Ali John is here!

He really truly is here - making little faces in his sleep as he naps on my lap after a big feed. Ali John - born at 3:44pm on Monday 21 May, weighing in at 4.26kg. His birth story will take me a little while, but I'm going to paste in my post from over at glow in the woods which explains a bit: (I'm having trouble posting a photo using blogger on my phone - will add one once I get laptop up & going) Hi everyone - I cannot thank you enough for providing kind & wise words & a safe space to think all this through and I credit it with helping me go into labor (almost) spontaneously. We did have the VBAC we were after, but ironically, only after El Prima and I had a big weepy discussion about it and I accepted that we needed to have him sooner rather than later - and if that meant another caesar, then I was okay with that. Two other things helped - one was realising that we did have another medical induction option open to us that didn't increase the risk of rupture, namely breaking my waters, and the other was listening to my own body and realising that, of all the hippy non-medical induction techniques we were trying (Accupuncture, aromatherapy, curry, orgasm, walking etc) the one thing that consistently brought on strong BH contractions was nipple stimulation. After El Prima and I resolved that we needed to have this baby ASAP, we spoke to our midwife, Jan, about it on Sunday morning. She completely understood why, and gave us a practical plan to make it happen - that she would come that afternoon, do a stretch and sweep, hoping that would kickstart things, then we would go into the hospital first thing Monday morning asking to have my waters broken, knowing that if that didnt then result in natural labour, we'd have to go for a c section. With that plan agreed, el Prima and Snazzy & I went for a big walk, and with a big scarf to keep it discreet, I kept up the nipple stimulation all the way there & back. Part way to the bakery, I realised that the BH contractions were now coming regularly and getting more painful (sorry, "better" to use Jan's phrase), so El Prima started timing them. I'm going to hav to write up the full birth story soon, but the upshot was, I was 3cm dilated by 10pm that night, we went to hosp at 7am the next morning, they broke my waters when I was 5cm dilated at about 2pm that day, surprised everyone by being fully dilated 12 minutes later (!?!?) and pushed out our 9 pound son by 3:45pm. If I sound a bit excited by it, I still am - it was the craziest, most painful, most mind-bending thing that has ever happened to me, perhaps with the exception of being mama to z. I feel so lucky to have had the support, and the good outcome that we did - i keep looking st hin to check he's really alive and ok. Getting a chance to experience this birth with him was a bonus - I'm so glad el Prima was willing to take the leap of faith with me, and that we had such an experiences midwife & medical team who could make it happen in the safest possible way for our baby. I also realised that my dream of a completely natural spontaneous birth was something I lost along with losing Z, and it was okay to grieve that, and to accept that my reality was now different. Thank you everyone who commented here for helping me get to that place. Xxxxxxxx