Suprise posterior birth of ~Summer Audrey~ 10/10/10
Summer Audrey…
Where to start… I think Wednesday, October 6. The day the IL’s are bringing our girls home after having them out there for a week & a half of the school holidays.
I woke up feeling a bit off. My joints & muscles were aching like I was getting the flu or something. Really restless & needing to stretch all day. Also having hot flushes & heartburn, which I’d only had through the pregnancy at night, never during the day.
Anyway, about 4pm that afternoon, I got really emotional & fed up. I’d had enough, I was so sick of being in pain, not being able to bend over easily & just the fact that I was still pregnant. While both our older girls were about a week overdue, DS came 2 days early, so I thought my body knew what to do & I’d be a day or 2 early again.
Talk about not fair! Lol. Anyway, I got over it all. Kids got home that night & IL’s were here til Sunday. I knew I wasn’t far overdue, but I felt like time was running out. I felt like I was ripping IL’s off to start with. They had taken the girls to give me a break & were hoping for baby cuddles when they got here, but I wasn’t able to give them that
Then we were just days away from school going back. I did not want to have to deal with labour & school & just wanted life to be simple for a change, lol.
So on Thursday I tell everyone I’ll go for a walk to get things going. But, of course, after over a week of rain already, it decides to pour down again. That’s ok, I have
Friday…
Head to town Friday, do some op shopping with SIL, see a few people I know who ask how long there is to go now, & I tell them that I’m starting to think I made the whole thing up! It’s a phantom pregnancy & I’m never going to have a baby, coz there really isn’t anything in there… lol
Again, Friday night was going to do some walking, but got a phone call from friends who decided they wanted DH to get on it with them. Hmm…3 days overdue, sure I want DH to get drunk so I have noway to the hossy! Sounds great! MIL & FIL are both drinkers, so I knew they would have a few as well, & honestly I didn’t think it fair to ask them not to. This is their holiday, just coz DH decides he can’t be a responsible adult…
So no walking Friday either. Got through the night, going to bed early & leaving MIL to entertain DH’s friends partner. She’s getting on my nerves a little too much lately to call her a friend.
Saturday, 9/10. Fresh day, better mood, DH slightly hung over (suck ****!) we decide to go out for lunch at the tavern 10 kms down the road. Another horrible miserable rainy day. DD1 brings a friend & we pack up the fishing gear for after lunch.
As we are getting everyone in the car, all hell breaks loose over who gets to sit where & suddenly I’m emotional & crying again, wondering why on earth I’m having another one! Seriously, I have enough to deal with! What is wrong with me! Then again, decide that’s it, I’m walking. Tell DH I’ll go over the foot bridge over the river, down to the beach through the sand & back again. I never made it that far, lol.
We had lunch & headed down to the river. Walked across the footbridge & set the kids all up fishing. When they were sorted, I just wanted to sit down. I kept telling myself to get up, but just didn’t want to yet.
Then, after about an hour, at 3.27pm I had a Braxton hicks…. But this was different. It had pain down low like a real contraction as well… Nah, I’m imagining it. Just a BH, though I do let DH know. I had a few more BH without pain & decided to go back to the car. Sitting in the car with SIL I have another of the painful BH’s at 4.27. Hmm… I decided to tell DH I wanted to go home. Stuff the walking. Got everyone together & got in the car.
DH had had a beer or 2 at the tavern with lunch, so I drove, & had another pain on the way home, at 4.53. Interesting, lol. Then another as I was getting out of the car. So I took DS, who needed a sleep & headed for my room.
The contractions were pretty irregular. I didn’t think much of them still. In all 3 of my other labours, I’ve gone to bed & woken up in pain. Here I was being disappointed every time I woke up in the mornings for nothing, lol.
So I got on BB to share & try to decide if this was all real or not. The contractions were 10 – 15 minutes apart, about a 3/10, with the odd one in between, at about 1/10.
MIL & DH were worried, MIL’s 4th labour had only been 45 minutes & my last one was 5 hours, so they convinced me to call the hossy at about 5.30. I wasn’t worried, but I did, just to let them know it was happening.
At about 7ish DH & I went for a walk around the block (short walk, but uphill on one side) to see if it helped. 2 contractions in that 20 minutes or so.
MIL cooked dinner & we ate at about 9pm. Nothing had changed, except that the pains were a bit stronger. No longer, or closer together.
I headed back to the bedroom to lay down & try to decide if I should shower, put my folding away, or sleep. At about 10.30 I went for a shower & DS decided to join me. By now they were lasting a bit longer & I was starting to make a bit of noise through them, but they were no closer together. About 5 – 6/10, lasting 20 – 30 seconds, but still about 10 – 15 minutes apart with the odd one or 2 in between that would’ve only been about 2 – 3/10.
When I got out of the shower I was trying to decide if I should sleep or go in to hossy. It’d been a while & I wasn’t sure if things would just amp up, or keep going how they were. I didn’t want to sleep & wake up & not make it to the hossy! But then I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I just wanted DH’s attention I think. He’d been out watching telly while I was in the room doing all the work alone. I knew in there I would have his full attention & could make as much noise as I needed without waking up the kids.
I rang the hossy to let them know, as maternity is only open when its needed, the rest of the time the mw’s are in general & off we go. On the way I told DH that the mw sounded like an old ***** & that she better not be or I’ll tell her where to go…
It was a bit of a rough ride. We got out to the highway & the council flashing billboard thing had a lovely little message on it for us… ‘YOU EAT POO’ I half laughed, then forgot about it.
Got to the hossy & as we entered the maternity ward the mw (Janelle) came out all smiley & said ‘wow, looks like we’re going to have a 10/10/10 baby!’ With that I cried, lol. She was too nice!
In we go, to labour. She thought it was amusing when I told her that I’d come in here to sleep. Looking back I can see why, lol.
I sit on the bed for a bit, trying to decide what to do to make myself feel better & let DH answer most of Janelle’s questions. Contractions start to pick up a bit now. After a bit we put the end of the bed up & I sit there for a while, the pain is really picking up now. Things also start to get a bit blurry here.
I remember starting to feel pain in my back. I knew it was the pain of a baby in the wrong position, but at all my checkups baby had been engaging & right where she was meant to be. Facing my back, ready to go. So I started to think with all the pressure, maybe I needed to push. I also thought pushing might take the edge off the pain of the contractions. I’d never really been able to let my body decide to take over before. With my first too I was told, ‘that’s it, you’re far enough, start pushing’ without waiting for my body to decide IT was ready. So by the time the urge was there, I had already been pushing with them.
Anyway, I told Janelle I wanted to push. She wasn’t so sure & asked if she could do an internal to see where we were first. I hadn’t wanted an internal, but agreed. I kind of wanted to know. I was about 6cm then, so not close enough to push yet.
But that pressure in my back was horrible & I think after a little while I started pushing anyway, but didn’t put any real effort into it, just tried to find a way to take the pain I guess. I was sitting up against the bed, & thought about changing position, but was stubborn. I knew the second I moved I would have another contraction & there’s no way I wanted that!
I think about here is where my waters broke, with mecconium staining. I was hanging off DH’s shirt like it was my life line by now. Janelle suggested I try go to the toilet & empty my bladder to make sure it wasn’t full & slowing things down a bit. So with lots of protesting, yelling & struggling we made it to the toilet. 2 contractions on the way in, 2 on the toilet & 2 on the way back. While on there I lost my plug. I had no idea, but DH saw it & I think he was horrified, lol. Told Janelle I had something hanging out of me… lmao, poor bugger.
When we get back to the bed I waited on my hands & knees for a contraction to pass & while the pressure was off my back, it was still too painful & uncomfortable for me to stay there. So I got went back to sitting.
I started trying to push again, so Janelle asked if she could check me again. I agreed & she let me know that I was about 8cm, & that she thought she could feel some swelling.
Well that woke me up. The last thing I wanted was to be sent an hour away to Coffs like that for an emergency c/s! Our little hossy offers no more than gas & morphine. Nothing else is on hand.
So I stopped the pushing & started trying to be a big girl & deal with the pain again. Oh boy was DH copping an earful! Poor Janelle was probably starting to think I’d walked straight in off the river bank from the foul language coming out of my mouth!
I told DH I wanted an epi. He laughed & told me I didn’t. Well how bloody rude! ‘Yes I do, how would you know! I’ve done this 3 times before, why the hell should I do it again? I know what it feels like! Why can’t I have a baby without feeling it? Everyone else gets too!’ Oh dear, then more abuse started, on top of pulling on the collar of his shirt & thoughts of giving in to my demanding mouth & biting the Bleep head that put me there to start with! Ohh I came close… so many times!
Then, suddenly bang! I gave Janelle a shocked look as my body told me that was it, PUSH!! It was unreal. There was no stopping it.
Soon her little head was out (facing sunny side up!), I yelled out ‘its out, its out’, then, ‘oh no, now I gotta do the shoulders’, lol. Another big push & at 0251 out she came. I still think that is the weirdest feeling of all.
DH told me she was out & this time, rather than lay back with relief that it was all over, I remembered there was a baby & sat up to see her lying there on the bed. All I could say was ‘OMG, it’s a baby’, ‘I did it’, ‘OMG’…. (Yes I was still in denial that there was actually a baby in there, lol)
We then had a 5 minute physiological 3rd stage, with delayed cord clamping & I was checked for tears, but was, yet again lucky.
All I really wanted to know was her size. I felt all along that she wouldn’t be huge, but really didn’t trust my instincts. My doc also guessed she’d be closer to DD1’s size (7lb 5oz) rather than DD2 & DS (8lb 9oz & 8lb 7.5oz). I knew just by looking at her I was right.
So when finally she was weighed, her stats were:
3450 grams ; 7lb 9oz
50cm long (same as both the older girls)
34.2 head circumference (both the other girls were also close 34.4 & 34.5)
Born 10/10/10 2.51am with apgars of 10 & 10
Oh & it turns out when everything went into the system & I was officially admitted at 0010!
So in the end it was almost 12 hours of contractions, about 4 hours established labour & 20 minutes of pushing.
We had no idea til she was born that she was posterior. Which explains why my back felt like it would split in half the whole time!
It took the night for DH to choose her name, I’d said once I liked Summer, but it was never talked about again. Audrey is the name of both our grandmothers & SIL’s middle name. The second he said it, it seemed right
3 days later we are in milky, sleepless heaven! Oh & we'll be in the paper tomorrow with another baby coz of our special birthday... Not looking forward to seeing what I look like, lol!
