But I digress! Carla had her first contractions on Wednesday 1st which lasted around 12 hours then stopped. We had been told that Carla would be induced on Monday 6th but it looked like she was going to ignore that! The contractions started again on Thursday evening becoming strong enough for Carla to wake me up at 3am (!)
We went to the hospital at 4, and Carla was an absolute star. Handling the contractions like a pro. The midwife was a bit blasé about Carla's claims of Frankie's imminent arrival. That is unti she examined her and she was 3cm dilated! A bath and some morphine didn't really help Carla much, but an epidural later and she was set up to welcome Francesca!
Another check at 9am showed Carla as fully dilated. Even he midwife had a minor panic and pressed the emergency button to get some instruments bought in! An amazing hour or so followed with Carla pushing as she needed and at 10.47 frankie arrived. First thing that we noticed was her size 5.4lb. This was not expected! I cut her cord and things sort of went into a blur at that point. Frankie was given to Carla but hadn't taken a proper breath and she was slowly going blue, then purple. The midwife whisked her away to give her oxygen and over the next couple of minutes her pinky colour returned. A paediatrician was called in and we were given the all clear.
It was in the next couple of hours that it was noticed that she wasn't feeding to well and her blood sugar was not regulating and had in fact dropped considerably. We were told we couldn't go home that night and that frankie was to be monitored overnight. Next day no improvement meant a transfer to a midwife unit for Frankie's feeding to be monitored along with her bloods. 3 days later she had only lost 3 ounces meaning she was ok to go home. What a strange feeling taking a baby home with you!
As of yesterday (14th) she had put on on over half a pound so she has clearly inherited our fat genes!! Ayway as I type, all is well with her and Carla, and here are a couple of pictures to show you how she's grown in the last 12 days:
15 minutes old!
11 days old
As for the Knowledge, I hope to get started again next week. But watch this space for some interesting developments on the work front...
