The birth part 1:

I was all booked in for my c-section (for reasons I may reveal in another post) on Wednesday the 15th March. Exactly one week before my due date. When I spoke to the consultant and effectively picked a day for my csection she said we could go all the way up to my due date, but I was nervous about going in to labour so we booked it for one week before. We didn’t tell people the date as I know people knowing would just make me feel more anxious because of the anticipation.

Monday 13th march:

I had been on Maternity leave for a few weeks frantically cleaning the house and ‘nesting’ and buying the final bits for the baby. Other than an overwhelming urge to make the house lovely for my baby I also knew that there would be lots of visitors coming round to meet him – and i’d be dammed if they saw my messy house and thought i was a mucky cow!

So by Monday morning I still had a long list of things I needed to do before baby arrived. And as we had missed bin day the previous week the kitchen bins were overflowing and the house was filthier than ever. Monday 13th march will be known forever more as mucus plug Monday. Yes first thing in the morning that yucky bad boy fell out (I blame the full moon). I didn’t freak out too much (thanks to my trusty NCT classes and a quick call to the midwife) I knew it could still be weeks till I went in to labour. I’d been having Braxton hicks on an off but they weren’t happening regularly enough and always stopped eventually. So I went about my day as normal, lunch with the NCT girls, cleaned the house, went to a late night baby first aid class and a cheeky quick dominos when we got home. 

Tuesday 14th March:

I’d had a god awful nights sleep…I was worrying about the csection an freaking out about the baby arriving. 

I got up and started trying to get ready, we had loads to do as it was the day before the csection was booked. And we were going to see a nursery, there are long waiting lists where we live and I wanted to sort it out early. Anyway I kept having the braxton hicks…every ten minutes, except this time they were accompanied by crippling back pain – like period back ache. Every ten minutes it would hit me like a wave, last about a minute, and I could just about speak through the pain or I would just sort of pant! 

Ironic really as I had always worried if I hadn’t gone in to labour I wouldn’t know what it felt like – and feel I’d sort of missed out (FOMO about labour pains….yeah I’m a dickhead…I know!).
Anyway I still didn’t think it was labour at this point it hurt but it wasn’t too unbearable. My mum convinced me to ring the hospital and ask and they told me to come in immediately. My hubby and I were laughing as we put the hospital bags in the car, I couldn’t possibly be in labour the day before my csection, the house was a mess, we still had loads to do, the kitchen was covered in fucking dominos boxes!

So we got to the hospital and went up to the labour ward, it was my first experience up there and I expected to hear labouring women screaming and midwives yelling push (I was sadly disappointed). They hooked me up to a heart monitor and examined me and yep I was in labour! So they said they would do my csection that day. Unfortunately we had to wait about 6 hours, because I had been a greedy cow and scoffed some breakfast before we left, and you can’t have food in your tummy during the csection. 

FYI the picture above is the picture me and my husband took just before Barney was born.