Sophie Jessica Anderson is born

Wow, what a last few days it has been for the Andersons. About 4 o'clock on Saturday the 30th Jan, Jessica starting getting contractions - and it went on and on so we knew we had a long night a head of us. As Sophie was already 12 days late, and Jessica was to get induced on the 31st - we were happy that baby came without any needed help!

At 7.00 we called the hospital and told them that Jessica was contracting every 5 minutes so they told us to come on over. We got there and the midwife took us in and gave Jess a sweep. Mid sweep the midwife blurted out that the baby hand was stuck by the head (apparently the just held her finger), the waters had burst and the she was 5 cm dilated. We get rushed up to the high risk unit as Jess had problems with her first birth with Cairyn.

So we are now in the labour suite and Jessica is on gas and air - puffing away evey 2 or 3 minutes. After another hour (about 9 o clock) she is beggining to feel quite sick - and also she beigins to talk some rubbish....definatley the gas and air talking. In the suite the midwife gave Jess this huge ball that she can sit on and bounce - apparently this helps her dilate quicker! So bouncing and contracting away for the next hour the midwife decides she will do a sweep. Now this time it was a different midwife who would do the sweep - and thank goodness! It turned out that her waters actually hadn't burst, the babies hand wans't stuck by the head and she was still only 5cm dilated! So we think the original midwife was talking nonsense. After the sweep the midwife decided enough was enough and burts the waters. Oh my goodness, Niagra falls.

Now with water pouring out Jessica every 10 minutes, she finally got the much sought after diamorphine which would take the edge off the pain. It worked fairly suddenly - but it also made Jessica extremely tired, so off she went to attempt to sleep...whilst having a contraction every two minutes. Gas and air being used through the whole time.

By midnight Jess was determined to get the baby out - up she got and started bouncing on the ball and walking about - and it worked. By about 00:50, there were really big sore contractions that lasted 3 or 4 minutes each. One at 00:55, one at 01:00, one at 01:05...so we shout for the midwife. She told Jessica to get on all fours - so Jess's head and shoulders were over the front of the bed. Midwife looked and said...babys head is getting ready to come out! Shaun panics!! Jessica is screaming!! Off Jessica goes, pushing...and Sophie head is out. Second push. Third push...then a series of 4 or 5 very small pushes...and plop! baby Sophie is just sitting there. No crying she made, just staring...thinking what an earth is going on. And that was that, I got to cut the chord. The midwifes did the necessary with Jessica over the next half hour - we won't go into details but lets just say she gave birth to a beautiful placenta.

We got the baby weighed and we all guessed, I said 9,1 - Jessica said 8,13 and the midwife thought 8,15. Sure enough Jess was right. Jessica took Sophie and she began feeding right away like a natural.

Eventually after much waitinga and extreme tiredness coming in we got to go upto the ward - this was about 5.30. I went off home and Jessica got an hour or two sleep but baby wanted mums attention.