Emily’s Birth – May

I finished work on Friday 30th April 2004 as Emily was due on the 19th May, which would give me about two weeks to get myself organized and have a little rest. I have an autoimmune disease called Lupus so I was really feeling the strain of being pregnant towards the end. I was massive, I had a lot of water retention, my joints were getting sorer by the day and I was ready for some sleepy days at home.

Wednesday the 5th May, (four days into my rest) at 5:00am I woke up with a gush feeling down below, thinking that it was a show I ran to the toilet and my waters had broken. I was too scared to get off the toilet in case it all came gushing out. I had no pain at all, so I sat up for a while out on the tiled area just in case, nothing happened so I went and had a warm shower and went back to sleep.

5:45am, I felt more waters coming out, rushed to the toilet again and still in no pain so off to bed I went again.

6:10 my first contraction and boy was it a doosey! Before I knew it there was another and another. I said to my fiancé, Jason that we should start timing them. They were three minutes apart and thirty seconds long and very constant and getting more painful each time. We called our midwife and we agreed that we would leave home at 7:30 and meet her at the hospital around 8:00. Well 7:00 came around and the pain was too much so Jason said it’s time to go now.

7:25am arrived at the hospital, I was giving birth at the Birthing Centre at the Canberra Hospital and as we arrived they had only just opened up for the day as they close during the night. They open when you call ahead during the night. Jason went in to check there was someone there then came out and got me – I could hardly walk the pain was very strong.

Happy Birthday Emily

Our midwife hadn’t even arrived yet, we went into one of the birthing suites and a midwife examined me and said “I can see the head, it won’t be long now”. I was petrified, it wasn’t meant to happen this fast, I was expecting the long drawn out labour. I started off on all fours but ended up using the birthing stool, (and I would highly recommend it to anyone), with a large amount of screaming out “NNNNNOOOOOO” and screaming the house down little Miss Emily May arrived at 8:30am, two weeks early. She weighed 7lb 8oz (3.4kg) and was 48.5cms long. Because she arrived in such a hurry there were NO DRUGS AT ALL, mind you this was not by choice. I would have at least liked some gas but there was no time. There were no stitches either thank God, I was very scared of getting them.

Little Emily was a star for the day as she was the first baby to be born that day and it was International Midwifery Day. We will be trying shortly for a little brother or sister for Emily soon and I am hoping for another text book labour!

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