Saturday, May 31, 2014

And then there were four!

So after my birth story with Lily, this one isn’t going to seem a lot different! Things went down pretty similarly excepting the time of day and the sex of the baby at the end of it all!

I had been having minor contractions in the week or so leading up to my labour – very irregular and not painful in the slightest, so I just put them down to Braxton Hicks. I was due on the 18th, and definitely expected going past my due date as I went 11 days over with Lily.

The 18th came and went without event. By the 22nd I was having the minor contractions. On the 23rd, I lost at least part of my mucus plug, which made me hopeful because with Lily I’d gone into labour within 48 hours of my plug going. I was so ready for this baby to be out – I could deal with the same pains and things I’d had when I was pregnant with Lily, but I had an excruciating muscle pain across the top of my belly which was getting beyond bearable.

The 24th went by without much event, until late afternoon, around 5-6pm, where I started getting contractions that were still irregular but getting quite strong. I started timing them, and they varied from 5-20 minutes apart each time, so I wasn’t too concerned yet, just kept timing.

By 8:15pm, they started getting more regular, approximately 7 minutes apart at that point. I counted a few more before contacting my mum around 9:15, letting her know she’d better come over. Meanwhile, Michael got on the phone to the hospital and let them know we were heading through shortly, and I contacted my midwife to let her know too.

By 9:30 my dad had also arrived to stay at home with Lily, so Mum, Michael and I headed off on the half-hour drive to the hospital. We got about 10 minutes in, and Michael asked me if I had everything – I said, “I think so?”, and then I realised I’d forgotten the baby’s bag!!! The whole reason we were going to the hospital in the first place! I said oh well, just get Dad to bring it through and I’m sure the hospital will have a bunch of stuff anyway.

I continued having contractions on the car ride, between 3-5 minutes apart, and regulated out to 4 minutes by the time we got into the delivery suite at about 10:30pm. My midwife put me on the CTG for about 20 minutes, confirmed it appeared I was in active labour, and examined me – I was a stretchy 5cm. I was very relieved because I was worried that they’d just send me home and that it was all in my head! I continued to labour by wandering around the room for a while, swaying with contractions. I was anxious to get in the tub too soon, but by about 11:45 I decided I’d get in. The water provided some relief initially, but after an hour & a half or so (about 1:15), the pain was back up to ‘High’. I moved around in the bath, to sitting on my bum and leaning back against the side of the tub.

It was great to begin with but my body started to tell me that I needed to get out of the tub, and onto the bed on my knees. I told my midwife between contractions that I needed to get out. She tried initially to talk me out of it because she knew how badly I wanted to have a waterbirth, but I told her that I need to be on my knees. She offered me gas & air, which I took for a couple of contractions, but then I started feeling so space-cadety that I just wanted out. My mum and Michael helped me out of the bath (I had one contraction as I stepped out and squatted down on the floor), and got up on the bed. My midwife had raised the back of it up so I could drape my arms over the top of the bed and kneel.

Once I was up there, I felt a lot better, and it wasn’t long before I started feeling the need to push. I started pushing, and then felt baby’s head right down low. I remembered what it was like having Lily, and knew it was going to hurt, but this time since I knew what it was going to be like, I just went inward, bore down and pushed as hard as I could. His head came out after about 3 pushes, and his body in the next 2 or 3.

My midwife had Michael cut the cord rather quickly after his body came out, which surprised me because I’d requested delayed cord clamping, but it wasn’t long before I realised why – the cord had been around his neck and he wasn’t breathing. Another midwife (who’d come in to assist my midwife for the delivery) had whisked our baby up to the heat lamp and was rubbing him down to get him to breathe. Michael rushed over to him and the look of worry on his face scared the shit out of me. Not long after (although it seemed like ages!), our baby let out a little whimper and then a louder, gurglier cry. It was such a relief, I just cried out for him. I had to deliver the placenta before I could hold him, so I assisted my midwife with a small push to release it.

My waters and everything had made a real mess of the bed, the absorbent pads and things on it, so the midwifes had to clean all that up before I could turn around and sit back to hold my baby. I turned around, my midwife checked me for tearing (I had a small graze), they handed my baby to me, and he was PERFECT. In every single way. We had skin-to-skin time, and he latched on almost straight away. My midwife had worked a shift already on which was now the day before, so she headed home and said she’d be back later in the day and check in on us.


After a short while the other midwife weighed and measured him – both of which I asked her to do twice because I couldn’t believe the measurements she was telling me!

So, welcome to the world:
Emmett Robert
25th May 2014
Time:  2.17am
Weight: 10lb 2oz
Length: 57cm [~22.5in]

Monday, February 3, 2014

The Dreaded GTT, and Other Randomness

Well, I'm writing this post while sitting in the waiting room of the local pathology clinic.  I'm here for the next 2.5-3 hours for the delightful Glucose Tolerance Test, something I'm sure all second-and-subsequent time mms look forward to *eyeroll*
Seriously, this is the most annoying, depressing bloody test I've ever had.  It sucks more than the 3.5 weeks I spent in hospital in Hobart. Really.  Not only have I not eaten since 9pm last night (now 9:22am) but I have to have blood taken at least twice and drink a horrible flat lemonade which tastes like shit.  Not looking forward to the next couple of hours of this.

In other news, I've suspected Lily has been teething for the past few weeks, and my suspicions were confirmed last night when I was able to take a look at her gums to find one tooth had broken through on the top right side, looks like another one or two is pushing through on the left, and possibly another two on the lower gum.  Poor little bugger - she's obviously been going through hell with these  'teefers', but at least I can say I did the right thing by giving her Panadol and Nurofen often, which I was kind of worried about since I didn't know for sure that her teeth were the problem, but I'm now justified in my medicating her!

My mother-in-law has been kind enough to buy Lily her first "big girl's bed".  It's still 5-7 weeks away, but it is a custom order so a wait is to be expected I suppose! We looks at frames because I wanted something with storage underneath, but all the frames had a sort of bar or something just outside of where the mattress sat, so if she fell out she'd be likely to hit her head or other parts.  So we've ended up ordering an ensemble with 2 drawers built into the base, and a headboard.  The base will be a fuchsia color from a durable, hardwearing fabric, and the headboard will be a velour-esque fabric in magenta.  It's going to look awfully cute - I can't wait for it to arrive and for her to have her first night in a big bed!  I'm hoping it will improve her sleep too, being a more comfortable mattress than a foam cot mattress.

Anyway, I've babbled on long enough.  Hope to be back soon with more updates on our growing family :-)

Saturday, January 4, 2014

It's a...

On Christmas Eve, we went for the 19-week morphology scan, to make sure baby was growing in accordance to my dates and nothing was longer or shorter than it should be.  Everything was looking fine, particularly this...


Yes - that, dear friends, is a baby penis.  We're having a boy!

I can't lie - I was a little disappointed when we first found out, only because I was so looking forward to having another little girl (and since we already have all the clothes, it would have been easy!).  I guess I thought it would be easier on Lily, since she is (and will continue to be) the only girl amongst her sibling and her cousins, but I guess that doesn't matter too much ultimately.  Once I went shopping for some little boy clothes, I was feeling a little more enthused and am now pretty excited to welcome Emmett Robert into our lives!

As for Lily, she celebrated her 1st birthday on the 26th November '13, and had an awesome party on the 30th - she was definitely spoilt rotten, and the sheer number of people who showed up for her party just shows how much love this little girl has around her; I think we had about 40 guests in total.  She had so much fun and totally flaked out at the end of the day (!).  Here's just a couple of shots from her party:


I just can't believe our little girl is 1 already, and that we have another on the way - what a whirlwind the past couple of years have been!