Eve Connie Jelves

Eve was born at 4.49am, on Friday 27th April 2007 - 10 days overdue, but she's here now and it was such an amazing experience.

During the last few weeks, Susan's blood pressure, which has never been a problem, has been all over the place, and combined with a few other things, wasnt good for an overdue pregnant lady - biggest concern was something called Pre-eclampsia, which can be very serious. We had a few 'dashes' to the hospital after the community midwife found high blod pressure, but of course when we were there, with their more sophiticated equipment, it was closer to normal. We booked to be induced at 2 weeks overdue, but the hospital bought this forward to Thurs. 26th. due to protein in urine / high blood pressure.

Come that Thursday, we were at the hospital at 8am, got checked in and settled etc. We probably didn't get too much sleep the night before and both had a real mix of feelings. The process was 'started' at about 9.30am, with a pessary, which isn't to nice, and takes time to work - progress is checked every 6 or so hours!! So, cue waiting...reading...wandering around the hospital...lunch (which wasn't as bad as you fear with hospital food). Around 4ish, Susan by then was starting to feel some real discomfort and by 6ish, contractions had started in earnest - this was scary, as an induced labour is basically a lot faster and more intense. Susan was in a lot of pain - every few minutes, so no chance for resting between. Susan was examined, her waters broken and we were moved to a delivery room.

She used a borrowed TENS machine (which Tim had tried a few weeks earlier, and found to be just annoying!!) and the gas air, which helped a bit, the latter being great, making her high as a kite!! The pain was getting too much though, so she had an epidural about 9.30ish, by which time she was 'only' 3cm dlated,so we were prepared for a very ong labour. The epidural was fantastic, gave so much relief - to Tim too, yes i know it's nothing but seeing your wife in agony for hours isn't the best thing - and we were able to get some rest. About 1am, Susan was examined again, and was about 9cm dilated - things had gone much quicker than we'd feared, so this both got us really awake and excited!

Anyway, a few hours on, Susan started pushing, i naively thought it'd be all done in 10 minutes or so. Well, we both did! Over an hour later, Susan very, very tired, and although progress had been made,no baby yet - head (with hair!!) just about visible. This bump we'd known for the last months was actually a real baby inside! Anyway, babies hear rate was fluctuating a bit and needed a Ventouse to help out the last little bit - once this was attached and the room got a lot fuller with doctor, etc, out pops little Eve - being a girl defying everyone's expectations of a boy! Except Tim's! Last 10 or 20 minutes were a little scary but as soon as we heard the first cry and saw her, it was just amazing. She was perfect - the first thing i noticed were her HUGE feet, then a quick scan, all seemed ok.

Bit of a blur after that, clean up Susan - only needed 1 stitch, which was really good. I got a quick glimpse of the 'business' end....not nice!! Took lots of photos, we both cried (start of a few times for me to cry over the next few days!! I'm such a girl...)

After an hour or two i left to phone family, then a few more hours for bonding.cleaning up...moving Susan to a ward. I went home for a few hours kip, went back, got lots of visitors, lots of photos, new experiences etc.

We left very late Friday evening, getting home (for what turned out to be not much sleep!!) about 10pm. Hospital just wanted to make sure we were ok with feeding, Eve had wee'd and poo'd etc. n fact, just like to say now that the much-maligned NHS deserves some credit, we could not fault the care, support, facilities etc of the Leicester General - the staff were just great - you here so much moaning, but out experience was amazing. In particular, Angie and Nikki, the midwives who were with us the whole time in the delivery room, were so, so good. My hat goes off to these people, and our heart felt thanks.

Anyway, here's a few pics - few different to ones i e-mailed out i think. More in a week or so - so far, birth was just the start !!