Our gorgeous little girl arrived 5 days early on December 8th 2010 at 10:42 am weighing a perfect 6lbs 15oz.
We’ve named her Francesca Jean Elizabeth – Her middle names after my lovely Grandmother and Great Grandmother who both suddenly passed away within 2 days of each other shortly after I found out I was pregnant.
During the afternoon on Tuesday 7th I had period-esque tummy pains, just before Dean arrived home from work I went to the toilet and noticed a little bit of red on the tissue. I didn’t think to much of it, I thought even if it was ‘a show’ then nothing would happen for atleast a few days.
That evening Dean and a friend did some work on our kitchen, I spent most of my time in the bath trying to soothe my tummy and we both eventually went to bed at about 1am. Dean got up to brush his teeth about half an hour later and our kitten Bobby jumped on the bed and started pawing my tummy and trying to bite my legs – suddenly I felt (and heard!) a *pop* and my waters broke everywhere! I shouted for Dean and we had a little cry and a cuddle while I got used to the idea of actually having to give birth!
We gave the hospital a ring and they said to come in to ‘confirm my waters had broken’. Getting there was pretty easy and we were put into a room at about 3am. A midwife came to examine me and I was told I was barely 1cm dialated so to go home and rest up – obviously I was told it would probably be along time before baby arrived as she was my first. As we we’re leaving the hospital my contractions started – they got quite bad quite quickly, I had to stop and get on my knees to cope with them and they were lasting 40ish seconds and 8ish minutes apart.
At about 5am we started to make our way home and made a pit stop at Tesco to get Lucozade tablets and some paracetamol. I stayed in the car and while Dean was gone my contractions suddenly got a lot worse and I started to feel really hot. I started timing my contractions and they we’re lasting about 50 seconds and only 4 minutes apart.
By the time we got home I was sweating buckets and couldn’t walk on my own. Dean helped me to the bathroom and ran me another bath. I tried to sit down in it but the pain was excurciating and I ended up kneeling in about an inch of warm water instead. Dean decided to get some sleep and I stayed in the shower. At about 5:30am I turned the shower on and stayed in there for an hour while my contractions quickly became only 2 minutes apart.
At about 8:30am I woke Dean up fepm screaming! He dragged me out of the shower and called the hospital who refused to believe I was that far along. I demanded to go to the hospital and Dean helped me get dressed and get downstairs. We made it as far as the car and this is where I don’t remember from…
I passed out onto my side (and the car/house keys – oops) and Dean couldn’t bring me round. Within 5 minutes an ambulance with 3 paramedics arrived and got me up and inside. They took my BP and blood sugar level before quickly examining me and telling Dean that we had to leave right then or I was going to have the baby in the ambulance.
After a traumtic ambulance drive, which involved it stalling and icy roads we arrived at the hospital and were told I was 10cm dialated. A handful of pushes and 42 minutes later our perfect little girl arrived in the world without tearing me (thankyou so much Frankie!). Dean cut the cord and our lovely midwife put Francesca on my chest.
Tea and toast followed then shortly afterwards I got to have a shower (most satisfying shower of my life) and when I came back Dean had been shown how to dress Frankie. We were then wheeled down to the ward and we spent some time as a little family while all the normal checks were done.
That evening both mine and Dean’s parents visited and then I spent my first night alone as a Mummy. After trying to breastfeed before and after my shower we gave it a rest but sadly had to give her a bottle of formula after 16 hours without a feed. We we’re able to go home late evening on the 9th December and have been enjoying being a little family since.