This week I have had 2 of my close friends welcome their first born children into the world. It has been very exciting (and making me a little clucky) meeting these tiny little bundles. Since becoming a mummy myself I also love hearing about people’s birth stories and sharing the horrors and elation with them in a way that can only be appreciated fully when you have been there yourself. I realised that I had never actually written Skye’s birth story down so to celebrate the new babies in our group, I wanted to share it with all of you now. In case the title wasn’t clear enough, if you are squeamish (or my dad) you might not want to read this one because I assure you I will be over-sharing.
Skye Louise Smith was born at 9:20am on Thursday 26th of November 2009 via Ventouse. She was 7 pounds 5 ounces and 52cms long. She arrived a week before her due date so I was lucky to avoid the constant questioning from friends and family about whether I had had the baby yet. No one even knew I had gone into labour until after she was born – exactly as we had wanted it.
Wednesday 25th of November I woke up as normal but noticed that I felt like I had to go to the toilet constantly. It was irritating but since I still had a week to go I assumed it was just Braxton Hicks contractions and gave it little thought. I was already on Maternity Leave so I spent the day relaxing at home and although I was not having any kind of discomfort I did not feel like I should be going anywhere too far from home. Luke was working in an area that had no phone service so I was hoping that whatever was going on would not get serious until he was home.
This photo was taken 3 days before Skye was born.
The urge to go to the bathroom continued through the day but had not developed much in intensity so when Luke got home he went to visit some friends a couple of streets away and mentioned nothing to them. Actually, they were all telling me that I had not dropped yet and would be at least a couple of weeks (because all my beer drinking friends are doctors, of course). We returned home, had dinner and I played down the whole thing to Luke because I did not want any false alarms.
Luke went to bed expecting to go to work as normal in the morning and by about 10pm the contractions were becoming more uncomfortable, I had been timing them and they were still a bit irregular so I called the birthing suite to ask them for their advice. I was anxious about getting there in time as we live about an hour away but they advised me to take some Panadol and see if that stopped the contractions. It did nothing and they were getting more regular, they were also quite painful so I phoned the birthing suite again and they eventually said that I could come in. I woke Luke about 1:30am with my bag already in hand and told him it was time to go.
I stood outside waiting for him for what seemed like an eternity so I went back inside to see what he was doing and in his half asleep state he was wandering the house blindly searching for some underwear! I had made sure to pack him a full change of clothes in my hospital bag so I got him sorted and in the car and off we went.
Once we got to the hospital the midwife strapped me in to monitor my contractions and they had stopped! I could not believe it! My biggest fear was that they were going to tell me it was a false alarm and send us home at 3am, Luke would kill me for waking him up for nothing. Eventually they examined me and I was 3 – 4cm so they said I could stay and gave me some Panadeine Forte and sleeping pills as I had not had any sleep. I think I got about an hours sleep before the contractions woke me up again so I opted to get into the bath and have some gas to ease the pain. By this time it was about 6:30am and I still maintain that the gas didn’t do much for the pain but it did give me something to concentrate on and forced me to breathe. Luke sat by my side feeling helpless but making sure I had plenty of cold water to sip and wiped my face continuously.
After a particularly painful contraction I opened my eyes to see Luke looking a little pale and he told me that he thought my waters just broke. They had, so we called in the midwife and they got me out of the bath to see how I was progressing. I was 9.5cms! The pain was overwhelming and I started asking what else they could give me knowing full well I was beyond any drug options. They informed me it would be time to push soon and I would know when.
Moments later I turned to Luke with the simple statement that it was time to push, so he called in the midwives again and it was pretty much game on. I had been told that Skye was in the posterior position so I was hesitant about the best position to be in and changed frequently hoping I would find something effective, but I was exhausted from the lack of sleep and food by then and my contractions seemed to be just that little bit too short to successfully push the head out. By this time my Obstetrician had arrived, checked all the monitors and assured me that I was almost there. After a short time she announced in her thick Russian accent that we “have to get this ba-by oout” (say it like Arnie and you get the idea). Out came the Ventouse and within 5 minutes I was holding my new squirmy bundle. Something that no one had warned me about is that they do not take the baby out in 1 contraction so I was a little freaked out by the fact that I could feel her kicking me after they had told me the head was out. It was like she was taking the last opportunity to make sure she caused as much damage as possible. Lucky she is so cute.
I held her while they stitched me up and could not believe that the tiny little face looking up at me was ours. It blew me away. It took another 15 minutes before anyone asked us if we knew what I had had, I had been waiting for them to tell me! I had expected them to tell me that as soon as she was out – that’s how it happens in the movies!!! I had been so sure that I was having a boy that I almost asked them to check again when they told us it was a girl.
After our first feed, during which I actually yelped when she was attached, I was told I could get up and have a shower. Clearly I was still a little dazed because I looked at the mid wife apologetically and said that I had made a bit of a mess. IDIOT.
Something that still makes me laugh is that I never understood why the women in the antenatal classes videos were completely naked. I could not get my head around the fact that they needed to be topless when all the action was happening further south. I now see the error of my ways and proudly say that delivered my daughter completely in the raw.
This photo was taken a week after Skye was born, the day she was actually due. My stomach was not as flat as it looked in this picture, its an optical illusion thanks to my enormous knockers.
Luke was amazing throughout the delivery too. He had been so laid back during my pregnancy that I was worried that he wasn’t going to switch on for the birth but he could not have been more supportive. Were it not for his gentle and constant encouragement I may have asked for intervention that we had hoped to avoid. Together we created a beautiful, cheeky, happy, strong willed little life and while I will never say that the pain of child birth was forgotten once I held her, I cannot think of a single thing that is more worth the ordeal.
Lucky for Jess at Diary of a Stay At Home Mum I am over sharing this post for iBOT.Be sure to check the other posts out too, they probably won’t be as graphic as mine.
