Joel Daniel Hargreaves was born 18-03-10, weighing 7 pounds, and with red hair! Which is really cool, but funny because the only redheads in our immediate families are my paternal grandma, and Sydney's maternal granddad. He is pretty much the cutest thing Ive ever seen, and I love him to bits already.
1 week overdue, Sydney started having contractions at 4:30 in the morning having not slept at all that night. We went to the hospital at 7:30 when the contractions were happening 5 minutes apart. We stayed at the hospital til around 1:30 in the afternoon, at which point they asked us to go home so Sydney could take a hot bath and get some rest. At first we definitely thought this was dumb and didn't want to go, but we both agreed in hindsight that it was definitely the right thing to do, as we were both able to have a good home made meal and to rest up on the bed for an hour or so in peace and quiet (labour wards are not quiet at all, just incase you didn't already know that!), and Sydney was able to take a warm bath, which did wonders for her back, and caused her waters to break.
Around 15 minutes later my good friend Paul came and picked us up to take us back in to the ward. Sydneys contractions began getting extremely painful after a few more hours, and so she used some of the 'gas+air' which helped, but eventually the contractions were just too much, so she requested an epidural, for which our very helpful midwife fetched the doctors (and bumped us to the top of the list because Sydney was having such a hard time).Whereas Sydney had been on the verge of screaming with the pain, once the epidural was all hooked up, she was fine, positive, and more than a little stoned. She decided on the spot that epidurals are the greatest invention in the history of man.
The next long hours passed as the contractions increased in strength and frequency (and thankfully not pain), until around 3AM Sydney was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. This was exhausting for her, but didnt hurt. She pushed with the contractions for 2 hours, and at 5AM the doctor came in to use the suction cup and forceps, but Sydney asked to be given a little more time because she wanted to give birth without the extra aid which could potentially hurt the baby a little. The doctor said that usually they would only wait 1 hour before using the forceps, and as Sydney had been pushing for 2 hours now it was best to use them, however as he was saying this another contraction came, and Sydney gave birth at last! Baby Joel was born at 5:15AM, crying and cute.
The biggest surprises were how big he was, even though he's pretty little compared to the average newborn size, the umbilical cord being blue (seriously - alien blue), and his hair being thick and red. We came home at 7PM the same day, and Mum and Dad came over to meet their first grandchild!
In total, Sydney was awake for nearly 60 hours consecutively!! I took a few hour-long naps curled up on the ward floor listening to the 4 Coldplay albums constantly, which i expect will always remind me of Joel's birthday now. All in all, a great day :)
1 week overdue, Sydney started having contractions at 4:30 in the morning having not slept at all that night. We went to the hospital at 7:30 when the contractions were happening 5 minutes apart. We stayed at the hospital til around 1:30 in the afternoon, at which point they asked us to go home so Sydney could take a hot bath and get some rest. At first we definitely thought this was dumb and didn't want to go, but we both agreed in hindsight that it was definitely the right thing to do, as we were both able to have a good home made meal and to rest up on the bed for an hour or so in peace and quiet (labour wards are not quiet at all, just incase you didn't already know that!), and Sydney was able to take a warm bath, which did wonders for her back, and caused her waters to break.
Around 15 minutes later my good friend Paul came and picked us up to take us back in to the ward. Sydneys contractions began getting extremely painful after a few more hours, and so she used some of the 'gas+air' which helped, but eventually the contractions were just too much, so she requested an epidural, for which our very helpful midwife fetched the doctors (and bumped us to the top of the list because Sydney was having such a hard time).Whereas Sydney had been on the verge of screaming with the pain, once the epidural was all hooked up, she was fine, positive, and more than a little stoned. She decided on the spot that epidurals are the greatest invention in the history of man.
The next long hours passed as the contractions increased in strength and frequency (and thankfully not pain), until around 3AM Sydney was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. This was exhausting for her, but didnt hurt. She pushed with the contractions for 2 hours, and at 5AM the doctor came in to use the suction cup and forceps, but Sydney asked to be given a little more time because she wanted to give birth without the extra aid which could potentially hurt the baby a little. The doctor said that usually they would only wait 1 hour before using the forceps, and as Sydney had been pushing for 2 hours now it was best to use them, however as he was saying this another contraction came, and Sydney gave birth at last! Baby Joel was born at 5:15AM, crying and cute.
The biggest surprises were how big he was, even though he's pretty little compared to the average newborn size, the umbilical cord being blue (seriously - alien blue), and his hair being thick and red. We came home at 7PM the same day, and Mum and Dad came over to meet their first grandchild!
In total, Sydney was awake for nearly 60 hours consecutively!! I took a few hour-long naps curled up on the ward floor listening to the 4 Coldplay albums constantly, which i expect will always remind me of Joel's birthday now. All in all, a great day :)
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