Well it’s been a little while since a blog post but in my defence I think I have a pretty good excuse this time. We welcomed Bear-bear out into the world last Sunday- it feels very strange to think this was over a week ago. I’ve had to change that sentence 3 times as it’s honestly taken me 5 attempts to get this post typed up. So, if you’re ready for another birth story then here goes.

The Tuesday before we genuinely thought it was time, I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant and started getting regular contractions after eating tea. They never got more than 4 minutes apart and after 3 hours of ‘is it?’ ‘isn’t it?’ we decided to go to bed and at least get some sleep. It was not. So, the week carried on as normal with me getting increasingly grumpy at the fact that nothing else had happened. Then Saturday morning I woke up and just knew something was going to happen. Henry was working so Polly and I headed out for a little walk which we timed terribly as it started raining, so we fled to the library for half an hour of colouring and reading before giving up on the walk and heading home. It was then at about 11 that something happened that didn’t happen last time. I started losing my plug. This proved great fun to discover with Polly in the bathroom with me as I thought it was just a harmless wee, of course she sensed something going on and decided to cause mischief while I tried to work out what exactly this ‘meant’. If you don’t know what a plug is then don’t for goodness sake google image search it! It basically looks like the contents of a tissue when you’ve blown your nose.

The afternoon progressed with a few spicy Braxton Hicks contractions and me getting more grossed out with my own body every time I went for a wee. Henry came and went as he was on a split and I hoped baby stayed put till the next day as Auntie Jen was at this point in London and she was our Polly watcher. Of course, baby didn’t stay put. I gave Polly a bath and put her to bed and waddled downstairs to do the washing up, then at about 8:30 those Braxton Hicks suddenly switched to genuine painful regular contractions. A few frantic text messages later and Georgia and Gyan were on route to our house as Jen wasn’t due back for another few hours. Then came the phone call to Henry. I tried not to panic as it took 5 attempts to actually get hold of him as it was a busy Saturday evening, but I did get a bit snippy with him when he said he’d try and get home as soon as he could, my app was now telling me it was about 3 ½ minutes in between the contractions and I was currently home alone with a sleeping toddler upstairs. Luckily, we have sensible managers at work who told him to get his arse home sharpish. Georgia and Gyan arrived shortly after a couple of conversations with the hospital where they’d said come in when you can’t talk through the contractions. This happened sooner rather than later.

We arrived at the maternity unit at midnight and I was examined and deemed enough in labour to stay- thank goodness! I was in the pool as soon as I could, no pretence of trying to retain modesty this time as I was straight down to just a bikini top as soon as the pool was full. The 2 midwives who looked after us were amazing, one of them was a student which meant double the examinations but luckily there wasn’t the need for too many of them anyway and who knows next time she might be the one in charge of delivering the next baby Woodard so I wasn’t about to make a scene by telling her I didn’t want her getting involved.

While I was labouring away with the delightful gas & air Jen arrived at ours to take over the Polly watch and Georgia made her way to the hospital to join Henry for some serious tea drinking. Then just after 4AM the pressure I was feeling reached breaking point and my waters burst, it was a bit like a balloon going off in the pool and I honestly thought that was baby’s head coming out- sadly not, the ring of fire was still to come. Lucky for me I only had to wait another quarter of an hour for that delight. Bear-bear entered the world at 4:38AM into Daddy’s safe hands. He was a bit tangled in his cord, but Henry still got that amazing moment where he was the first person to hold his son.

The whole experience afterwards was so different to last time, I mean I only lost half the amount of blood but still had to have a little stitch up session, but the placenta behaved itself and there was no ambulance dash, so everything was so much calmer. Georgia said it was quite eye opening to see everything that happens afterwards from her being my shower helper to the delights of me having my who-ha stitched back up again while giggling to the songs on the radio while back on the gas. It was amazing having her there and I know Henry appreciated her company, she was planning on taking some photos but the lighting just wasn’t in favour of that, more dimmed in favour of a calmer environment and as it was dark outside the result was only one picture of me in labour but she did manage a few ‘real pictures’ of the aftermath.

After some tea and toast and a few phone calls we headed round to the ward. The facetimes in particular were an amazing moment as we woke various family members up to show them what we’d been up to during the night especially as none of them even knew I’d gone into labour, my brother’s face summed it up in the screenshot I managed to get.

The next magical moment was when Polly arrived to meet her little brother. Jen reported that she’d had a brilliant morning after waking to find she’d had a sleepover friend without even knowing it, involving play doh and a trip to pick up Henry’s Nanny before going to track down her Mummy and Daddy and the new addition.

We were cleared to leave mid afternoon and after a KFC diversion we headed home to begin life as a family of 4. The next day someone else also gave birth to a little boy, this one happens to be a Prince so when they left the hospital like us a few hours after birth, there were a few people watching. I was one of those watching and although at that point I was in my pjs and my hair was up in a messy bun and she looked amazing, not at any point did I feel bad for myself. For some reason, even though it’s happened with previous royal births, there seemed to be a lot of opinions on Kate being ‘forced’ to get dolled up and how unrealistic this image was of a mum who’d literally just given birth. Well when we left the hospital yes I waddled out and my hair had not been done but I felt on top of the world and would happily have shown off my mini me to a camera or two if they’d been there, so I like to think I would have looked just as radiant if someone had done my make up for me and actually done something with my hair instead of the straight out the shower plait I’d opted for. I’m not sure why some people tried to make such a positive happy news story into something negative, surely we should be celebrating the fact that by the looks of things this was a normal, healthy birth where we can see first hand that ‘mum and baby are doing well’, what’s more positive and uplifting than that?

So, what’s it like with 2 under 2? Well, it’s still early days and I’ve only had one day with Henry at work but (touch wood) we seem to have things under control. I know there will be tough days and yesterday, the first solo Mummy day, all 3 of us shed tears at some point but it was a successful day. Polly is besotted with her new sibling and wants to help with everything from changing his nappy to holding his hand when he cries. Of course, there have been a few tantrums and the fact that she’s had a cold hasn’t helped but all in all I think she’s going to make a good big sister.

I feel like this has been a long one so I’m going to sign off now and hopefully update again quicker than last time to give more of an insight on how things have changed now there’s another person under our roof.