It was the most relaxed labour of the four I've been through. Just backache during the afternoon (10 days before my due date) which didn't feel right but certainly didn't feel like labour.
However number two arrived extremely quickly, think minutes, so I decided to get checked out plus I'd had a monster headache the night before.
We had car issues as ours had decided to set on fire the weekend before. I rang the husband whose immediate reaction was 'well the new car is on the ramps with no doors on'. I honestly can't remember how I got to the hospital but I do know that my mum was involved because she babysat the older two.
At the hospital I was monitored and told my blood pressure was high but that was maybe because things were happening. A couple of hours went by and I used the gas and air thing with the midwife popping in from time to time. She brought a student doctor with her on her last visit and as I said I needed to push she pushed the emergency buzzer because his heartbeat was way down and he was coming out with a double wrap of the cord around his neck. By the time the emergency had been answered he was born and due to the skill of the midwife he was ok.
As soon as I saw him I knew he was only small as he didn't feel much bigger than son number 1 born 6 weeks prem and 4lb 12 two years before. Turns out son number 2 was exactly a pound heavier. Luckily I still had some prem sized baby clothes from my older son so they had a second use. They didn't get much of a third use when son number 3 came along in 2004 as he was normal sized.
Anyway that's when my problems started. My baby was really good and passed all the health stuff they do in hospital but I didn't. My blood pressure was still high with no sign of going down so we had to stay in a couple of days. It was still high when I came home that Sunday but they were going to send somebody to check it frequently. By the check on Tuesday it was way too high so back we went to hospital for a few more days to get it settled back down with medication and frequent checking.
They reckoned the headache the night before I went into labour was pre eclampsia and it had taken a while for my bp to settle.
Eventually things settled and we were allowed home again and life as a family of five rather than four began.
Fourteen years later he has certainly made up for being small at birth. All three sons decided to be measured recently and he is now 5ft 11 and growing like a weed so will most likely end up well over six foot tall. His older brother was a scrap at 4lb 12 and when I measured them he was just a whisker short of 6ft 3 at 16.
Various health issues have caused problems and will always be with him for the rest of his life but he has so many positives the main one being that he comes out with some cracking one liners any comedian would be proud of.
Enough of my waffle. Happy birthday young man.
1 comment:
What an interesting post ...so well written ...may I add my birthday wishes to the handsome young man.
Post a Comment