My Second Baby's Birth Story

I have blogged about Burton's birth but need to write down Jenson's before I forget the details in my fog of babybrain!! Therefore my recollections may be a little fuzzy around the edges here as I struggled to recall the early stages with regards to timings! And its been less than a year since I went though it! Oh dear! 

Seeing as though next Friday will be his first birthday already *sobs at the passing of my baby into almost a toddler*, I thought I may as well do it now.

*Baby Paulin due Saturday 10th April, 2011*

Tuesday 29th March, 2011

I work up and felt a slight niggling sensation but as it was still 11 days off my due date I don't tell anyone and just carried on my usual day looking after Burton. I did wonder if these 'niggles' were the beginings of early labour as I thought they were similar to those I felt when in the early stages with Burton. It's funny, despite there only being a 19 month age gap between the boys birthdays, it is amazing what you can forget! Anyway, it wasn't until I was sat down eating my tea, while Burton and Daddy were sat in our lounge watching In The Night Garden, that I felt I should share my suspicions with Jon as he had just announced that he was going to be out the following day. By now the niggles were a little stronger and I was thinking that this could indeed be the early stages of labour now and I didn't want Jon too far away.

With Burton, I had been in labour from the onset of the early stages to his birth for about 46 hours, but I had been told by several people that the subsequent births are much quicker. Therefore, I was prepared for this baby to be out by the morning! 

Yeah right!!

As the night went on the niggles became cramping pains and I texted my friend Kimberly at 23:24 to tell her that I could be starting now, but I wasn't 100% sure but probably! So if she still wanted to join us at the birth, then I would call her once things picked up.  Jon had already gone to bed but I didn't as I was too uncomfortable to lie down and sleep!

Wednesday 30th March

By about 2am my cramping pains were contractions and were coming along quite frequently so I phoned the maternity ward to discuss my situation with a midwife. As we were talking I had to stop every now and then and catch my breath due to the strength of my contractions. Thy must have come across as being  strong as the midwife said that I should come in to the hospital! My concern was Burton who was fast asleep and that he was going to have to be taken to Jon's parents on route to the hospital. So I woke Jon up, and told him it was time and we took Burton and dropped him off - who despite waking up and asking where he was going, was fine and went straight to sleep again once he was at his grandparents house. Jon's Mum popped over to the car, kissed me and wished me luck and then off we went.

Of course, once in the delivery suite I was seen and checked over by one of the midwives and of course the contractions died down and I was told that I was still in the early stages and I may as well go home and come back in when my contractions were much more frequent. I remember thinking to myself that all those people who said that second babies come out faster, were wrong!! 

I think we got back home around 7am ish and I told Jon that Burton was better off staying at his mums because I didn't want him at home while I was in labour and seeing me in pain, plus I wouldn't be able to entertain him. Kimberly got my text at 8.30am as she had been charging her phone and hadn't got my message the night before and was worried she had missed out! I told her that she hadn't and to come on over as soon as she wanted. We phoned all our parents to tell them I was in labour and then once Kimberly turned up, it was just a matter of waiting. 

My contractions were still fairly strong so I took a couple of paracetamol and watched TV. I couldnt face any lunch so I went and had a bath as this had really helped ease the pain when I  was in labour with Burton. However, after my bath my contractions slowed right down virtually to a standstill! I was a bit disappointed because I did not want to drag this out any more than I had too!

By about 5pm they started picking up again, and Kimberly told me that I should wait until they were 5 minutes part before we returned to the hospital. Well eventually by about 6.45pm  they were so we travelled the 10 minute journey and I was back in the delivery suite by 7.15pm. The contractions were very strong and I was on no pain relief I was just breathing though them while squeezing (ouch!) Kimberly's hand, hard! Because they were so frequent now, I didn't have long in between to answer the midwife's question before I would have to stop and breath and squeeze again! By now they were about 3 minutes apart.

As with Burton I asked to use gas and air again and it wasn't long before I was allowed to breath it, breath it, breeeeeeath it in! Except this time around it didn't seem to be working for me as well and was not eliminating the pain as it had done during my last labour. I was a little confused and disappointed not to be as high as I had been before as I had fond memories of my experience of using it last time! The midwife, called Sonia, explained that after having given birth once, during subsequent births the baby's head doesn't drop until the waters break, which mine hadn't, so the pain I was feeling on my pelvic side would be due to this. 

After carrying out some tests it became apparent that I hadn't eaten which would not help me. I don't know about you, but I lost my appetite during both labours and any food I did try had no taste to it. Anyway, the midwife told me to try and eat some toast and jam which she went and got for me. I can remember in the three minutes I had between each contraction, I was trying to eat a slice of toast with a very dry mouth and then quickly get back on the gas and air as the next wave of contractions arrived! It was not very pleasant, and I only managed about a quarter of a slice.

I recall being up on the bed/chair on my knees leaning up and over the back of it and I remember my hair was sticking to my forehead and neck and I had given up on the pain relief and just breathed my way (while squeezing Kimberly's hand still,) through it as it was less painful this way. Anyway, I then said to Kimberly that I felt I needed to push, she told me to wait and I probably repeated myself so she called for the midwife to return to our room. When I told her she said I couldn't because my waters hadn't broken. So I told Sonia that I needed to push. Sonia checked me over and declared that I was 9 cm dilated now so she said that she could break my waters but to warn me that if she did then it would probably be all systems go. I told her to do it and fast!

So I had to lie on my back and my waters were broken (I didn't  break my waters myself with either babies!). This was done at 9.12pm. Suddenly, in a weird way I felt more comfortable like a big pressure had been taken away from me! Then it was all about puuuuuuuushing and more puuuuuuuushing and comments like "come on, keep going you can do this". I do remember a one point saying that I wasn't sure if I could push the baby out as with Burton I had some intervention with a Ventouse, so the thought of getting this one out by myself was a little scary! 

Anyway, suddenly I heard someone tell me that the head was out and then to give one more biiiiiiig push and then I was holding my baby! And it was a boy! Another boy - a big boy from what I could see! It was 9.19pm - it had only taken 7 minutes to push him out! I was a little in awe of myself - well my body - in pushing him out so fast! 

He latched on quickly and had two feeds before we left the hospital! He weighed 9 lbs and 1.5 ounces and we named him Jenson. 


After being stitched up, and happily accepting and eating some toast with jam and having a cup of tea - the best tea and toast ever! -  and showering we were allowed to leave and we arrived home at 1.30am - four hours since leaving home. Amazing!