Birth story number one
Dear diary…
These last four days have been unimaginable. We have been through so many emotions and situations, I can’t believe we did it.
Let me rewind, it all started on 29 May. I was having mild cramps, like when the period should come, it was nothing unusual, I’ve been having these types of cramps randomly throughout the pregnancy, but this time I thought… hmm.. there’s something different. These are small contractions, the baby is coming!!!
I told Bryan about my thoughts, and his eyes were as wide as I would ever see them. So we decided to get in touch with a boarding place for dogs near us to see if they had space for Cookie.
So naive… we thought the baby would come in less than 24 hours.
THE BIRTH OF MY FIRST DAUGHTER
Lucky us, they had just opened up the place after Covid regulations got a bit easier. SO he went to take Cookie there, and I was left with my thoughts and contractions.
During the day, they started to get a bit more intense, but we got through them with a lot of hot baths and walking around the house. Nighttime comes, and I am beyond uncomfortable, I can’t sleep, but I have to let Bryan sleep, so at least one of us is feeling human for when the baby comes.
The following day they weren’t annoying anymore; they were strong, strong, strong contractions. I tried to ignore them, but the more I tried, the more intense they seemed. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to go to the hospital and check how things were.
The midwife says to count the time between contractions. What at home was less than 3 minutes apart, at the birthing unit was 10 minutes apart… the timing was all over the place, really. So the midwife tells us it will be at least another day. Do we want to stay there, or do we want to go home? We decided to go home to our bed, food, and Netflix because nobody likes hospitals.
THE FINAL MOMENTS BEFORE MEETING MY DAUGHTER
Finally, day number 3 arrived, and it came with a bang. At 5 am, I was crying in the bathroom. The pain was that severe. It felt like my back was on fire, and it would crack in half at any point. I decided to call the hospital again, and they said to come over. After we reached the birthing unit, we were placed in a room to wait to prepare our actual room.
Previously, we discussed with the midwife to have a bathtub birth. So they had to fill it up. In the meantime, two emergency c-sections arrived, which meant that we had to wait another hour. I have never been that tired in my life, I was falling asleep between contractions, it was that bad.
Two minutes before the midwife came, my water broke as I was sitting right next to the pad they had placed there, especially for situations like this. Anyway, then the midwife took us to our room. She examined me and concluded that I was fully dilated. I was officially in active labor!
I got in the bathtub, and then I took the funny gas device, aka gas and air. It was such a weird feeling, some people describe it as getting high, I never got high, so this feeling was totally new for me. I wouldn’t say I liked it in the beginning, it was making me feel dizzy. But it was also numbing the pain of the contractions.
MEETING MY DAUGHTER
My baby girl did not want to come out. She was still playing with her hands inside the womb. Her head was halfway out, but then she would decide to go back in. And so on for a few good hours. Bryan has been fantastic throughout this entire time. Extremely supportive, and at times, he looked like he was in more pain than I.
After a few good hours, my little girl came out. As soon as she was out, the midwife gave her to me, and I didn’t know that she was slippery, and I almost dropped her. That was the biggest scare of my life. I’ve never held a newborn baby before, I had no idea what to do.
We then moved to the bed, where the midwife checked out our beautiful little girl then handed her over for her first breastfeeding. Later on, the midwife tried to deliver the placenta, but it was stuck. She kept trying, and it was so painful… The umbilical cord ruptured, she managed to catch it and stop the bleeding. But she decided we needed to get the doctor to admit me and go to theater. They gave me an epidural, and the world was a better place for it. I was no longer in pain, and finally, after three long days, nothing hurt anymore.
They removed the placenta successfully, put my bits and parts together with two stitches, and off to the recovery ward to see my amazing baby girl and her perfect daddy.
She was so tiny and so cute. She was perfect in every way, and more importantly, she was healthy.
❤ Alessia Kiara ❤Born at 4.06 kg, on 31 May 2020, at 1:14 pm
