Rover the Top wrote: ↑Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:16 am
Firstly, congratulations! But 9 days? I hope mum and baby are okay. I thought we had enough being brought in to be induced at Sunday 10pm (Mrs RTT's waters broke the night before without baby making much of a move). They didn't get on with the induction until 9:30am Monday, then insisted on keeping us in for 24 hours after the birth as a box ticking exercise.
Thanks. Both are absolutely fine. We'd been booked in to be induced for a while, the baby was apparently on the small side so as a precaution they decided they wanted to induce at 37 weeks and asked us to give them a call on the morning she became 37 weeks pregnant. We called at 7:30am Saturday morning and were in the hospital by 9. They began the induction, but the baby clearly had other ideas and refused to budge.
The annoying thing was all the consultants in the maternity unit agreed that 37 weeks is too early for induction, it probably wouldn't work, and they had no idea why we had been told to come in (but now you're here we'll try anyway...). By Monday nothing was happening so we had a C-Section booked for the Tuesday. That went absolutely fine, but the cut off for "normal size baby" is 2.5Kg. She was 2.49(!) so had to be monitored for an additional 5 days in hospital rather than 24 hours to make sure she was putting on the required weight etc. She was absolutely fine, but to be honest, as draining as it was, it was great to have help for five full days and nights initially while we were both clueless.
Rover the Top wrote: ↑Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:16 am
But most of the problem was with various members of staff making it all more stressful than necessary. And the fact maternity units seem to treat men like garages treat women.
I found the same. Ours was running a trial allowing dads to stay on the wards overnight, which was nice for me as I didn't have to leave them and nice for Mrs Dan as she was recovering from the operation and needed support, but they had made absolutely no provision to make this comfortable. There was nothing to sleep in but a plastic chair, they refused to even make me a drink when they were doing the tea/coffee rounds (It's for patients only), and finding the only mens' toilet meant being let out of a secure ward, going down two flights of stairs and heading towards another department.
Rover the Top wrote: ↑Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:16 am
I wouldn't mind being kept awake at 11pm, Ziora seems to think wake up time is 3am! Don't know if it's a universal thing, but I've found I can calm her down a lot of the time by bouncing her gently as I walk around and making long shushing sounds near her ear. If that fails, then it's pass her over to mum for a feed.
We've turned a corner the last couple of nights thanks to the amazing
Ewan the Dream Sheep 
It calms her right down after a minute or two, playing heartbeat and 'womb' sounds that she's been listening to for the last 9 months, and it's actually quite soothing when I need to drift off as well
