Update

Sorry I haven't posted lately, but as you can imagine I have been pretty busy, plus our PC has died, and the Macbook was doing funny thing to Blogger.

Where do I begin? June 21st, I guess!!!

At 9am, I walked Matilda to pre-school and on the w

ay home I felt like the baby had dropped lower into my pelvis. When I got home, Julie, my MW rang to tell me she had been in the Birthing Suite all night and so we arranged to have my visit later that evening instead.

I spent most of the morning lying on the lounge while Mick cleaned up a little. At 11.30am Mick put some wedges on for lunch. When the timer went off I got up and dished up our lunch. Mick was in the shower, so I went in to tell him lunch was ready and decided to go to the toilet while I was there, as you do so often at the end of pregnancy. I felt a lot of pressure so I decided to give a little push, and my water broke....

It wasn't a huge gush like with Harry, but I was sure that my membranes had ruptured. I put on a thicker pad, and rang the MW. Because Julie was at home sleeping, I got the next MW in the Caseload team, JO. She told me to come in when I was ready, and she would check me out. I rang Mum, who was at work and told her what was happening, but at that stage I hadn't had any rushes. She left work immediately and headed for home to pick up her bag.

We started eating our lunch and I had my first pain. It was short, about 20-30 seconds, but painful. I rang Mum back to tell her and couldn't get hold of her. Mick rang Marjorie and told her what was happening, and we started to get things ready to go. We stopped at the school to pick up Harry, as he wanted to be there for the birth.

By the time we got to the hospital I was having regular pains. We met Marjorie at the Birthing Suite, and then went and found Jo. I had to have the regular monitoring done, which was fast and fine. Because I was GBS+ I had a cannula placed and a dose of antibiotics IV. We then decided to go for a walk to get things going more forcefully. We walked around the hospital, and after 2 laps I was ready for the bath.

At 3.05pm I got into the tub, and Amelia was born at 3.33pm. No-one touched me and I had the best water birth ever. Amelia was brought straight to my chest and she didn't move from there for 3 hours. She feed after about 10 minutes, which helped the placenta detach, and it was fantastic. Eventually, because I wanted to go home after the required 4 hours, she was weighed, etc. Her official numbers were:

Weight: 3.69kgs (8lbs 1.5oz)

Height: 53cm

Head: 34cm

Harry was fantastic, as was Mick. Harry found the whole thing very scientific, and wrote down what was happening and what time. He cut the cord, after it had stopped pulsating, and he examined the placenta.

We came home that night at 8pm, and she slept her first night, and every one since in my bed.

Here she is at 8 weeks old. It has gone so fast. The kids love her. Charlie loves picking her up and is helping me bath her and change her, and I even have them helping me with her cloth nappies.