That's what little girls are made of!

[spiceoflife]

Well, firstly, I want to apologise to al those who would have been my February 2013 Belly Buddies, and prior to that LTTTC - you have been a great source of encouragement, wisdom and strength to me, and I'm sorry I could not commit to participating in those threads. Your affectionate lurker, Spice

I had booked an appointment with my GP for early June 2012 to ask for an FS referral. I'd had naturopathic treatment for hormonal rebalancing on and off for 2.5years, and full on for the last 6mths. I was ready to introduce acupuncture and at least hear what the medical approach had to say about our non-specific infertility. We had planned a (rare) romantic weekend around O-day and delighted ourselves in great seafood and wine... Lo and behold, we caught one that stuck! So the GP visit turned into a referral for bloods and dating scan

I was delighted to be offered a place in the Midwifery Group Practice model of care that had only recently started up at my local hospital, and did not balk for a second at the prospect of having a man as my primary midwife. He turned out to be a very cool, competent and pro-natural nurse, with more than 30 years experience, including with developing communities in NT and NZ. He supported many of my hands-off choices, and thankfully the pregnancy was 100% healthy. He was positively interested in the calmbirth classes that my DH and I attended, and impressed I think by the way we utilised those resources on B-day.

I struggled through the last weeks of pregnancy with DH madly trying to finish our home renovations. The due date came and went with only intermittent signs of impending labour. At my 40wk visit, a different mw told me she thought the babe had turned slightly posterior, which made me very nervous about a difficult experience ahead. The night before we had to see a doctor, babe turned anterior again and I thought we had a chance. I fended off the suggestion of induction at 40+10, insisting there must be a medical reason. At the monitoring visit 3 days later, another OB found that there was significantly reduced fluid around the baby and there wasn't much choice but to induce. I managed to convince the doctor to use the balloon, even though my cervix was very very posterior and closed, although quite thin. He agreed to try, describing the procedure as 'industrial' and to expect quite a lot of pain. I just wanted to avoid chemicals at all costs!

So I was admitted late in the day on Monday 25th Feb and introduced to nitrous oxide for the balloon insertion. The procedure was successful but hoo boy, it did hurt, I thought I would pass out. And I thought, if this is what labour is like, I don't know how I'm going to survive tomorrow!
As the balloon did its work, I experienced waves of period-like cramps low down that intensified with time. I had to be monitored for at least 20mins, but my baby's heart rate did not come down from 170-190 for nearly 2 hours - she was having a party or a tantrum or something! It was such a relief to stand and pace for a while when she finally settled down, but then it became really difficult to sleep. I reluctantly accepted some panadeine forte and caught maybe 2-3 hours before I was woken at 6.15am.

It was a busy day in the unit and the OB wanted to break my waters earlier than we anticipated. DH missed all that fun (he doesn't do well with needles, etc). Once again, I managed to request a delay in starting the synto drip, just to see if my body would kick into labour on its own. The balloon had dilated my cervix to 4-5cm; no one warned me that without good labour contractions at this point, it could close down again. Mr Midwife was a couple of hours away and the deal was I could do my own thing in the delivery suite until he arrived to examine me and decide together about synto. Yah well, my body took a breather, my cervix closed a fair way, and now there looked to be small amounts of meconium in my waters, so synto was an inevitability. We took it very slowly, with 20min observations, and it was about 2pm Tuesday 26th Feb when labour truly established.

I stayed upright for as long as I could, leaning on DH through the peak of each wave, asking the muscles in my arms and legs to relax and let my uterus do all the work. We walked. We had a shower. I had one very messy moment in the middle of the room. Then after a VE at 5-6cm, things suddenly got serious and I laboured kneeling on the bed with the gas, moaning through each wave in deep low tones. I think I closed my eyes at this point and didn't open them again until Mr Midwife was negotiating with me about assisting the delivery. Somehow, I had dilated quickly and had been bearing down for more than an hour and a half. I have little memory of that time; I'm sure I used the gas more as a bite than pain duller. But DH was there encouraging me the whole time, giving me sips of water, massaging my lower back. We tried me pushing on the bed, we tried on the birth stool. But while I felt like I was pushing every organ in my body out my arse (which turned out to be 3-4 nasty haemorrhoids), and Mr Midwife said he could see our baby's head, it just would not come round the corner.

Cue cast of thousands: OB registrar with students, paediatrician, OB consultant, additional ward midwife. Stirrups, pudendal block, episiotomy (big one ) and ventouse, and I had to keep pushing! It was a bit ugly; Mr Midwife described it as traumatic and difficult but I didn't/don't feel traumatized necessarily. As he said, I did everything I could to push that baby out, and if that wasn't enough, I was glad for the help. Our baby was born in one contraction, 3-4 pushes. And she was a girl!!

DH and I were ecstatic. We had both wanted a girl, very much, but we didn't find out and we had strong suspicions the other way, preparing ourselves for some slight disappointment. But not to be! We'd had two girls names picked out: one if she was a redhead (like me) and one if she was a blonde (like DH). We named her immediately P.enelope C.ayenne = "Pepper". For her part, Pepper had been one strong little baby, her heartrate never faltered, and she was still moving around after the suction cap had been applied. I was also delighted that she arrived just before midnight on 26.02.2013, which seemed like a great date to be born The paediatrician was not needed as she was absolutely healthy and glad to be with us. I felt our skin-to-skin time was a little rushed; it was probably about an hour but she needed some direction with feeding. DH had some lovely time with her also, cuddled inside his shirt.

And so began our journey with our darling newborn
P.enelope C.ayenne
26.02.2013, 2350
3.645kg, 52cm
APGAR 9, 9, 10.

Oh, and Mr Midwife also thought that she didn't appear to be a post-term baby, lol!!