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 Amelia arrived at 4:31 on the 12th of April (Yuri’s Night).  She has a full head of black hair (for now at any rate). We aren’t sure what her length is but she was 7lbs and 9ozs.
 The birth itself didn’t go exactly as hoped, I won’t say planned because in all fairness these things just are not plan-able, but still went very well.  As it was, the birth plan I’d put together a number of weeks back which was pretty flexible anyway never got printed out! So when asked for it I said - I’ll just go with what happens.

  The first stage of labour started around 8:30pm on Thursday evening and at around 3:15am on Friday we arrived at the hospital with SRM (suspected rupture of membranes). In the end they determined that this was most likely the hindwaters going and as a result the waterbirth wasn’t going to happen. They also booked me for an induction for 6pm on the 12th all to prevent infection. At this point I was dialated to about 2cm.

Things progressed very slowly and we moved down to the ante-natal ward around 5am. We spent most of the day there with me hooked up to a CTG. Unfortunately during the course of the day the contractions stopped and things ground to a halt somewhat  so around 5:30pm on Friday we left so I could rest and get a shower. As luck would have it though not long after we set of back on the A603 the contractions started up again and I felt it on each and every pot hole and turn! We got home, had some pizza, and 2 paracetamol, for me, and I tried getting on all fours to coax the baby in to turning to the ideal anterior position. The feeling was at the hospital that with her not turned with her back to my front we weren’t getting the benefit of her head in the best position to work with the contractions. Things had, however, start up again without her having moved and around 10 or 11pm we were back and in delivery room 7 and there for the duration. In the end I managed to get through it all without anything other than some gas and air towards the end of the 1st stage mainly because the pain of the contractions was really taking its toll on my legs. I only had it for about an hour and boy did it make me feel funky… I felt like I had had a lot of champagne… 

Towards the end I had to have my waters broken and she did turn but she was beginning to flag a little (but perked up when the nice pedaediatrician arrived with the resuscitation crib) - so I had to have an episiotomy and to help in the end she was delivered by ventouse extraction. She came out quite literally kicking and screaming.Already a high achiever she managed a 9 and 10 in her Apgar scores ;-) 

 In all it took 25 hours and 59 minutes from start to finish.The first stage took 9 and a half hours. The delivery stage only took an hour and a minute. And the third a whole 8 minutes!

For the record I did not scream or yell at Jon a single time during the whole process. He came out bruise free and with no broken bones In fact I didn’t really yell until the pushing and then no vocalising and when asked to stop as it wasn’t helping me direct my energies I did ;-)  Now we are all at home getting settled in. The stitches aren’t bothering me much, but my arms are sore and stiff from bloods taken from inside the left elbow and having had a cannular in my right hand…

Last night was a bit fraught, but we did manage to get some sleep and  the community midwife visited this morning and helped me get on the right track with the breast feeding which was great as I really needed the guidance and she will be back again tomorrow; the support is very reassuring since as an only child I have no experience of babies at all!   

So… Yeah!

We ended up spending 2 hours at the maternity hospital this evening watching “Das Blinkenlights” while they monitored me because I thought that maybe perhaps my waters had broken a little.

No such luck… To top it off she hasn’t even engaged yet… Poot! But Jon was pleased to discover that the TVs in each of the patient bed areas had the Cartoon Network, so glad that he will enjoy his stay then when the time comes.

We came home via Baldock and the 24 hour Tesco and are now about to have some pizza.

At this rate I am now convinced that she’s going to go over dates and I’m going to go nuts due to the immobility and what not.

Not even the camera charger makes up for this :-p Although I did get alot of pieces photographed this afternoon.

Tomorrow I must deal with those dratted table runners…

The following maudlin post brought on by impending motherhood hormones….

This post is a tribute to my most avid and critical reader - critical in either sense of the word. At the moment she is at work while some of her students sit their Schol (Trinity’s Scholarship) Exams, so that she can get down to correcting them as soon as they have finished so that they are all done by this evening in case her first grand-child decides to turn up early. My parents live in Dublin, in Ireland and my mother hates flying - growing up hearing flying stories told by her father’s USAF colleagues will do that to you - so they will be taking the ferry and driving across from Holyhead. Although in this instance its my dad I feel sorry for as he will have to do the driving.

 My mum has had a huge impact on me. I can blame her for my need to have books - bookcases optional - in pretty much every room of my house. Thankfully my husband is an avid reader as well. Her music tastes have rubbed of on me, but then again my father is so amazingly tone-deaf there was no one else who was going to influence that. And she is the reason why I am so addicted to crafts.

Besides doing embroidery my mother quilts like I bead. Its compulsive, she buys fabric like I buy beads. I think there are plenty of crack dealers who chould realise that its probably much safer and profitable to switch to supplying sewing and beading supplies to middle-aged women.

I grew up in a house that had a sign in the kitchen that said:

She who dies with the most fabric wins. 

I think my mother is out near the head of the pack, if not leading it. I’m getting there with the beads -my husband would probably say that I won a long time ago.

Also for someone who has now lived in Ireland for longer than she did in the US and wouldn’t go back for anything, she seems to be currently doing her best to revive the flagging economy. Every evening when I chat to her on the phone, about what the baby’s been up to, whether I’ve blogged, what beady/crochet/knitting I’ve done she is generally online at the same time looking at or ordering fabric! And she hand sews everything!

My old bedroom which was refurbished just before I left home - they knocked the two back bedrooms together and put in  custom storage, is now a treasure trove of fabric and craft books ranging from embroidering miniature soft furnishings to Russian embroidery, Kaffe Fasset Needlework books and home and craft books from the 30’s and 40’s. (She also helps with an annual second hand book sale). I wonder if she was pleased a bit when I left home(finally at the age of 22, I lived at home though uni) because it gave her more room for books and fabric But she does admit to missing the fun of a new parcel of beads arriving and taking over the dining-room table.

So here’s to my mum, and I hope that Amelia will turn up soon so I can see her all the sooner.

No sign of babies last night, and instead of quietening down as expected with two and half weeks to go the little one in fact had her most active 15 minutes to date. It felt like she had about 16 arms and legs.

Jon is back to work today after a nice long weekend and I am sure that as much as he hates the commute to Canary Wharf I’m going hate it as much or more that he is back at work as I miss the company and conversations that aren’t one-sided and along the lines of:

“What’s that noise?”

“What are you into now?”

“That’s my lunch you are looking at!”

“Stop eating/licking plastic! I’ll feed you in a minute”

“Why must you knock your crinkle ball under the sofa, can’t you see I can’t bend over!”

Cats are never good company if you have thumbs and clearly aren’t making the most of them. Thankfully they are currently being good, and by that I mean relatively immobile as they are now napping off their breakfast.

Last night I started another blanket for the baby, again crochet, but I’m now doing a chevron stitch with the pale yellow and pale turquoise fuzzy DK from the giant stash of wool. I’ve only got about 3 rows done so far but hope to get some more done this afternoon once I’ve finished off the curtains. I will probably treat myself to putting my feet up and Shakespeare’s Retold Taming of the Shrew - seeing Rufus Sewell in drag always cheers me up!

The plan for tomorrow is then table runners and hopefully my new microphone will have arrived and I can finally record my LibriVox chapters…

But on a happier note (no, still no charger) our new washing machine will arrive on Friday! Hurrah!

Having Jon home for a long weekend meant that he could experience the rattly noise it made when in the spin cycle… Which to him sounded like the house was about to fall down. And given that his hearing isn’t the best as he still is only wearing one of his aids, is quite good so there was no resistance to replacing the five year-old and now out of warranty washer-dryer, which no longer  dries either. So on Friday the John Lewis man will deliver a nice shiney new Miele (Jon was suitably impressed by the Miele vacuum that we bought  about 6 weeks ago) and take way the old clapped out Hotpoint.

And then all my excuses to not do laundry will have vanished…