it finally happened!!!!!

[Juicy Lucy]

hello ladies.

just thought i'd let you all know that when i posted 'a quick update' it turned out i was in early labour .

baby oliver william was born at 2.55am fri the 12th weighing inat a whopping 9lb 6oz (much bigger than my girls) i went into labour naturally, and laboured well at home as planned. the midwives came at about 9pm on the 11th and i got in the pool, and started with the gas and air a few hours later. unfortunately things started to go a bit wrong and at about 1.20am the midwives decided he was stuck (i'd been pushing over an hour) so i was taken to hospital in an ambulance and had an emergency cesarean. by the time they gave me the spinal block for the operation i'd been pushing for 3 hours! when he was born and we saw how big he was tho it kinda made sence.

all in all we're doing well, i'm still sore and tender but very happy to have a littlr man. the girls took to him lovely and hubby is chuffed to bits with him. ollie was weighed today, at 11 days old and is already 10lb 4oz! he never lost any weight as is normal after delivery. he's breast feeding well after having a minor proceedure on his tounge. (he was toungue tied and we went to the hospital a few days after we came out to have the stringie bit underneath his tounge cut so that he'd be able to b/f properly and to avoid developing a speech impediment when he's older).

will get hubby to post some pipccies for me as i'm a dunce and don't know how to do it!

[OffDutyNurse]

Congratulations JL!!!!!

Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh...Welcome to the world Ollie! You thought you could stay in there forever, and I don't blame you, but another few days, and you would have made Mummy go pop!

Please give him a big kiss and a cuddle from me!!!

Hope you're not too sore JL...rest up, and milk it, eh?xxxxx

[Amberdite]

Big congratulations I am so pleased and well done for trying to push him out 'ouch'...hope you are recovering well from the c-sec. Little boys rule (well I'm biased )

[ziggyfairy]

Ollie! I love it! What a lovely name! Congratulations to the proud parents - I'm so pleased for you, Juicy Lucy, and can't wait to see the photos!

XXX

[Cheryle]

CONGRATULATIONS JL!!! I love his name! Wish you a speedy recovery and tell your hubby to post pics soon!

[Juicy Lucy]

thank you very much girlies.

can't say i'm not pleased to have a little boy, it rounds the family off nicely as this is to be our last baby. he's such a little sweetie too, good as gold, doesn't cry much, feeds well (feeds alot!) and is happy to be cuddled loads. he seems to get lonely when he's put down so i've ordered a baby sling so i can carry him around with me and still do things. he's sleeping well at night, gets up for a feed then goes back down again without any fuss.

the cesarean was scary, it was my worst nightmare before it happened, but when it came down to it it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. it's just going to take a while to heal. hubby has a month off work and is being an angel. he's looking after the girls and doing all the house work. he even gets up in the night to get ollie out his crib and put him back again after he feeds to save me struggling.

feeling a very proud mommy just at the mo lol

[foolsgold]

Thats wonderful news JL. We are all so happy for you.

[Amberdite]

C-section is scary! But its the recovery afterwards that I found hard. It was about three weeks after the birth that I started to feel much better and then about week 9ish when I felt normal again. I think when you already have children you recover quickly because you have no choice. Its good that your husband is off four weeks as he can do all the chores and of course look after you! It's been nearly nine months now since my c-sec and I have to say my scar it's completely healed and you can hardly notice it at all and I have no overhang either, so I've been really lucky. So glad he arrived safely in the end, and my god it does go so quickly! Give him a big cuddle from me

[Juicy Lucy]

thank you very much foolsgold.

i totally agree with you amberdite. it's exactly two weeks today and i'm still really sore and tender and can't move around too well. i can walk about if i go slowly and don't go very far. with the girls i was up and running around by now, and i'm finding it really hard being slowed down like this. i can't do things for oliver too well, hubby has given him all his baths so far for instance, and i can't really do anything with my girls either. my youngest daughter is 22 months old and she's usually a real mommy's girl, but she's such a rough and tumble little thing that anytime she comes near me she hurts me so hubby is the one that is playing with her all the time so she doesn't feel too left out.

i'm lucky that my hubby is such a sweetie. he's taking really good care of us all and doing all the chores too. yesterday i came down with a stomach bug (thanks to my brother) and was really sick, which was hard work with breast feeding too, it really took it out of me. but he took the girls out of my way for much of the day so that i could sleep whenever ollie did.

the cut itself is looking really well, especially now the bruising has gone. and all the m/w's who've had a look at it say they did a really neat job on me so it shouldn't be noticable when its healed properly. as my pregnancy belly is going down tho i have noticed that i have an over hanging bit above the cut, which really worried me, but my m/w assured me it would go dowen in time. she had a c-section with her little boy last year and said her stomach looked the same. does it sometimes stay tho? i hadn't expected it at all and really don't know very much at all about cesareans and the after effects. i don't want to sound like i'm bragging (and i'm not honestly) but i never had any stretch marks, and after the girls i went back to my normal shape pretty much straight away, so i'm kinda upset about the fact i still look five months pregnant and have a funny lip over the cut. i just want to go back to being me again now.

[Amberdite]

Hi JL,

Hope you are starting to feel better now. If it is any help I still looked pregnant for some time after my c-section. I suppose it's all the swelling and not being able to move around like you would normally so you are burning less off. I remember felling elated that I didn't get any stretch marks either, then feeling very depressed that I was going to get a c-section mark across my lower tummy. When I got home I could only described myself as the 'bride of Frankenstein' and was in tears for weeks about my body. Well it does go and it does get better...not sure when my body returned now but nearly nine months later there is hardly a scar to be seen and I am now back into my size 10 clothes (although I didn't think that was possible looking at the size of me straight after the birth). It just takes a little longer after having a c-section, so don't get to upset and I bet you will be back to normal very soon. The only thing that I find - there is a numb strip across my scar where they cut the nerves and apparently that can be there for life. Anyway hope you are enjoying Ollie and that he hasn't been too much of a 'watering can' when you change his nappy

[ziggyfairy]

Hi Juicy Lucy! Was reading over your posts and they gave me the heeby-jeebies . . . maybe I'm not ready after all . . ! No, just kidding. Made me wonder though - having a caesarian sounds quite traumatic - why do all the celebrities want electiver caesarians if they take so much longer to recover from? Anybody know?

[Amberdite]

Hehehe Ziggy - I suspect they have a tummy tuck at the same time!!! Don't let our stories put you off - I would have 100 c-secs over again for my little boy and you will feel the same...apparently planned c-sections are much easier to get over as time is taken over cutting through the muscle. Still I would prefer a natural birth next time!

[Juicy Lucy]

ziggy, i wondered the same thing myself. it's hard, much harder than getting over a normal delivery and longer too. but i supose celeb types can afford to buy some help with the new baby and house chores and stuff. don't get me wrong, like amberdite said, it's worth it to have my little fella, i'd do it again in a heartbeat if that's what it takes. but given a choice i'd rather have my natural drug free labour, even tho it's harder to do at the time.

i am feling a bit better today amberdite, i just about managed to squash into my 'normal' jeans, so i think i can finally think about putting the maternity jeans away (and not have to go to the shops and get the next size up). admittedly tho these jeans are a twelve, and i had slimmed down to a 10 a few months before i found out i was preggers again, but it's a good start!! lol size 14 might have fit my around my tummy but would have been far to big everywhere else so i'm pleased i can get into these.

i'm not tooooooo worried about the scar, i think because the m/w's have all reasured me it will fade down to nearly nothing. so i'm hopefull they're right. the little over hang bit above seems to have gone down a tiny bit too. i was just worried i wouldn't look like myself anymore. up until a few years ago when i finally managed to quit smoking for good, i never went above 7 1/2 st (even after i had charlotte, my eldest) and i'm 5ft 8. i was glad to put weight on after i quit the ciggies (which is when i went from a size 8 to a 12) but had just about managed to balance out at a 10 which made me really happy. the way i was looking last week was really strange, i had a big jelly belly, boobs like rocks, and skinny legs! i still don't look anything like normal but i look a little less pregnant now. i'm gald (if that's the right way to say it?) that someone else at least felt that way too, and that's it's normal. it cheered me up and made me hopefull.

oh, and so far i've only been peed on twice lol and it only got on my hands. i remember from work tho that if your not carefull and not watching a little boy can easily pee on your head in a nappy change! i just don't think ollie is big enough to get the stream so high yet!