MY BIRTH STORY (18+)

When Two Became Three

It was Wednesday the 9th November 2016. I had a 07:00 appointment at the hospital with my Midwife. I was so over being pregnant at this point as I was 3 days overdue, I just wanted to meet my baby and basically not be preggo anymore! So, I went into my appointment, and like I said I was overdue so my midwife wanted to have a feel up there to see how many centimetres dilated I was. I was only 1cm dilated. "WOOHOO" only 9cm more to go. (Yes, I'm disgustingly optimistic sometimes). On top of that she said she had felt my baby's head (how cool right?). Anyways... She added that she "had a feeling that baby would come today or tomorrow". Funnily enough, the baby was born the same day but we'll get to that. Then she stated that if I didn't give birth by the following Wednesday, they would have to induce me (Which I was dreading because I wanted a fully natural water birth blah blah blah).
After my appointment I ran some errands, had a catch up with friends then went home and started exercising to get the baby going because I was not going to get induced! After exercising, of course I was hungry like a beast and was craving McDonald's... Brought some lunch home for hubby and I then made us a coffee. Just as I was about to sit on the chair to drink my coffee... POP! MY WATER BROKE. 
Initially I thought I was peeing, but it just kept coming. I said to my husband my water broke and naturally, he didn't believe me. When I touched my crouch and my hands were wet he had this huge grin on his face. So I went into the bathroom and my husband ran to my mum to tell her my water broke. Three of us are in the bathroom (No privacy! Gosh!) having a meeting? Seriously! Then I put a pad on and called the hospital, they stated I had to come into the hospital in the next hour. So in that hour, my mother had a shower, my husband had a shower, I got dressed, washed the dishes, took some selfies, and we were out the door! Mind you, I had no contractions at this point.
We arrived at the hospital and to my dismay, when the midwife looked at my pad, there was meconium. Baby did a Big Pooh. Like any other excited first mama, I watched all the seasons of The Midwives and One Born Every Minute, so I was aware that 1. Baby was distressed (probably from me exercising) and 2. I would have to be induced. I was trying my best NOT to be induced and what does the universe say... YOU SHALL BE INDUCED! That's a huge slap in the face. Like in those T.V. shows, they hooked me up to all the gadgets, listened to baby's heart rate, and induced me! But that wasn't going to get me down, because hello, I'm going to meet my princess. My birth partners, hubby and mum (worst birth partners ever) were just checking out the room, calling everyone imaginable and video recording the experience like we were on holiday. I actually don't know how time went past which was a positive. Then the contractions starting to come in, those mother f***ing contractions. I tried to embrace it, and I did for the first few hours. But they became so frequent that I couldn't even take a break from them. For a good 3 hours straight I was only having probably about a 30sec break in between my contractions. Man o man was that epidural sounding like heaven right about now. I told my mum to press the buzzer to call my midwife for the Epidural. She said no. So during my 30sec break I was explaining what bad birth partners they were and that I will never forgive them. Yeah, gets pretty dramatic in the labour room, but hey, when you need pain relief and your denied of it, shits going to go down! Me being me, I started screaming for help, and my midwife came in and I asked for the epidural, and she said the anesthetist was in the operating room, and that when she came out, I could get one. I waited around 40 minutes, when she came in to the room to talk to me about the risks and all that jazz, I wanted to start pushing.
I went into the hospital at 3pm and my daughter was born at 9pm. First time mum, 6 hours! Don't want to rub it in but man I'm lucky. I felt like a champion. King of the world. My baby was crying, red and breathing in my arms. What more could I have asked for. The pain was gone and the worst was over. Or so I thought.

Aria's first photograph with grandmama.

As the midwife was checking my stomach, she pushed down with her hands and 3 big blood clots flew out. Man did that hurt but it felt so good after it was all out. In the meantime, the other midwife was stitching me up in 3 different places. That was probably more painful than giving birth! That huge needle to numb that area and the stitches, like seriously, I rather my vagina look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame's face that go through that pain again. After that, the blood didn't stop, I just keep bleeding and bleeding, It was as if someone left the tap on inside me. I was hemorrhaging. The pain didn't stop, as I thought the worst was over, the midwives and gynecologist kept shoving utensils and their hands up there to clean me out of any placenta that was left behind. But none of it worked. (By the way I forgot to mention, the only pain relief I had was laughing gas). I lost 3 litres of blood. While this was happening, my birth partners were running around trying to get the baby in a nappy and dry clothes. Hello, I'm dying here. But I guess everyone has their own way of dealing with stress. Anyways, they finally said I would have to go into the operating room as the blood was not stopping. I had to sign all these papers, get jabbed by so many needles and all I wanted to do was gaze at my princess. I was so numb from all the blood loss, I was in so much pain, I just wanted to be put asleep. Death felt like a beautiful option. But it was the easy way out! And I wasn't going anywhere because my baby needed me. I was very scared, but didn't want to show it to my husband and mother. After 3 hours in the operating room, a 3 litre blood transfusion and a balloon up my yahoo... I woke up!
They put me into the High Dependency Ward, so again away from my princess. I was so drugged, swollen and out of it at this point the only thing that was running around in my head was 'she's all alone in the nursery'. After 5 days at the hospital, I was discharged. Now all it is, is one big blur.

As I was apart from her for a few days, my breast milk didn't come in and she was bottle fed. The midwives at the hospital were so helpful and worked night and day with me to get me to breastfeed. After two whole days of machine pumping, stimulating and baby sucking, my breast milk came through. Pretty amazing after a 3 litre blood loss!