I am sitting here, with my laptop on my knee’s and our new little bundle of happy on my chest. She is having a sleep and seems to prefer me as a bed than her own bassinet…I really don’t mind though, cos well newborn cuddles are the best thing in the universe!
So basically I thought I would share with you her arrival…yep..its a birth story, so look away if u dont give a crap about babies, birth or Chinese water torture!
If u know a little about me, u may have read below about my problems with my pelvis. If u don’t, basically I have a wobbly pelvis that cause shit loads of pain and makes me not walk while I am pregnant. So because of the pain, early on in my pregnancy my doctors and I decided an induction was the best way to go and for me to try and get as close to 40 weeks as possible. Because of the recovery of my pelvis, it was actually better to try and birth naturally rather than c section as the recovery from both is apparently not fun. So from 37 weeks I was checked to see if I was ‘ready to go’ and the baby was still a little bit high and we decided the following week would be the way to go! So at 38 weeks I took my bag and husband and Iggy(our 4 year old) and set off to get ‘gelled up’. Basically they put some gel on your cervix to ‘soften them’ and get your body started. I had the first gel at 2:45pm on Wednesday and started to get small contractions, which were manageable with breathing. Then around 10pm they decided to give me some more gel, and this started some heavier contractions around 6-10 minutes apart. The whole time I was thinking that if this was as painful as a contraction got i reckon i would be sweet going it without an epidural…but I’ve done this before, and I knew the fun hadn’t even begun yet!
At 5:ooam I was pretty tired. I would almost fall asleep and then a contraction would happen and I would be up leaning over a chair trying to breath it out. Steve(husbo) was asleep and i didn’t want to wake him cos i knew after my waters were broken it would be a long day for him and I and I needed him to be fresh and rested. So i contracted as silently as i could, but they were getting a bit tiring, and i knew i needed sleep….so in came the drugs! Ahhh Heaven! I had a shot of morphine, and finally i slept! Well i slept deeply for 9 minutes, then woke to have a contraction then straight back to sleep. It was bliss and when the midwife came in at 7:30am to tell me they were moving me to the birthing suit, so we can get things started, I was sad. Only cos i was so cosy finally and finally getting mini sleep, and I knew i wouldn’t be sleeping for a long time that day!
So I had a shower and woke myself up. and off we went to the Birthing suit! Steve had gotten me a yummy muffin and I had a cup of Tea, so that after they broke my water i could sit and have some food and try and relax as much as possible.
Step 1…. 9:15am…They broke my water, its gross, and all i wanted to do was have a shower, but no, u just have to lay there hanging out with your amniotic fluid…..My Midwife Ally, was so awesome and cleaned up as much as possible and helped me get comfortable…because of my pelvis problems its hard for me to move and being wrapped up with heart monitors and wires and fluid, it was not a very fun thing, but you get over it!
Step 2…Drip…9:20am They basically start your contractions with Oxytocin…wait, I think that’s what its called? anyway, its some drug that makes contractions start, and when you are induced its a lot more intense than naturally contracting and its not too fun. I was induced with Iggy as well so I was quite prepared for the intensity of the contractions and that they can start quite quickly!
So in the first 5 minutes i had a contraction which i was able to just breath through. One thing you need to do with any labor is mentally prepare yourself, and I had been practising my breathing and focusing on different things to try and help so the breathing technique helped! Ally asked me what I wanted in the way of pain relief and after 1 or 2 of these contractions i decided that I would maybe try and wait for an epidural. I knew I wanted an epidural, as the combination of my pelvis and induced contractions and how tired i was already and i hadnt even started labor really, i was being realistic. So after 10 minutes, i maybe had 2 more contractions that really started to push my pain threshhold….and i pride myself on how much pain i can indure, and this was seriously pushing the envelope! I asked Ally for morphine again cos i though that it could maybe take the edge of just enough that i could get through for a while, cos it helped so much earlier in the morning. The epidural was locked in, but wouldnt be available for another hour or so as the Dr was doing an emergency c section.
I should mention, that the entire time i had been pregnant i had pretty strong braxton hicks, which are basically practice contractions. I didnt get them too badly with Iggy but this time round they were a bit uncomfortable. And i always had the pain in my back. So through the night when the contractions were happening I had a lot of pain in my back and I was using a heat pack all night and while i was having these strong contractions my husband pushed the heat pack into my back and sort of massaged the heat in, and it did help, but holy crap that was some pain in my back! from 9:30am I was on my side so they could hear babies heart better, and I started to feel a bit of pressure ‘down low’ and I was probably on my side for 20 minutes, and had 4 contractions in this time and they sucked. Especially in my back! Ally turned off the Oxytocin machine at 10:00am cos she said my body was doing everything by itself and didn’t need any help. By this stage i had said i really needed that morphine, but the Dr needed to write it up or something and was taking his sweet ass time! Another midwife came in to double check everything and mentioned a treatment that is meant to help with the pain in my back. Its called Sterilized Water Injections. I was a little confused as to what it was at first as I have read up on pretty much all forms of pain relief. I have quite a bit of back pain each day in my life, from scoliosis so I am always researching pain relief, and this was something i hadnt heard about at all. The Midwife explained that it worked similar to acupuncture and they basically inject water where those dimples are on your lower back, and they make small little pockets of water under the skin and the pain is essentially blocked. And usually you dont feel the pain in your back after the next contraction.
Step 3….CHINESE WATER TORTURE…I couldnt sit on my side any more it was way too uncomfortable and I asked if I could sit up, and this was fine. so i sat at the edge of the bed, and they told me I would have the injections with my next contraction cos they didnt want to give me extra pain as the injections were apparently not too pleasant. Now I should mention that I am the type of person to not yell too loud when something hurts, and I had been pretty quiet when I was having my contractions apart from breathing noises and swearing, cos I like to swear A LOT, and it somehow made me feel better quietly swearing in between breaths. I checked with the midwife before that she didnt get easily offended by swearing cos I told her I may come up with new swear words through out the day. My Mum was with me last birth and didnt like the swearing too much and I so i used the word ‘shitness’ as this wasnt too bad!!
SO, the time came to inject the water….my husband has told me the only time i made any sort of fuss or noise the entire time was when they were doing the injections….HOLYCRAPBALLSOFBULLSHIT…..This was a pain that I cant even describe! I am not sure why it hurt me so much, it was like 1000 be stings, and I remember thinking that I dont know if the contraction or the injection was worse, or if it was just really crap cos I was having a contraction with it? All i know is, if u ever need to get information out of someone and u need some sort of torture to get them to ‘talk’ inject water under their skin lots of times!
At this stage it must have been 10:30ish and a contraction started again and I was pretty sure there was a head coming out, or at least almost ready to come out. I was standing next to the bed, and Ally had hit the emergency button and another midwife came running in, they asked me if I could get on the bed so they could see how far along I was, and I told them i was not moving, and I assured them the baby was coming right now! Steve was on the other side of the bed holding my shoulders and I was on my tippee toes as the pain was crap…..funnily though….no pain in the back…the chinese water torture works!!!!! but i had no time to relish in it. I had one contraction and they kept telling me to wait to push cos they were checking but I honestly could not help it, and then i had 1 contraction and decided I DID NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT ANYMORE….so i pushed and seriously….Ally caught the baby…..It was like a bungee jumping trip. Usually when you birth a baby, u push the head out which sux but once thats out then you give a good push and the body comes out. My Child, was teflon coated clearly and came out in one go. I have never felt instant relief from anything in my life, and I have also never felt shock like this as well! Ally Told me to hold my baby and i grabbed her, which was so difficult as i had a drip and a bungee cord hanging out and sorry TMI a little bit of a slippery mess on the floor, but i managed to hold on to her and Ally half wrapped her, and the other midwife told Steve to grab his baby……he said “what baby” he seriously did not know that she had come out or what was going on and i said “this baby” and passed her to him.
Everything was so surreal, and even the two midwives were in a kind of shock but man they worked under fire, and apparently under me with such calm and professionalism, I just am so in awe at what they do every day. All 4 of us looked at each other for a second and kind of said wow, did that all that just happen that quickly?
So our little Miss came into the world in a huge hurry. Someone was looking down on me that morning cos i had a shitty long and painful pregnancy and its still going to be a while before i will be doing zumba in the lounge room, but clearly they thought i just needed a nice quick delivery.
Our little girl is called Minty Isabelle Margaret Leeder 7 pound 2 ounces(3.3kg), 47cm, on 19/04/12 in 1 hour and 15 minutes and a very happy little human. I am sure I will be flooding instagram and twitter with photo’s of her for a while and i apologise if babies are not your thing! I will try my hardest to put paper related things in as well 
