March 12th @ 11pmWe realised that we would be giving birth in the next 12 hours as Petra was having consistent contractions and had wanted to put the Tens machine on which send's pulses to release the endorphines as you are having the contractions and off we went to bed knowing that our baby would be born soon.
As with Maxwell we had always planned on having a home birth and at 2am on Weds 13th March Petra woke me to say her contractions were stronger and that we should go downstairs and call the midwife, so we set up in the lounge as we didnt want to wake Maxwell and if it was during the day had arrangements for a friend to take Max for the day.
3am and the first midwife Lisa turns up and checks Petra over and brings in the multitude of boxes that she could need containing equipment and also mediacal equipment if the birth turns difficult and with a home birth for anyone that does not know there is always an ambulance ready and waiting if there are any complications. So every few minutes I am called into action to rub her back (something I learnt with the first birth that needs to be done on EVERY contraction) and generally make sure she has everything she needs and let Lisa sort out the rest and at that point we were 5cm dilated needing to get to 10cm for any of the youff who dont know these things yet.
445am and the 2nd midwife appears which is standard once you reach established labour and at this point the lounge resembles a battlefield with everything re-arranged and kit everywhere and Petra was now going through the "not feeling I can do it stage" so a bit of a motivational talk about how well she was doing and a few Jelly babies and off we wnt again.
At this point we knew we were close and as Maxwell wakes somewhere between 6-7am I called my Mum to see if she could come earlier than she noramlly does when having Max on a Weds and be with us for 7am and within a very short space of time we went from not being able to see the head or it being 50p's worth of view to within a few minutes the head being out and then 1 push later the baby being out and as we didnt know the sex of the baby (you dont get many big surprises in life boys!!) the 15-20 second wait whilst the quickly clean the baby and make sure she is ok and tell you the sex and our beautiful baby girl Ivy Jarka Blacklock was born weighing 7lb 6oz.
Here she is a few hours after the birth
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and we didnt know how Max would take to her but explained a lot over the past weeks how Mummy was having a little baby and tried to keep him involved as much as possible and as he woke up we were actually giving birth so an hour or so later once the place had been tidied up and Petra was ready we introduced him to her and he calls her Bab although can now say her name and he is completely enamoured by her wanting to see her whenever he can and hold her as these show.
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Finally one of me with Ivy from the past few days
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9428/ivy1.jpg[/img]]| Click to see full-size image. |
both Petra and Ivy are doing really well and whilst babies normally lose a small amount of weight in their first few days especially the ones who are breatfeeding (in before Girgy) Ivy had gained weight after 5 days and is now getting into a good sleep pattern with Petra only being up twice a night for the past few nights. I go back to work properly next Weds after taking 2 weeks holiday to be off, I say take 2 weeks holiday but I negotiated at the start of the year for them to give me an extra 2 weeks this year as taking Paternity leave costs me money and they agreed which was nice of them so for the past 10days I have been in every other day and bought Max in for a few hours just catching up on stuff and helping out.
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