Our masterpiece finally arrived on Oct 25, a tall baby with dark hair and grey blue eyes, looking like a cute little elf.
The story that I'm sharing may be a bit graphic and personal, but I think I need to see it on paper in order to appreciate the intensity and magic that it brought into our lives. Bear with me if the hormones go into overdrive and I gush.
So. Technically, my labour started with pretty painful and irregular contractions about a few days before the 19th, which was my actual due date. By the time we reached early evening on the 25th, I'd had about 3 hours' sleep total. So we went to the birthing centre, but they sent us home, because I wasn't far enough along. They did give me some pain killers to manage the pain though.
Yeah. That didn't work. And by 1am, my body was in such bad pre-labour, that I was telling the mister in low growling tones "I've had enough. Thisss iss too much and I neeeed to get the hell to the hospital..."
At that moment, I kicked off the evening in style by projectile vomiting all over the bathroom floor whilst clutching the door frame and feeling totally helpless (apparently, it was because I had had a massive hormone surge to kick the active labour into gear). Nice, eh?
We sped to the hospital with me howling in the car like some kind of dying jungle cat. We got to the birthing centre. I was still howling. Luckily, no one was there, it was rather quiet. They showed us to a room, and gave me a shot of dimorphine, a mild loopy medication to take the edge of my contractions and to let me sleep. The mister and I both lay down, and about 15 minutes later I was in heaven, my contractions had calmed down and I was just drifting off when…
I felt a huge pop. My waters had broken. And the contractions came back faster, stronger and more hideous. I started howling again.
The nurse came back, told me to suck on nitrous oxide (which worked in the beginning, but I’ll tell you, I’m convinced that it’s mostly psychological, it didn’t take the edge of the massive pain towards the end), and she’d fill my pool. Hurray for my waterbirth, right? Keep reading..
I got into a massive, warm, blissful pool. I had my bottles of Lucozade, my Tootsie Roll pops for some sugar boosts, my bikini top was on, and the mister was holding my hand. I was still howling in pain and sucking on that tube of gas, but the water just made it all worth it and calmed me down. I could focus. I could DO it. It was heavenly. I even got to a point where I started having delirious visions of us being at some country estate and planning how to rebuild our bathroom... (apparently, the mister has loads of stories of me spouting nonsense at various points).
But after about 2 hours in there, I wasn't making enough progress, and the midwife noticed that the baby's heartbeat was getting stressed with each contraction. Not good. So they advised me that they were taking me to the labour ward. So I got out of the pool. And my contractions seemed to triple in pain, unbelievably. The mister was trying to help me, but every time a contraction hit and he wasn’t there with the gas, I almost throttled the man. He did tell me afterwards, that it made him absolutely mental to see me in that much pain, and that there was nothing he could do. He said he actually ended up going to into an empty room a few times and throwing some stuff around, out of sheer frustration.
I was wheeled onto the labour ward, put into a bed, and was told that I would be given 20 minutes to try and push this baby out before they needed to come in and intervene with the ventouse, because baby was in distress. I was determined to do it myself, but it became harder and harder and more exhausting, and I was determined to do it with no pain relief whatsoever, so I was really pushing myself to the limit. Finally, the specialists came in, out came the suction cup, and out came baby, while mister was playing me Foo Fighters on full blast for inspiration (songs used were "The Colour and the Shape" and "Best of You"). She was a bit traumatized and had swallowed some meconium at the birth, so she’s congested and not breastfeeding as yet (which is much harder than it looks, let me tell you), but I am completely besotted with her.
I won't describe the kind of pain it was and how gory it ended up being, but I’d do it again 3 times over (which I remember saying, as soon as they pulled her out of me). One of the most amazing moments I'll remember is looking at the mister's face so close to mine, in between them yelling at me to push, and him being in absolute tears, telling me how proud of me he was and telling me how strong and beautiful I am. I'll never forget that as long as I live.
We are totally humbled by this little creature..I could stare at her little elfin face all day. She especially loves her father, she's fascinated by his face, immediately perks up when he enters a room, and would much rather fall asleep on his chest than in her moses basket.
I don't think I've slept for more than 2 hours since Sunday, for fear that every cry means something's wrong, and that if she sleeps more than 3 hours at a time that I've somehow drugged her by mistake. Hey, it's all a learning process, right?
Our adventure as officially begun, and I feel incredibly blessed that she's a part of our lives. My heart is more full than I ever imagined it could be.
