So, our Sweets was born 8 days late… and is a girl 🙂 I had a pretty quick straightforward labour with no medical pain management, but after pushing for over 2 hours ended up having an epidural and episiotomy so that they could use forceps to ease her out.
Sweets is a big girl and weighed in at 4.38kg. Her head circumference was also >90th percentile. She’s what is known as large for dates. Hmm.
I had hoped to be able to give birth without any medical interventions, but at the time I appreciated that I was tired and that it wasn’t going to do me or Sweets any favours to be a martyr about it. I felt really well supported by my Beau, my Muggle, my Mum and my midwife. I’m proud of myself for labouring well. It’s kind of amazing to me that the breathing techniques in yoga were so effective. The labour progressed well, starting at about 4am, moving onto 2nd stage (fully dilated and pushing) at about 11.30am. This is considered especially quick for a first time labour.
While the acupuncture and acupressure didn’t bring the labour on before christmas, I’m wondering if it did have an effect in preparing my body for birth. I also did a fair amount of standing/walking and even when I reached second stage favoured upright positions. These are all supposed to help, and whether they did or not, they felt *right* to me at the time. My least favourite thing was lying passively (actually my least-least favourite thing was sitting still and hunched over while they sorted out the epidural)!
The best thing, of course, is that I/we got a lovely, healthy baby out of it. She is two weeks old today and I catch myself just staring at her and marvelling over just how much I love her. It helps that she is currently sleeping well. I’m told that this is likely to change. I’m just going to enjoy her as she is right now.
Point of Fashion: Breastfeeding.
Current Obsession: Is she going to look like me at all???
{ 9 } Comments