At 5:50am, I woke up and didn't feel quite right. I joked to Chris that I was either ill again or in early labour. I then asked him to make sure he was out of the bathroom early, as I needed to wash my hair (now that I am on Maternity Leave and not swimming, I had forgotten to wash my hair... #mumlife). So, off he went to the bathroom and I put the telly on to distract me a little bit, which is when my contractions started. I quickly downloaded an app and started timing them, as they were coming on very quick and fast - they were about 2-4mins apart and lasted about 40 secs each (I just checked it on my app, I haven't got an amazing memory!), so I quickly chucked Chris out of the bathroom and got in the bath. Chris messaged my Mum to let her know that she might be needed soon, although I was still in denial that I was in labour, I even asked Chris if he could maybe stay home and look after the kids today, to which he replied 'you're in labour, of course I'm staying home'!
The contractions were getting stronger and closer together, so we rang the Labour Ward and they told me to come in. Chris then rang my Mum who was already on her way.
As soon as I got out of the bath, I realised how strong the contractions were, so we quickly got the last few bits of the hospital bag together and I got my self ready. At this point, it was about 7am and Jackson woke up, so we went in to say goodbye and told him where I was going. He was so good and gave me a big cuddle. As we were leaving, Mum said 'do you think we need to call an ambulance', to which I laughed off and made my way to the car, which was a slow walk with a few contractions along the way.
In the car, I just focused on my breathing and practised my hypnobirthing techniques. We are quite far from the hospital (a good 40 minute journey) and on the way my contractions definitely got a lot stronger, so much so that Chris said I was starting to do my pushing face, which I am sure is a gorgeous expression, ha!! By the time we got to the hospital car park, it was 8am and, again, it took us a while to walk across the car park! When we got in, they where sooo busy. I heard one of the midwifes say to another 'she looks relaxed send her to the waiting room', to which Chris responded 'her contractions are really strong' and I said 'I've been pushing', so they quickly changed their minds, especially after seeing one of my contractions, and sent me down to a room.
They were not ready for me at all and the midwife was rushing around to get bits sorted. All I wanted was the gas and air and an epidural, so the midwife gave me the gas and air and I got on the bed ready. The other midwife joined us, with both racing around getting towels and stuff. Due to losing lots of blood with my other two labours, I needed to have a cannula put into my hand, just in case they needed to give me anything. It was about this point that I turned to the midwives and said 'I'm not getting my epidural am I!?' No one had checked me so I had still thought that I had time for the drugs!! But simply from the way that I was behaving, they knew the baby would be with us soon.
Very quickly after that, the head was born and amazingly, he was still in the sac, which is so rare! They decided to break the sac on the way out, to make it a bit easier, although it took them a little while to find the sterile instruments, I think because they were so rushed.
Elliot made his super speedy entry at 8:25am, he was gorgeous and weighed a healthy 8lbs 9oz!!! There was no pulling of the red cord (well a brief one when I started bleeding but they cancelled it as it stopped very quickly) and there were no emergencies!!
When he was born, the midwives noticed some bruising-like spots on Elliot's arm, so the Paediatrician was called just to check him. She said that it could be 'Mongolian Spots', which aren't a problem but they needed to make sure that they don't get any bigger, in case it was actually bruising. During this time, he had a huge feed for probably about an hour. Afterwards we had our first facetime with our 2 babies back home.
A while later, the midwife said that she had called back the Paediatrician to check Elliot again, as she was worried about a noise that he was making. For the rest of the day, he was checked every so often by the midwives and at 4pm, the paediatrician sent us down to the neonatal unit to get him properly tested so they could make sure that it wasn't anything serious.
We spent 2 hours down there are we were so luckily that we got to leave and head back upstairs with our baby! Neonatal was one of the most scariest places I have been to - as soon as I got there I cried, I cried for Elliot and for the other babies that were down there.
But like I said, 2 hours later, everyone was happy with his levels and we left. I have never felt so grateful and so lucky than I did in that moment.
We spent the night in hospital and the next day, once the paediatrician had checked him over again, we were allowed to head home. Due to it being a Sunday, meaning they were very busy, we were not discharged until 5pm, so the kids came up to meet their baby brother before we left.
In regards to his 'Mongolian Spots', they had almost completely gone by the time we left, so it turned out it was bruising but none that we needed to worry about. Chris loved joking to the staff if he needed a DNA test because, like the name suggests, Mongolian Spots are much more common in Asian families!
For the 3rd time, I cannot fault the care at Stoke Mandivile Hospital and the staff were just amazing!!
Love Sophia xxx
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