One-Push Baby

This little baby girl just couldn't wait to get out.

Being pregnant with my second baby, I felt more mentally prepared than the first time. I was sure it was going to take a long time, but then it happened so quickly that my husband nearly missed it.

One of my fears before the birth was that I would had to be induced. My friends and google had warned me about the strong pain that comes with this. "Even more painful than a regular birth", they said. That does not sound good. Still, as I had low blood platelets, inducement is what happened.

Here I am, right before going into the hospital to be induced and very scared.

The Inducement

I came in to get the inducement, and step one was to get a gel inserted at 5 pm. They told me I had to wait 24 hours for this to work, and then they would check me again the next day.

I had to stay in the hospital over night, and close to hospital grounds at all times but I was allowed to go across the street so me and my husband went for dinner at an Italian restaurant on Fulham Road. I had a lovely guilt free pasta with extra cheese, was jealous of my husbands beer and felt no effect of the gel. We then went to the cinema in the hospital, and then I went to bed and my husband went home to sleep and be with our toddler who was waiting at home with the au pair.

The Pain

At this point I was alone in a cubicle in a sleeping dorm room in the hospital, which I shared with a group of other more or less moaning women. At first I was relaxing and trying to sleep, and then I felt some pains sneaking in. As it got worse, I walked back and forth across the room and leaned over my bed to manage. I thought it was just the very beginning and would still be hours and hours, so I didn't call the nurse.

After a few hours of this getting worse, I texted my husband and rang the bell. The nurse came, but she saw me in between two contractions, so she didn't realise the level of pain I was in. She assured me she would be back with something to soothe my pain. After what felt like an eternity later, she came back and took one look at me before she said "oh, ok you need something stronger than paracetamol" which she was carrying in her hand. My husband then came rushing in, I had called him 12 minutes earlier as my text didn't wake him up and he had raced to Chelsea from Wimbledon.

I was now in so much pain I had trouble lying still for my check-up that the nurse wanted to do on me. She was starting to realize the acuteness of the situation, and sounded stressed as she asked me to remove my underwear so she could check me. I just declared I was out of shape to move at all, as my body felt like a big cramp. My husband, who was standing beside me holding my hand, started to move towards the bags we had packed with the tense-machine, he thought he could manage this to soothe the pain. On the way over there as he was walking past the bed and turned his head towards me, ha saw the baby's head. "No time for tense-machine", he concluded. Then he ran into the hall and got everyone there to come.

Next thing I knew there was a group of people in front of me, and a lady said, "ok next time you feel a contraction, you push!" I then felt a wave rush through my body and the baby came out in one push, a push I didn't actually manage myself, it was like my body took charge of the situation. And just like that, the baby was out.

I was in total shock, as I am sure the other poor women in the room trying to sleep and manage through their earlier stages of labour also were. The people at the hospital said it was a record-fast baby.

The girl who came fast was named Emma Victoria and she was absolutely perfect.