 10 days after his due date. The birth was very different to Ember's which was a hard but steady build over 27 hours. After a few days of intermittent, mild contractions that warned it was imminent but never quite tipped over into full labour I was woken at 12:30am on Jan 31st by a massive contraction that had me writhing, lasted for several minutes and broke my waters. I got up and waddled to the loo where the next big contraction came a few minutes later. They were 2-3 minutes apart almost immediately and very strong. P was tasked to call the midwife, doula and my sister and inflate and fill the pool 'Now!' but it soon became clear that there was no way I was going to make it into that pool, or even down the stairs.
By the time our midwife and doula arrived, about an hour after that first contraction I was beginning to get an urge to push. Bren was still OP at that point and the urge often comes early with OP babies. Our midwife suggested that if I didn't want to give birth on the toilet then now was the time to move, so we raced to the bedroom in between contractions and I dropped to my knees, burying my head in the armchair we have in there. I sang, swore, swayed and pushed for the next two hours until our midwife asked if she could have a feel to see what was going on. There was a cervical lip holding the head back which the midwife pushed away and the head followed her fingers right out. Two contractions later Bren was born, awake and alert and clearly extremely healthy.
He weighed in at 8lb 13.5oz and is perfect, looking very similar to how Ember looked as a young baby which feels lovely. We are, of course, completely in love with him.
Aren't we lucky?