Birth of our fantastic lil girl 05/03/08 (blokes perspective) :)
Hi guys,
Just thought I would let you in on the perspective of what I went through with the birth of our little princess Madison.
Well my wife's pregnancy was fairly buy the book 15 weeks morning sickness, no other problems to speak off (minor blodd pressure in the birth centre, put down to white coat sindrome) so we did the whole birth class thing at the Mercy FBC in Melbourne. It was good, but after doing sooooooo much reasearch (this site was high on that list) there wasn't too much we didn't already know (from the classes that is :p)
So Tuesday night Madison is 8 days overdue, and we were heading to bed and Rochelle's water broke 11.00 P.M., it was not the gushing we were told maybe 100ml then about 5 mins later about 60ml. So I ring the support person, put her on notice and ring the hospital.
They say take two panadol and go to sleep, so OK they know best I really felt out of my depth so down go the panadol and off to bed we head.
About 15 mins later the contractions are getting a little stornger but have been comming thick and fast and strongish from 10mins after the waters had broken.
So what do I do? what do I do? I know I was painting the ceiling before the waters broke and hey I know how to do that! So 2nd coat goes on and I'm out of Ideas?? Where does it say in any book 'oh and by the way, you will be feeling like the biggest shag, on the biggest rock' yeah must have been in the reviesed edition.
So out come all the books
- FBC labour positions
- What to expect when your expecting
- Baby love
- Myer catalouge
Anything I could find, then I remember BATH!!!!!
So I run the bath, it's not that big but it felt like I was trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a watering can. So bath's run Chelle jumps in and feels heaps better. Unreal! I think, I am sorting this labour stuff out and there is not a god damn thing nature can do about it!
It's now about 2 A.M. I ring our support person and tell her to come over, she arrives about 2.30 and Chelle is glad to see her. Chell's contractions are still the same strength but a little closer and a little longer.
3.10 A.M. I say to Chelle, "look we better cal the FBC and let them know we will be in and see when they want you to come" So I ring the phone and give it to Chelle. She quickly says what has happened and then says to the lady on the other end "hang on I'm about to have a contraction" so the phone gets passed to me and the conversation goes like this:-
Me: "Hello"
Midwife : "I don't care what you have to say, I need to listen to your wifes contraction"
Me: "done" I put the phone near Rochelle and the midwife hears it
Me: "so how was that"
Midwife "Pack your bags and get here now"
Me "on the way"
I would now like to add this is our fist baby, 12-16 hour labour is normal and average so I thought we may be going in early but hey they know best.
The next 660 seconds or 11 mins were very calmly spent packing the gear into the car in some sort of tetris style.
Then were off Tullamarine to Heildelburg at 3.30 A.M. in the morning, I'm not sure if people reading this got the memo, but the whole nth/west suburbs seemed to know that the Tulla freeway and Bell St were compleatly off limits to all road users until we reached our destination.
3.55 A.M. we reach the FBC park the cars and rush in to find our room not quite ready. 'No worries' I think, 'take you your time, we've got all day' and then Chelle tells the midwife "I need to go to the toilet to do a poo". The midwife then informs Chelle an inspection next door is needed to see just how far along she is.
*****Insert birth plan rant*****
We decided very early on that a birth plan went along the lines of, go to hospital, hope for not much pain, get baby out healthy. Drugs in the order of Gas, Peth, Epi, US ARMY govenment funded pain killers.
So with no 'set limits' we went though the 'dreaded doors' (out of the FBC and into the Mercy birthing unit) which worried neither of us.
I do think that being in an argument, or trying to solve issues relating to a birth plan is one of the weirdest things I have heard of being new to the whole thing (but it is important to some).
****End of rant****
So Chelle's on the bed, the midwife pokes around 'err, umm, err'
"your fully dialated Rochelle, so jobs on!"
I loved that bit a midwife saying "jobs on" just made it seem so much on the level we were at (e.g no medical talk) so away we go.
Well not really me, my entire time was spent holding Chelle's shoulder. All the reading about breathing, communication "We are never having sex again!!" there was none of it. Chelle was so focused and nearly distant that it felt like she was in a trance. This was quite helpful for me as getting 15 things 8 of which were sharp thrown at my head was not on my list do do.
Chelle was not sceaming in pain in contractions either, just making like an ohhhaahhh kinda sound, very quite just litsning to the midwife when she was saying "push deep breath, and again little breath, that's it!"
4.50ish I see Madison's head crowning, it was so beatiful, I can not describe the feeling it was exciting, happy, nervs, concentratin everthing all at once.
4.57A.M. I see Madison's head followed by the rest of her seconds later.
I don't kow if you can swear on the forums but the 1st thing I honestly thought (the word sounds like 'duck')
'DUCK ME' she is the most beatiful thing I have ever seen, and then the realisation that Chelle had a 6 hour, drug free, vag birth labour. There was absolutly nothing that went wron'g it was all straight by book.
She was 9 pound 1 and 52 cms long and 9/10 on the APGAR test.
Back at home now (after being in the hospital for 30 hours) they said there was nothing more they could do for us, she was attaching and there were no other issues.
So away we went and now back home for a few days I'm sure this is the start to a long and enjoying, NO forfilling time.
Thanks for reading, please excuse all spelling/grammitical errors.
Cheers
Mick :)
