Carl and I had predicted he would arriive on Thursday - 2 days early, but Thursday came and went and although I knew he was close, by bedtime I was thinking he may go overdue.
I woke up Friday morining and turned over to cuddle Carl and POP! It was so loud! I was amazed that Carl hadn't heard it! My waters had broken.
I got out of bed and as I got up they started to gush properly. That may seem a little graphic to anyone reading this who is not pregnant, but it's important to know as some women only experience a little trickle, others go into labour with their waters still in tact and have to have them popped.
Well as I said, mine had definitely gone - big time! I called the delivery suite and they asked me to come in within the next hour so they could put a trace on the baby and check everything was OK with me and all was going as planned.
Everything was fine and so we left and stopped by the studio where I used to work to pick up a tens machine so I had some natural pain relief - I didn't want to have any drugs through labour.
At this time the contractions were fairly mild and coming every 45 minutes so we also stopped in Starbucks and had a coffee, (decaf obviously!). This, however, turned out to be a BIG mistake!! Although it was decaf that one coffee gave me intense diarrohea. Add the spasms of a cramping bowel to contractions and it was not comfortable AT ALL!!
Luckily it passed after a couple of hours, but it scared me enough that I didn't eat anything else for the rest of the day, apart from some dry crackers and some fruit. Not ideal when going through the marathon of labour as you desperately need energy, but hey, it was what it was.
By about 3pm the contractions were coming every 10 minutes and both Carl and I thought it wouldn't be long, so he popped round the corner to the shop to grab some supplies. Although I had told him to go, I think I got scared and I phoned my friend Caroline to pass the time. I sat on the sofa and calmed myself down, but this worked so well that I actually stopped my contractions!
Carl returned and his mum came over and suggested that I get in the bath to speed things up again. It worked a treat and soon they were coming thick and fast. By 8pm I was ready to go so we got evwrything together and headed for the hospital. I arrived at 9pm and by 10:30pm I was fully dilated.
At this point I don't know what happened but my contractions, although strong were not strong enough for me to work with them and push. I had to have a drip with Oxytocin to start everything working again. This took a little while and it wasn't until 3:42am that River was finally born.
He is one of only 5% of babies that actually arrive on their due date - so I am extremely proud of his punctuality!
The one thing that I was truly grateful for after the birth was the preparation I put into my diet and training my body for labour. I didn't tear and had only a small graze high up on the right hand side which I barely felt. This meant my recovery was literally a few days and within 10 days of giving birth I was back to gentle exercise.
13 days later I was back to a full workout with light kettlebells and dumbells.
14 days later I am back in my size 8 (UK) pre-pregnancy skinny jeans and I feel strong and have a lot of energy considering I'm barely getting 5 hours sleep a day. Breast feeding is going really well and apart from the soreness, I love it as it is such great bonding time with my baby.
If proof is in the pudding then this is it. If you would liek to learn more about my pregnancy training system then please head on over to the 9 month club to find out more.
