Jennifer M's Story

I loved being pregnant, and I luckily had no complications.. I was one of those women who had this gigantic belly, and I was losing it as fast everywhere else as I was gaining it on my belly! When I went in to deliver my son, I had only gained 8 lbs overall. I was convinced that he would be small with this small weight gain, and I was worried, but I was in the UK at the time, and my mid-wife said it would be an average size baby.

Two weeks before my due date, I started having my contractions one night. They were coming 10 mins apart all evening. My husband's eyes were big as saucers. By morning, after a sleepness night, they were coming three minutes apart so we went to the hospital. I was checked by the midwife and sent home to get further along. An hour later the contractions stopped. Talk about a letdown. This happened again two nights later, but I didn't bother going to the hospital that time, and it was just another sleepless night.

Two days later this started again. The "fakers" went between 3 and 10 minutes for nearly 24 hours, and then started to kick down around 7:00 PM - a week and a half before my due date. By midnight I was pretty uncomfortable so we went to the hospital. They gave me something to help me sleep and ease the pain, because I was only a couple of centimetres dilated and it would be a while. Hubby went home for a quick snooze.

At 5:00 I woke up very uncomfortable. Two minutes later my water broke. All over the place. I can remember being disappointed that I wet the nightie that I brought to the hospital to give birth in. Like it mattered! From then on, lots of things are blurry, mostly because I went on the gas and air, where the contractions were coming one after the other and they were so painful.

At 12:30 noon I was fully dilated and they asked me if I wanted to push.I said No, what does it feel like? They checked me and my baby had moved and was now facing up - and was not in a good position for delivery. They said they were going to increase my contractions with an IV to encourage him to turn, and that it would be a few more hours before I could deliver.

I lost my cool at that point and demanded an epidural. Talk about relief. At 5:30 that night, baby still was turned around, although he had come right down into the birth canal and was peeping out his head a bit. I tried to push him out but I was exhausted. The OB came in and delivered him with forceps. Since he was already down, it took very little to bring him out. Only cutting me from stem to stern!

He came out 8 lbs 13 ounces and apgar's were excellent from go.So much for a small baby. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I didn't even mind the stitching at the end, because I was so entralled with our baby boy. The doctor forgot to tell us what the sex was, and we were so excited we forgot to look, until about two minutes later, we looked and said, "Oh, its a boy." Our little boy.

I nearly passed out later trying to get to the bathroom, as the epidural wore off, which was frustrating, and the stitches from the delivery made it tough to get around for a few days. I hope the next time I can manage without these things, and be more active in my delivery. However, my little one is healthy and I healed extremely quick so I am grateful for that. I wouldn't have missed that for the world!