My baby was due on Friday the 10th of January and I had quite an easy pregnancy from start to finish. I could count the number of times I had morning sickness on one hand. I didn’t have any strange cravings, I wasn’t overly tired or uncomfortable. The only time things weren’t quite going to plan was when we needed an extra growth scan as my bump was measuring slightly smaller than it should have. At that scan there was no real concerns about the size or growth of the baby but there was concern about the amount of fluid. After another scan to check, the sonographer was no longer concerned and we returned onto a green pathway.
I was happy to get past Christmas day and boxing day without going into labour and from the 27th of December I was ready for the baby to arrive. On the 30th of December I tried out one of the old wives tales and ate lots of pineapple. I did the same on the 31st and the only thing that happened as a result was a very sore mouth on January the 1st from all of the acid. On the 2nd of January we went a long walk and I ate a little bit more pineapple. I had the usual Braxton Hicks through the evening, nothing much different than the previous few weeks.
On 3rd January at 5am I woke up with the standard pregnancy need to go to the toilet. I did however have a sore back which wasn’t something I’d had before. I went back to bed but by 5.30am decided that I couldn’t sleep and would get up and ready for the day. I thought I was probably going to be heading to hospital that day but didn’t think it would be so soon. I actually thought I’d rearrange my nail appointment from 11am to 9am and get rid of my Christmas nails before giving birth.
At 5.30am I had 2 paracetamol before jumping into the shower. When I got out of the shower the pains were increasing and I found it difficult to dry my hair. I woke my husband up just after 6am and told him I thought he’d better get up and make sure his hospital bag was ready. From then I started using a Contractions App on my phone and they were quite regular. Enough that it wasn’t long before it gave me a notification saying to head to the hospital.
Our nearest hospital is 20 miles away and takes about 30minutes to get there by car. That’s where we needed to go to get checked however this hospital is maternity led and has no obstetricians and so all first time Mums and any red pathway pregnancies (any concerns or complications) have to travel over 100 miles to the nearest consultant led maternity unit.
My husband phoned the hospital at about 6.30am and they said to head in without realising we had a journey of around 2-2.5 hours. We’d always been told to go to the local hospital to be checked first. It wasn’t long before they phoned us back to say we were right, head there first. That could have been a dangerous mistake!
In between contractions, which were pretty much back to back at this point already, I managed to get a jumper on top of my pyjamas, pull on some Ugg boots and put on my jacket while my husband got the bags in the car. Thankfully we fitted the car seat just a few days before. I was unable to sit in the car as I’ve spent most of the last hour on my knees bent over the bed with a TENS machine on my back. I did the same in the car, in the footwell of the car bent over the car seat.
Surprisingly enough the journey was quite quick and the pains weren’t as bad as they had been at home. I was breathing better and I think the relief of knowing I was on my way to the hospital was enough. We arrived at 7.40am and headed into A+E as it was out of hours (8am-8pm). We were quickly met by a midwife and an A+E doctor. I was given gas and air and took two puffs before I was asked if I felt the need to push. I was then put onto a bed, taken into the lift and taken up to the delivery suite. The next 15 minutes were a bit of blur but it involved three pushes for our son to be born. Thankfully he was safe and well and didn’t require any specialist care. We’re also so thankful that he was delivered in hospital and not in the car on the 100 mile journey. The labour and contractions were less than three hours which is known as a precipitous labour and not something we could have ever predicted. We became a family of three on Friday 3rd January at 8.01am when Ollie was born, weighing 7lb 1 oz.
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