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Bethan Rose Sex: girl Born: 24 October, 1999 Age: 8 years & 359 days Birthday in: 6 days Starsign: Scorpio Development: See the 32 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

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Kate Lily Sex: girl Born: 14 October, 2003 Age: 5 years & 3 days Birthday in: 362 days Starsign: Libra Development: See the 32 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

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Erin Iris Sex: girl Born: 11 October, 2008 Age: 0 years & 4 days Birthday in: 361 days Starsign: Libra Development: See the 0 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

Birth details

Original due date: 08/10/2008
Type of delivery: Vaginal (without pain relief)
Duration of labor: 3 hours
Weight @ birth: 8lbs, 5ozs
Length @ birth: 50cms

Erin Iris`s birthstory

Friday 10th October had been a day pretty much like any other - I took the girls to school, did a few jobs at home and collected them at 3.30pm when they finished. We took a somewhat stressful walk from school to the Church hall for Kate's ballet and tap dance lessons, and then home for 5.30. Had some dinner, watched a little bit of tv, read to the girls and they went to bed at about 9.30pm.

I still had a few jobs to do and then decided that I must get the ironing done, which I started at about 11pm. I just felt it would be good to get all of the school uniform ironed just in case our baby was born over the weekend, so that we would be ready for Monday!! At about 11:45pm I was still ironing and had a couple of strange pains. It felt like I needed the toilet, so headed for the bathroom and as I had a #2 thought that was all it was! I was thirsty so had a beer (alcohol free) and then Antony and I went to bed at 12:15am

I only managed 15 minutes in bed! Antony fell asleep immediately and was snoring and I had a couple of strong pains that felt like BH contractions. I switched on the computer to see if I could find the contraction timer site, and started timing them. The first two lasted about 90 seconds and were 7 minutes apart, then they decreased in length of time, but got closer together (about 4 minutes apart). By this time it was 2am, so I logged on to this site for some (timely) advice:

sparklyval - 3 days ago
HELP! It is 2am here in the UK and I have been having contractions for about an hour that are so painful it is hard to breathe properly. They last about 45 seconds and come about every 4 minutes. This is my 3rd baby and I should know what to do, but I don't know whether to wake up my DH. We would have to get his parents to come and sit with the children and I don't want to wake up the world unless I need to. How long do I wait?

carolinagirl4cmb - 3 days ago
Spark, I say it is time for you to wake dh.....lol.
sparklyval - 3 days ago
Hell - that's what I thought to. Boy am I gonna be Mrs unpopular if it is all a false alarm. Thankyou for responding x
sparklyval - 3 days ago
Best go! DH awake now (and not v happy!) Hope I get a baby now! LOL (grinning through the pain)

So I woke up Antony at 2am and he wasn't all that impressed, pretty tired and not very with it! I asked him to call his mum and dad as I didn't think that I would be able to speak through the contractions. He rang, but somehow got cut off and it took for what seemed like forever for him to get hold of them. Luckily they live nearby so his Dad set off straight away for our house and was here by 2:30am.

We got in the car immediately and started to drive to the hospital. By this point my contractions were coming only 3 mins apart and lasting about a minute. I had to ask Antony to drive carefully because all of the bumps in the road made the pain much worse! We arrived at the hospital at 3am, paid for car parking and tried to find the way in to the maternity unit!! First door we got to was for the ante-natal unit, which clearly wasn't what we needed! There was an electronic door entry buzzer next to the main door, so Antony pushed the button and a lady asked if she could help. I think by this point panic had set in as my contractions were only 2 mins apart and getting stronger! It was very comical as Antony said in his big man's voice 'its Valerie Daniels'. The lady asked if we had phoned to say we were coming and he said 'no', and I think he implied that I may be in labour. She let us in the door and we were confronted by the lifts with about 9 floors to choose from. We just didn't have a clue which floor to go to, so we tried the 2nd floor which was in complete darkness!! The lights came on luckily at this point and a Midwife came running down the stairs to ask if I was Valerie!! She pressed the button for the lift and took us to the top floor, which is where the delivery rooms are!

According to my notes it was just after 3am when the Midwife started assessing me. She checked the baby's heartbeat which was about 130bpm, my pulse, temperature, blood pressure etc. and felt which position the baby was laying in. She also felt my tummy to see how strong and long the contractions were lasting. She asked me if my waters had broken and I said no they hadn't. I do remember asking if she was going to give me an internal examination and she said yes, she would do so. She asked if I had a birth plan, which I did vaguely (see what happens!!) and suggested I get changed into a gown. I was struggling with the pain a bit by this point (I think it was about 3:20am) so she showed me how to use the gas and air if I needed it. I tried it and used it with some contractions, but it made me light headed and dizzy and somehow seemed to be a distraction, so I only used it from time to time.

At this point I had to get up on to the bed, which was a bit difficult as I was really hurting by now and she checked me internally. According to my notes she gave me an internal examination at 3:42am which caused my rear waters to break, although the fore waters remained intact. Even the midwife seemed surprised to find that I was 9cms dilated. Antony and I were completely shocked and I had to double check that she was being serious.

Things seemed to happen so quickly after this point. The midwife told me that she was getting another person in to assist her and she started rushing to get out all the things she might need for the baby coming. The other lady that came in to help accidentally cut her finger so she had to rush out again and was replaced by someone else. I was fully dilated at 3:46am. The midwife told me that I would probably feel like I needed to go for a #2 and not to worry that it would mean it was time for the baby to come. That is exactly how I felt!! I was so embarassed that I was going to poo all over the bed!!

At 3:47am I started feeling the need to push. With the first big contraction I pushed and the baby's head crowned, but went back up again. Next time I pushed much harder and managed to deliver the baby's head. With the third big contraction I pushed again and baby Erin was born at 3:51am. It then took another 9 minutes to deliver the placenta, and by 4am everything was over!

The baby and I were checked over. I had a slight tear but thankfully no stitches were needed. Baby Erin was absolutely fine

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