IT'S A BOY! IT'S A BOY! IT'S A BOY!

Kian Rhys Nelder

Kians Godparents :- Auntie Bev, Auntie Tammy & Uncle Craig

SUNDAY 11th MAY 08

Today Kian Rhys Nelder was Christened at Wesley Methodist Chursch at 10.30am and he was a little angel. He was so good love him. So was Curtis & Sophie. All our babies did us proud. Kian slept through most of it and when he did wake towards the end, he just sat on my lap playing with his feet. He looked so lush in his outfit. So handsome. He's been so much happier these last 2wks its gonna be a real shame to take him Thursday for his 2nd lot of jabs. I'm so dreading it. At least for once Den's gonna be doing the dirty dead - about time! Kian's almost 14wks old....... Its going so fast its scary. He's a real mammy's boy and loves attention. He's always in bed by 7pm and sleeps through the night. He's such a good boy for his mammy.

MONDAY 20th APRIL 08

My little boy has changed so much. He absolutely loves you to talk to him and will look you straight in the face waiting for you to give him some attention so he can tell you stories and give lots of smiles. Kian's not been very well this past week, he's had a viral infection and has had trouble breathing through his nose love him. I think he's gonna be a mamma's boy cos he loves a cuddle with his mammy and likes to snuggle in like when i was breast feeding. There are still times i really wish i could have done it for longer cos i miss it. Den was feeding him his bottle the other morning and he leaned right over his arm as he was drinking so he could see me and watched me everywhere i went. lol He's even started playing with my hair as he's falling asleep. Its so sweet. He's starting to really enjoy his bathtime. He wasn't too sure about the big bath at first but now he kicks and splashes! He also loves you to blow 'raspberries' on his tummy and neck and will really chuckle when you do. He gets a bit shocked when he really laugh's and frowns as if he's thinking 'wow what was that!!' lol He's so funny! We've also discovered a ticklish spot at the top of his legs which is so cute! We went shopping last Thurs and bought him a lush outfit for the Christening. He's gonna look so handsome on the day. I can't believe Kian's almost 11 weeks. I can't imagine ever living without him. We're starting baby massage this Thurs. Not sure how its gonna go cos Kian hates being cold and isn't too fussed on being on his tummy but it should be fun. Its only a 4 week course.

WEDNESDAY 9th APRIL 08

Kian laughed for the 1st time today. It was so unexpected cos he was a little grizzly after his jabs, but Den was blowing raspberry's on Kian's tummy and first he really smiled and then he laughed. It was so sweet and Den was over the moon that he done it 1st with him. Taking him for his injections was awful and i'm deffinately taking someone with me next month. When she gave him his 1st jab he cried but when she did the 2nd in his other leg he went mad. He screamed and screamed and screamed love him, even when i had dressed and put him back in his car seat he was still crying. He made his mammy feel so guilty. I gave him some calpol before i left the surgery and he slept most of the day. It was such a shame cos he was in such a good mood beforehand. While i was waiting for the doc to call Kian, he was smiling loads and telling tons of stories. He had all the staff and some other mums in stitches laughing at him. He wasn't smiling when he came out though!! He now weigh's 11lb 5 1/2oz, is 57cms long and passed his medical check-up. He's still having drops in his bottles and is so much happier for it. He has a bedtime of about 7.30/8pm and normally sleeps til 2/3am has a feed and goes back to sleep til about 6am when he wakes for another feed and will usually go back again. He loves his big brother & sister. When they talk to him he tells them stories and smiles and they get so excited. He seems to be growing up much faster than Curtis & Sophie. His 0-3mth clothes won't be fitting him for long and i've just had to buy new babygro's in 3-6mths cos he's long and the 0-3 are just fitting. We have decided to get Kian Christened. The church is booked for 11th May @ 10.30am. I've booked a caterer so i don't have to mess about cooking tons of food and the cake is all ready to order about 1 week before. I'm gonna go shopping on the weekend for a Christening outfit for him. He's gonna look so lush. I really need to get motivated now and loose about 1 stone.

TUESDAY 25th MARCH 08

I LOVE the picture above of Kian smiling. I'm getting it enlarged to go on my wall. He's such a different baby now. The Colief has been worth every penny and his colic is much better. He's such a happy content little boy and is so much pleasure to be around. He's no where near as unsettled in the evenings and is sleeping longer in the nights. He now drinks 5oz of formula every 3-4hrs and is having 1 breast feed a day. He loves you to talk to him and smiles alot now. He tells his mammy lovely 'stories' and enjoys a good kick about on his mat without his nappy on. I love him ssooo much. I've really noticed that his face is filling out and he's losing his newborn look. He's also gone very long bodied all of a sudden and some of his clothes suddenly don't fit. I had his appointment through this morning for his 8wk check-up and jabs and i'm absolutely dreading it. Its April 9th @ 9.15am. I hope he doesn't cry too much cos it makes me feel so guilty. I'll have to give him extra cuddles afterwards!!

BIRTH STORY

HE'S HERE! 9 DAYS LATE BUT SO WORTH IT. HE IS SO PERFECT! His birth turned out to be nothing like i'd planned at all but the best delivery i've ever had. My contractions started around 8pm Tues 5th, and stayed regular every 5mins. Around 10.30pm we phoned the hospital and they sent a midwife out called Tracy, but when she examined me i hadn't made any more progress than my sweep that morning. She stayed a while, then said to give her a ring if i felt i needed her to come back, then she left . So i had a hot bath which seemed to bring them stronger and they were coming every 3mins so about 4am we called her back only to discover i still hadn't made any progress. I was still only about 2 cms dilated very posteria and not effaced at all. We were so disappointed, especially as the contractions felt quite strong. So i had another bath and Den tried to get some sleep as there was no point us both being shattered, but around 7am they started to space out and became irregular, so we went up to bed and tried to get some sleep. The contractions continued. They were all over the place but never completely stopped at any point and when i did have one they were quite strong.

The contractions continued all day Wed and around 7pm i spoke to my midwife who said she'd pop out and see what was happening so we knew where we were for the night. I'd had the odd leak from my waters with a few of the contractions so we were hoping it was a good sign. Again i was examined and had made absolutely no progress. I was gutted! She gave me a good sweep and said she could stretch me to a 4 but it didn't mean alot cos i was still very thick and posteria and baby was still very high up. After she left i had another bath and my contractions felt stronger but were still irregular. I tried to eat but felt sick and was getting very tired from not really sleeping since Mon night. Around 10pm i had another bath cos it was the only way to get some relief from the pain. Den kept asking if he should phone the midwife back but i didn't see the point and decided to try to go to bed and get some sleep but got back up again in the end because i was hurting so much. I really didn't know what to do with myself at this point. Nothing i tried helped.

In the end, around 12pm i decided to ring the hospital. Not for them to come out but to see if there was anything at all they could suggest i did to help with the pain. I spoke to a really nice midwife called Jane and had 3 contractions whilst talking to her and she thought it was a good idea to send someone out cos she could tell i was in alot of pain and that they were lasting well over a minute. Eleanor arrived about 1am and she was fantastic. She really listened to me, but said she thought being examined so often was making me worse and she didn't think i would have made that much progress from what i'd told her as the contractions were still all over the place but very strong when i did have them and lasting over a min every time. She said she'd go with whatever i wanted. So... i asked if she would just examine me to confirm i hadn't made any progress and then i'd try another bath to see if they would ease off. So she did. She said i was now 3cms but baby was still very high and i was still not effaced. She did check the baby internally and we discovered the baby was lying facing my spine which is where it should be but had its head tilted up instead of its chin on its chest which was why i wasn't progressing cos there was no pressure on my cervix that way. So Den went to run me a bath and she said she'd just listen in on the baby. When she did we all realised quite quickly that the baby's heartbeat sound alot slower than it normally did which none of us liked. He recovered afterwards and sounded great but she suggested ringing the Heath hospital for advice which i also wanted. They suggested i went in to be monitored and said as i was contracting they wanted me to arrive by ambulance. So things suddenly took a huge turn around. Den emptied the bath and rushed to get my sister to sit with the kids, an ambulance was called and i had enough time to grab a bag, throw a few extra bits in it and put my dressing gown and slippers on.

By 2.40am on Thurs we had arrived at the hospital and taken straight to my room. It was funny cos i'd spent the last 48hrs in slow labour and a 10-15min ride in an ambulance seemed to kick start my contractions and finally they became regular. I was hooked up to a monitor and given gas and air which was such a relief. Den was amazing all the way through and never left my side. He helped me get through each contraction and kept me focused. The baby's heartbeat now sounded great and after a while i was able to come off the monitor and get up off the bed which was good. They decided to wait until about 5am before giving me an internal because i hadn't that long been checked.

5am came and i was examined and was so pleased to hear i was 5-6cms dilated, thinned out and deffinately now in established labour. She asked if i wanted her to break my waters to speed things up but i said no cos i was coping so well with just gas and air. She said we'd have a baby before she finished which was 7am. I continued to labour with Den's support and started to get the urge to push so she told me to go ahead with what my body was telling me, but after a while she asked me to get up onto the bed so she could examine me as baby wasn't coming down and discovered i was still only 8cms and thats where my labour stalled.

After that is a bit of a blur! Apparently, Den tells me the midwife asked me if she could break my waters to which i agreed. I certainly don't remember this and would never have agreed to it if i had been cos i would have known what it would mean and thats exactly what happened - my contractions became overwhelmingly stronger and were coming on top of each other and i wanted so so bad to push. Every contraction Den and the midwives were trying to encourage me not to push but it was so overwhelming and i was in excruciating pain. I remember agreeing to an epidural to try to control the pushing but it took 1hr and a half for the anethestist to arrive by which time i had now made it to 9cms with just gas and air, but baby was still very high up and in no hurry to come down. The epidural wasn't as good this time. It felt like an eternity to start having any effect because i was so far gone. When it did start to work i was numb on one side and in excruiating pain on the other half of my body so he had to come back twice to up the dosage and eventually it started to work. I was in such a state by now. Poor Den looked white as a sheet and shell shock when i eventually opened my eyes for the first time in about 2hrs. I don't know what i would have done without him. He was so amazing and talked to me constantly to try to keep me focused. I can't help thinking though, if they had left me alone and hadn't broken my waters i would have coped alot better. Before that i was coping with the contractions and was ok using just the gas and air and the feeling of wanting to push wasn't overwhelming so i could have just breathed through each contraction instead of pushing.

Once the pain had gone things were alot better but my blood pressure suddenly dropped so i had doctors in trying to correct that, and then baby's heartbeat started dropping again after contractions so they were keeping a very close eye on that too. They examined me about 10am and i was fully dilated but baby was still high so they told me they'd wait an hour before pushing. About 11am they got ready for the birth. I got comfortable, Den got the camera and held my hand. The midwife moved my legs out of the way cos they were numb and at 11.15am i started pushing. The baby was still a little high but when i pushed he came down. It was an amazing delivery and so controlled. There was no rush and i was able to half push half breath him out. His head came out nice and slow. We waited for him to turn and for my next contraction and his body came just as slow and after 12 minutes of pushing KIAN RHYS was born at 11.27am weighing 7lb 6oz (Thurs 7th Feb 08). They put him straight on my skin which was amazing to feel. Den cut the cord and he didn't cry for very long just lay on me amazingly looking for my breast. He fed for 45mins before he was even weighed. He looks the spitting image of Curtis. Big brown eyes, lots of dark hair. He's perfect!! I didn't tear at all so no stitches. I thought i would have been so disappointed not having my home water birth but i wouldn't change anything. He's a natural at breast feeding and his big brother and sister love him to bits.

MY DUE DATE @ 40 WEEKS