A Labour of Love

So....in yesterdays 300th blog post - which mind you, has been a bit of anti-climax. Where are all my comments? - i asked for post suggestions for this week. Seeing as Brea of Brea's Befuddled Brain is the only ( yet ) to suggest anything, i guess she gets the honour of being todays " contributor ". Brea said:
As a fellow Mummy, I would LOVE to hear about your labour! Was it short, long, emotionally draining...? Did everything go to plan, or did something go wrong? How did Mick cope?

So here's the disclaimer: this post will definately be of the TMI variety. If you are easily offended by birth stories, do not need the mental image of me giving birth scarring you for life or simply do not care to hear about how my son was born STOP READING NOW. Do not read the post, decide you didnt care for it, and then bombard me with abuse in the comments section.

So, that being said - this is not an overly scary birth story. I didnt give birth in my backyard ( shout out to you Lori ) and i wasnt in agonising pain for days on end. Truth be told, i'm lead to believe my labour was on the " good " end of the scale. I'm not saying it was easy - uh, hell no! - but it wasnt as horrible as some other wanna-be-mummas have had to go through. For starters, my son decided that it was going to arrive 15 days before his due date, and contractions started spontaneously. By " spontaneously " i mean a) that i didnt have to be induced and b) they started in the checkout line at Target. Yep - i decided to hit up the post-Christmas sales, December 27th, 11am, and i'm waiting in line to pay for Powderfingers latest album and a set of 3 baby onesies and.... hey, wait, whats that little niggly feeling? Feels like the waistband in my pants has decided to shrink a little, like it wants to squeeze me to death. It wasnt overly painful, just uncomfortable, so Mick and I continued on to my brothers house for a visit.

It wasnt until we left my brothers house that i decided to let Mick in my little secret. I started timing the contractions - 5 minutes apart, lasting 30 seconds - and when we got home i called the hospital. The midwife said that if my water hadnt broken then i probably wasnt in labour, but if a shower didnt ease the pain i could come in. A shower ease the pain ? Uh, nuh. All the shower suceeded in doing was making me lose timing of the contractions and made me extra-squeaky clean. We got to the hospital ( which is literally a 3 minute drive from our house ) just before 1pm and i was 3 cm dialated on examination. I was definately in labour! We were moved into a suite and by this time the uncomfortable sensation was starting to become a little painful. I was still ok but Mick - aww, poor old Mick. He had said the whole way through the pregnancy he didnt want to be in the suite for the birth and i could see why - poor thing was as white as a ghost, and so far all i was doing was walking in circles rubbing my back! He called my mum and waited til she got there, then i sent him away to get himself some lunch, expecting that we would be preoccupied well into the night.

My mum rubbed my back and helped time my contractions, which were getting closer together. I had an " older " midwife come in, maybe in her early 60's and she broke my water - now let me tell you, for those who dont know, that having your waters broken for you is not fun. Its relatively quick, but it hurts. Once the water was broken, the labour stepped up a notch. I got into the spa and started using the gas but it made me feel disgusting - it made me light headed and i threw up twice. ( NOTE: I kind of lost track of time, so excuse the lack of time frame here ). Besides the nausea, the gas wasnt doing jack for the pain so i got out of the spa and tried walking around the room again. Didnt help. The midwife came back and told me it was only going to get worse and i should get back in the spa. Mick came back from his lunch just in time to help Mum get me back in the spa - after which my Mum sent him back out again because he looked like he was going to pass out.

Well - here's where my female bodies natural instincts took hold. It had only been around 4 and half hours since my contractions first began but something, somewhere, inside me was saying " Push! ". I climbed out of the spa, crying and wailing, telling my mum i was going to sit on the loo and i was going to push. She kind of got a little panicked and told me i couldnt do that, it would be hours yet, and i didnt want to hurt the baby. The old midwife came back in and told my mum - " She's being a bit ridiculous. You need to settle her down because its going to be a good while yet ". Ridiculous? Screw you, you old bag, i'm in pain and i'm pushing! ( ok, i didnt ACTUALLY say that, but thats what i was thinking ). After another 20ish minutes of me stalking around the bathroom grunting a young midwife came in and told me that, if i'd come out of the bathroom and hop up on the bed, she'd examine me and see how far along i was. So i did as i was asked, completely panicked and calling out for an epidural. It wasnt supposed to hurt this bad, this early, was it? Seriously, if this was only the beginning i wasnt going to able to cope!

My mum helped me up on the bed, my legs shaking as i let the midwife have a look..... She ducked her back up and said " Sweety, you're absolutely right, you do need to push. The babys ready so whenever you get the urge you push as hard as you can " ( you know, or words to that effect ).So - too late for the epidural then? The first thing i did ? I turned to my mum and yelled " I told you so! ".... and then it was on. I remember saying i wanted to go home, i couldnt do this anymore and, when my mum said she could see the babys head i asked if she could just reach down and pull it out for me. The midwife calmly got herself ready because she didnt think the doctor was going to make it back to deliver the baby, and, even though she said i needed to try and push without wasting my energy on making noise, i screamed and grunted for all i was worth.

And, finally, at 5:05pm i gave one final push and pop! there he was, my little bubba. I say " pop! " because thats the noise it made - i'm going to add in a " woosh! " too because it was like that little dude was coming down some kind of waterslide ( sorry about the mess Dr... ). The doc asked if i wanted to hold him and i was aware enough to answer, but stupid enough to ask " Me? ". Uh, duh, yea Amy.... its your baby. My mum called Mick in after the midwife had cleaned me up and he had the first hold after Flynn had been cleaned up a bit. My dad, with his impeccable timing, had turned up to see how i was getting along, so we let him in too, at which time Mick and I told them that the babys name was Flynn Charlie - we'd manage to keep the name a secret up til then.

So there you be - 15 days early, spontaneous contractions, 6 hours labour, and no stitches - one hell of a first labour if i do say so myself. All of which resulted in this little sprout:

 PS - my apologies to my mother for putting her through an 18 hour labour....
P.P.S Feel free to leave your suggestion for tomorrows post!