Fun birth - the birth story

 You wouldn't believe, but this birth was so much fun! I really don't think it can get any better so I thought I'd share it with you.

Our handsome boy just 12 hours old.

I wrote a birth story from my first birth too, but I never posted it here. In short, Emma took 6 days to come out. Yes 6 days of painful contractions between 5-10 minutes. They sent us back from the hospital twice and once they had taken us in at the hospital, it still took over 20 hours for her to be born. Still all my memories were good from that birth and I didn't think it was that bad.

That's the backdrop to this birth. You can imagine that I was a tad bit scared that this labor would be a long one again. Also giving birth in a small Australian country town means that there is no guarantee to get an epidural (which I really needed last time) and the staff is limited so if they are really busy, you might be alone for a long time.

Photo taken about 5.45pm, just minutes before the pain started. All I had time was to cast the stitches.

My due date came by and nothing happened, so I started trying different things to bring on the labor naturally. I ate a whole heap of spicy foods, went for long walks every day and did an hour of yoga almost every day. I was carrying and stacking bricks. Nothing worked. At 40 + 5, I went to see my doctor and she said that the head was still too high. Two days later at the hospital they said the same thing, head too high. I was booked to be induced at 40 + 11 (as they count it here).

I didn't want to be induced so my sister-in-law suggested on trying castor oil, it had worked with all four of her children. Two days before I was supposed to be induced, I thought I might have been leaking a bit of amniotic fluid so we went to the hospital. The same day at lunch time I took a dose of castor oil. They agreed at the hospital, my waters had been leaking. Problem was that no one knew for how long they had been leaking, so they took me in and helped a bit more of the waters to come out.

At 5.45pm I told my husband to go home and have dinner with our daughter, give her a bath and come back when she had gone to bed. I had only had couple of little contractions so I thought there was plenty of time. But at 6pm I had to call him back. Within that 15 minutes the contractions came so painful and were only about 3 minutes apart. I was only 3cm dialated, so again it looked like this was going to take a while. The problem this time was that the contrations came one after another without any breaks in between. 7 in a row and then there were couple of minutes break before the next 7 started.

How is this a fun birth? It wasn't at this stage, It was hell. The contractions just kept coming and coming and I didn't get any break. So they put in a drip of Oxytocin to help the contractions get further apart. Also they called the one doctor in town who could give an epidural. It was my lucky day, he was in town and came rather quickly.

Can't wipe the smile off my face.

After the epidural kicked in, it was all jokes and laughter in the delivery room. I was being stubborn and wanted to walk to the toilet when I didn't have much feeling in my legs. Yes that was a source for many jokes. Then the next time I felt like I really had to go to the toilet, the nurse decided to check how far along I was. She told me I wasn't going anywhere as it wasn't the poo I needed to push out. The time was about 11pm at this stage.

So push I did and it was great! The midwives thought I was crazy after I said it was 'awesome'. A first time to hear everything, they thought. My husband, by my side, compared that it looked like watching a sheep giving birth! Ha! Oh it was a bit hard to actually push at times because I was laughing so much. Apparently he thought of saying that it was like cow giving birth, but somehow thought that sheep wouldn't sound as bad. Oh dear how I love you.

Didn't feel as tired as we seem to be. Thumbs up for an awesome night.

25 minutes later our little baby boy was born. It was amazing to have him in my arms, it was like time had stopped. We saw all the midwives and the doctor to hastle down there. One was giving me a shot of some sort, the doctor put just a couple of stitches, I suppose the placenta came out too. I pretty much missed all that, because I was just in awe and looking at our beautiful boy!

My gorgeous family.

We made such an amazing team with my husband! He was amazing that whole time and made sure we all had a good time. Though he thinks I was the joker out there. Which ever way, I have never loved him more. I am such a lucky woman to have him by my side and to have two beautiful children to raise with him. So thank you darling, you rock!