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Hi Alice,
Just
to let you know... Sally gave birth yesterday morning (Saturday) to baby
Tilly. Feels like there should be some sort of de-brief!!
Everything
went very well. Wouldn't say everything went absolutely according to the birth
plan, but pretty close. As I am male, I can only give you a very technical
description of events...
Sensations
started Friday evening just before
10pm. We phoned Penrice at
midnight just so that they were
a bit prepared. All night the surges were 5mins apart and Sally didn't get any
sleep. We used music, some scripts, and attached the TENS
machine.
By
6am Sally phoned Penrice again and we decided to
make our way in so that we could grab the pool. We took our time getting ready
and left at 7.30. During the journey Sally still had the TENS machine
attached and we listened to birth affirmations. I think that Sally would say
that the surges were beginning to get painful by this stage - one of the
reasons she wanted to get to Penrice was so that she could use the pool for
relief.
When
we arrived at 8.30 we were pleased to find that we were assigned the same
midwife that had shown us around before and spoken to about hypnobirthing. As her blood pressure was a bit high, they were
threatening to send us to Treliske, but were willing to let us try to use the
pool to relax her and bring it down. They thought Sally was definitely in labour but they were very surprised to find that Sally was fully dilated
- echoes of other hypnobirthing stories. We
prepared the room as we wanted it, put the CD player on and Sally got in the
pool. The surges were extremely strong and Sally had to use entonox. After
just over an hour in the pool Sally got the very strong urge to push and Tilly
popped out at 10.39. The midwives just observed, Sally did everything and
was fantastic. No screaming, just a bit of low moaning. She did
a great job at keeping her breathing techniques going. Tilly was very
small and the midwife thought that she would be too cold in the water, so Sally had to
climb out of the pool and into bed with Tilly still attached. I cut
the (thread-like) cord after a while and Sally waited for the third
stage. After an hour nothing happened so Sally decided to take the
injection and the tiny placenta came out after a while.
The midwives there were pretty sure that Tilly is actually only 36 weeks, not 39
weeks - so the scan dating must have been pretty out. Does just go to show
that due dates mean absolutely nothing. We could have been inducing before
the end of September and she still wouldn't actually have been 40
weeks.
So
anyway Tilly is pretty small at 5lbs 5oz so they were worried about her being
able to maintain her body temperature. They stayed in overnight on
Saturday and got everyone running around after them. Today (Sunday) Tilly's temperature has been fine so we all came home this
evening.
Sally's
now getting some well earned sleep upstairs. I'm at the computer with Tilly in the
Kari-me sling which she seems to love so far.
So
we thought Penrice was fantastic and definitely would recommend anyone to go
there as alternative to home-birth, even if they don't want water - and now they
know about hypnobirthing. They said that Sally must have a 'very high pain
threshold' - sound familiar?
Thanks
for all your help in the preparations. It all helped to make an absolutely
brilliant experience.
Rob
(and Tilly)
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