Squidgy's birth story was a fast first birth; and Pickle's birth story was an unplanned induction. Munchkin decided turn up two weeks early, keen to meet us all! Here's how our son arrived in the world.

Monitoring

On Friday 7th February I went into hospital. Munchkin's movements had changed as early contractions began to pick up a bit. Not long before midnight I was admitted, given heat pads and pain relief and told to get some sleep. Sleep was hard to come by, and by 5am I was desperate for some relief from the pain (as the codeine wasn’t really cutting it!) and asked for a bath.

Waiting for baby

After my bath I begged for them to check what was going on, as the pains were worse and I was really beginning to struggle. Before the midwife could even check how dilated I was, however, my waters broke and flooded the bed! At 6:30am on Saturday 8th February I made the call to John that he needed to come in, as Munchkin was on his way. I was only 3cm dilated; so they told me I had 24 hours to get into active labour or they would need to induce. Now it was just a waiting game to see when he would make an appearance.

Back to the ward

Sadly things didn’t progress and I was moved back to the maternity ward. Once there I paced the corridors, bounced on the birthing ball and cried: a lot. Things didn’t seem to want to move on, and yet the pain was so bad. I kept being told off for getting out of bed, but I couldn’t sleep and laying down was the worst position. At 5:30am on Sunday 9th February I begged for another bath. The bath didn’t help, and the pain was so bad I'm not afraid to tell you I just screamed myself hoarse. They decided to do another examination and finally I heard the words, “you're in labour, he'll be here soon!” followed closely by being passed the gas and air (which works wonders!)

Meeting our son at last

I called John to come and join me and was given an epidural. This epidural was so different to the one I had for Pickle (which left me unable to feel a thing from the chest down!). It was localised to my pelvic area, and I continued to feel pressure, and the need to push without any pain. I pushed Munchkin out quietly, calmly and without any help (apart from the occasional hand squeeze from John and the amazing midwives telling me how well I was doing). At 11:30am he was finally in the world and placed in my arms. 8lbs7oz of perfection.

Munchkin's birth was amazing. Each NHS staff member I saw was second to none, including the awesome student midwife who delivered him. The whole experience was quite healing for me (particularly after two very different, very hard, slightly traumatic births to bring the girls into the world).

Baby's first outfit

Meeting his sisters

As my waters had broken over 24hrs before I gave birth to Munchkin, we were kept in for monitoring over night. Thankfully my aunt was able to bring the girls to visit us. They were (and still are!) the sweetest, proudest, most loving big sisters and so, so happy to meet their brother.

Going home

The following morning, after Munchkin's newborn checks and hearing test, we were finally able to head home. We made a stop off at Costa (in the foyer of the hospital!) and Lidl for food shopping (as we were meant to do our weekly shop on Saturday!) Then we were home at last to enjoy time settling into life with a newborn baby.

It's amazing to know we've had our wee boy here for two weeks already, even if he was only due yesterday. They have been such a wonderful couple of weeks and we're loving every moment of being a family of 5.

John goes back to work this week and that will mean a whole new challenge to face… me being on my own with three! I’m sure we'll be fine, and settle into our new normal in no time. Helped I'm sure by how calm and chilled our son is, just as calm and chilled as I was when he entered the world.

For more blog posts about new babies from photos to must have products, check out the category here. How was your birth? Let me know in the comments below.