I’ll never forget the day I found out we were pregnant!
We hadn’t long made the decision for me to stop taking the pill and we weren’t making any conscious efforts to get pregnant, we just thought if it happens it happens and if it hasn’t in 6 months to a years time then obviously we would look into why not! I guess that was what we liked about the idea of starting young (24 yrs old) was that we had a bit of time to just see what would happen!
I hadn’t got my period so decide to take a test, but still somewhere in my mind I didn’t really think it would be. I waited till I got home from work to take the test, I was home alone. I peed on the stick and I could pretty much see the positive line appear almost instantly. I kinda just sat there in shock for a while not knowing what to do, how to act or what to think. Then of course all the doubts set in, “are we really ready?” “will Kere be excited?” of course we did have in depth conversations about it, but with it happening so quickly I worried Kere might not be as excited! I was getting more and more excited as the time was going by, waiting for Kere to get home from work! Then I thought “how am I going to tell Kere?!” I decided I wanted to give him some sort of baby item to tell him. I made the very difficult decision to not tell him when he first got home from work as I had to shoot off to netball training about 30 minutes after him arriving home. Instead I decided to call into the warehouse on my way home from training to get a baby item for him. I found a onesie that said “I ❤️ Dad”. I came home and just said “I have something for you” and pulled the onesie out of my handbag. His facial expression was so sweet, a mix between shock and a smile. He just said “really?!” I could tell instantly he was excited which immediately made me feel so much more relaxed! Isn’t it funny how from the second you see that positive sign that little baby does not leave your mind! I could not stop thinking about it!
I struggled with awful morning sickness for the first 13 weeks, vommiting everyday and just feeling like total crap. I was so sick I had to get some special medication subscribed, I got my Mum collect it for me. When she came to drop it off she just walked in the door and said “are you pregnant?!” she was so excited and begged me to tell my dad so she had someone to talk to about it! So I got my dad to call around after work to “pick up some potatoes” haha! I was laying on the ground feeling so sick and I just blurted it out! “No” was all he said over and over, I suddenly thought “shit, he’s not excited” but then he let out this burst of happy laughter and I instantly knew he was over the moon,, just in shock! We waited another 5 or so weeks to tell the rest of my family and well, their reactions were priceless!!
The rest of my pregnancy was very straight forward. My only real ‘complication’ was to do with the antibodies in my blood. I have an E antibody which is a foreign antibody (I may have contracted it through one of my tattoos). This anti body could cause my baby to be anemic. If the E antibody crosses my placenta to the baby’s bloody stream, his or her body would attack this antibody as it is foreign, but the baby’s body wouldn’t know when to stop so it would start attacking its own blood cells. Lucky I only had a very low count and they just kept eye on it to make sure my levels didn’t rise.
By 38 weeks I was starting to feel very ready to have our little baby earth side. I decided to go and try Acupunture. I had one session at 38 weeks, that night I had a lot of Braxton Hicks which I hadn’t experienced before! Then at 39/5 I went to Acupunture again, in the wee hours of the morning following my contractions started.
As we lived about 1 hr from the hospital we had decided that we would go stay at my parent house when my contractions started so we were closer to the hospital. About 9am on the Thursday we went to my parents. I labored on and off all day. At 4pm my midwife came to check me (I was having some strong some weak contractions and they varied in time). I wasn’t really dialiated at all, she just said my cervix was very soft so it was happening just a while off yet! I was feeling so disheartened like I got everyone excited for nothing! That night my contractions basically stopped! I was so upset, I just thought I had jumped the gun and it wasn’t going to happen yet! Thankfully it did mean I was able to get some sleep again!
Friday rolled around and it was much the same as Thursday contractions on and off all day varying in strength and length. By 4pm it was still very all over the place so we went to the hospital to see my midwife again. I was only 3cm, I could have screamed! I couldn’t believe it was taking this long and how was I suppose to have any energy when they time came that I really needed it! My midwife decided to give me a stretch and sweep. I once had a friend describe it like “trying to make your nostril the size of your mouth” I can honestly say it was the most painful experience of my entire labour rollercoaster! My midwife also gave me some very strong sleeping pills and codine, telling me to go home and rest! In hindsight this was not a very good idea!
We went back to my mums about 6pm and I was so dosey! I went to my room and lay on the bed trying to fall to sleep, but the contractions were getting harder and I couldn’t sleep through it. Around 10pm they were extremely painful but still very irregular! I was so drugged up I could barley sit up my Mum and Kere had to help me stay up right on the Swiss ball. My mum rang the midwife and said we were coming back in. I had decided that I couldn’t do it any more, if I went to hospital and was dilated more great if not I was going to get an epidural cause I was exhausted! On the drive to the hospital I was in so much pain, I vomited (lucky we had an ice cream container cause I filled that bad boy up). We finally got to the hospital and the walk to the room felt like it took forever. My midwife even made the comment to my mum “I don’t know how she is still standing, I gave her enough sleeping pills to knock out a horse” I guess the adrenaline overrode that!
When she checked me about 11pm I was 8cm! Even my midwife was stunned! My whole pregnancy I was so set on having the baby in the bath. My midwife had me set up on the bed with the monitor on as mine and the babys heart rates were high so the put iv fluid in! I hated laying on the bed it made every contraction so painful. So I hoped off and stood on the side. I can honestly say I don’t have any reccolition of time, all I knew was I felt like I was starting to push! I begged my midwife to put me in the bath, she finally agreed and just as I climbed into the bath my waters broke and it was all go from there. My body knew exactly what it wanted to do and this immense urge to push took over my body! I think about 5 pushes later my baby was here! At 1.15am we had the most beautiful little GIRL! To be honest, I don’t really remember a lot of emotion, she was passed to me and I felt like I just about passed out. I forgot to even look and see what she was (we didn’t know what we were having). She was taken off me and passed to Kere, my midwife whipped me out of the bath as it looked like there was a lot of blood. The next 45 minutes to an hour I didn’t get my baby on me, something I look back on and hate, I should have asked them to pass her to me while I was being tended too ( I had a small tear that needed stitching) no reason my baby couldn’t have been on me!
Kere and I both took one look at her once everything had settled down and we agreed
She was our beautiful little PAISLEY 💕
Healthy for Me and My 3 