Baby News from J&N

Just a quick note: Ellinor (aka Elly Belly Jelly Bean) was born at 1:46pm in Doncaster Royal Infirmary. She didn't want to come out - in the end both forceps and ventouse were used. Nicky pushed for all she was worth but Elly did *not* want to come out.

She's got a good pair of lungs, brown hair, and looks like Nicky. Bless.

Nicky's breast-feeding her now. I think Nicky will post something at some point, but she's totally exhausted.

I should learn to spell. That should be Ellinor (sorry!!!!)

Elinor Ann Rowbottom, born 13:46 10/2/2002, 7lb 11oz, Doncaster. Needless to say the parents are very proud. I'm sure Joel will have more info later.

Nicky's now fully dilated, and has been instructed to push in 30 mins.

Next IE will be around 2pm. Lump is kicking the sensors for the monitor, so we know it's back to its usual self...

Consultant just came and took a look at Nicky - nice old-school type chap. She's done ace - dilated to 7cm, so it looks like it's going to be a normal birth! We both keep dozing off, and Nicky's starving but isn't allowed anything except water... but she's feeling a lot better.

Just spoken to the midwife. If Nicky hasn't made much progress by the next IE at 11am (sooner if the consultant arrives), then they'll review the options, including the hypothetical caesarian. There will be a paediatrician at the birth to do various bits with resuscitation and suction and things, so that's cool. And it's not as if it's a horrid room for these things either - top marks to DRI Women's Hospital for that.

Nicky's been having contractions all while she's been asleep, which indicates both the induction gunk and the epidural are working well. Angie seems happy, although she's a bit miffed with the machine not recording contractions as well as it should.

She also told me it's very rare for there to be problems with the muconium stuff, so not to worry.

Nicky's waking up now, so I'm not going to write as much until it gets quieter.

Chris just sent me the following: 'Hartmanns, salty water basically, used to replace electrolytes and fluid.' So there you go.

Shift change with the midwife, we've got a lovely lady by the name of Angie now. Nicky has had her second epidural injection after the pain was coming back, and a second IE established that she'd only dilated to 4cm. It's meant to be 1cm an hour, apparently.

Oh, what they don't tell you about the mobile epidural is that the opiate in it causes a hell of a lot of itching. Wet towels agogo, and some pills which the first midwife gave Nicky.

Poor girl, she's totally exhausted - unsurprisingly she's asleep at the moment while the monitor is on her and the syntocinon dose is administered more, plus something called 'Hartmann's Solution', whatever that is. Baby heart rate appears reasonably constant anyway. Pity I can't say that about her moods - it's totally true what they say about women in labour, reason and niceties go completely out of the window! I was really at a loss as to what to do, how to calm her, and in the end I just sat back and watched while I got shouted at for staring and smiling. Now I just stare at the telly and await instructions!

We're awaiting a consultant to visit anytime now - they start their rounds at 8am.

The hospital radio outside is playing 'Everybody Hurts'. I wish it wasn't.

OK, past 6 hours has not been too much fun. Contractions weren't getting any closer, or any stronger, so midwife did an IE at the hospital. Turns out there is muconium in the womb, which indicates the baby has been in some distress, plus the cervix was only 3cm dilated at 1am, and also at 3am - so in order to speed up the process the midwife and doctor decided to pump Nicky with some syntocinon via a drip.

Contractions started getting heavier and *very* painful around 4am, so we discussed pain control options and Nicky eventually decided on a mobile epidural. Anaesthatist was called, and Nicky got the epidural in her back at around 5am - she's now back to being her normal self and sitting up in bed reading a magazine as I write this.

Midwife has just been in and increased the syntocinon dose. Nicky's been on the baby_heartbeat and uterus monitor for most of the night now, and I'm running out of change for the coffee machine. Night-time telly is really shit.

More when I get chance, and of course when things change.

Nicky just called. They are currently on their way into hospital. Nicky's contractions are now about 5 mins apart and according to Nicky "They fucking hurt".

Heavy contractions - very quick note. Every 5 mins.

A damn good night's sleep - Nicky woke up about 20 minutes ago, she's a bit down in the dumps and sick of it all now. A few contractions 5 minutes apart, but I think we're going to go and have a potter around Doncaster and try and kick-start things again, and perhaps relax Nicky some more.

A walk up the road did precious little - sprog still refusing to budge. Going to bed to see if anything shifts during the night.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh, they've bloody stopped again! Sod this, we're off for a walk to the pub to try and kickstart things with a gin'n'tonic...

Well, I wish we had something to report, but contractions are still around 5 minutes apart! We're thinking about going for a bit of a walk to try and jimmy things up, but it's raining...

Contractions still about 5 minutes apart. We went for a walk earlier to revive them, after they started to get a bit quieter. Now back with a /real/ vengeance. (incidentally, server was down earlier, back now).

Still about 5 minutes apart. Nicky's gone to try and sleep for a bit while the contractions are relatively pain-free, on the basis that there won't be much time for sleep later. Me, I'm feeling exhausted already.

Contractions still about 5 minutes apart, but not strong. We've phoned Doncaster Infirmary who now have our notes to hand, and have said to go in when they get painful. Doing a lot of back-rubbing!

Nicky just woke me up - after a good night's sleep for both of us, contractions are down to between 5 and 10 minutes apart.

Contractions steadied out at about 20 minutes apart. Off to bed to try and catch some shut-eye.

Contractions are back, getting down to about 20-25 minutes apart.

Few more contractions at 1810, 1850, 1920, 1940. Nicky's in the bath now to try and counteract the back-pain.

Back aching, hurting quite a bit, I occasionally have to rub Nicky's back with essential oils. Possibly another bath later - we've had a couple of people say that the backache could be the onset of labour although after all the false alarms so far we're not counting chickens ;)

Nicky's up - back hurting like hell, described as 'really heavy period pain'. Alleviated with one of those vibrating back-massage thingies (no jokes please). Worried.

This information is also available by finger status@wife.joel.co.uk