Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Sophie


Sophie, Our very first blessing! She truly is! She has made my life amazing, given my life new meaning.

When we first found out that we were pregnant it was an amazing. We were standing there looking at the test and then at each other in disbelief, and bubbling excitement that there was a precious baby growing inside of me, and "Wow! my body can do this". The Excitement continued but the feeling of wellness didn't. I began feeling very sick, very quickly. I began vomiting pretty much everything I ate and drank. Funny thing is with your first pregnancy you really don't know what to expect or what is normal. So it wasn't until I was in hospital and about 10kgs lighter that I found out that vomiting as much as I was, wasn't normal! So I ended up with dehydrated and a kidney infection. By that time I was 20 weeks and we had had our scan and everything with baby was normal, and even though I wanted too, I wasn't able to find out the babies gender. So because of the kidney infection, the doctors ordered a Kidney scan, and the nurse knew that I would like to find out the babies gender so suggested that while I was there that I could ask the ultra Sounds performer to check for me. So what do you know, she said yes, and we found that we were expecting a lovely little "girl". I was so very excited! I think it really helped me knowing the gender, as I had been sooo sick for sooo long, and no one but Ben really knew what I was going through. I think everyone I mentioned it too thought I was building up my symptoms, saying they were more than they were. They didn't take me seriously. So while feeling really sick, I also felt really alone, I've never been really close to my family, and my husbands family were not very happy at all that we were expecting. So depression was a big thing, and Ben was really worried that he would come home and there would be no more me. I can't say I didn't think about it several times. But finding out that we were have a little girl, really personalised the pregnancy for me, all of a sudden She was a real baby and we had a name for her, and I could shop for pink things and have real dreams about what she might be like and look like and so on. I know this sounds silly for some people reading this. But I was in a very different place them than I am now, and had many challenges. So the Pregnancy continued and I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes, which was another emotional hurdle for me, but also caused some more challenges for the pregnancy. Finger prick testing 4 times a day, watching everything I ate and drank, and reporting to doctors almost weekly and all the time struggling to hold anything down. The vomit had settled some, but there was really a day that I didn't vomit, and my gag reflex had total gone silly, if I coughed or sneezed, even laughing too hard sent me running for the bathroom. Needless to say by the end of the pregnancy I was well and truly over it all!

Time to Deliver!
During the last few weeks I had a few false starts, the doctors had told me to go to the hospital as soon as labour started so I could be monitored. so went in thinking things had started only to find that they hadn't. Again first baby not really sure what to expect. So the night that is did start. I had gone to bed at around 9.30ish Sleep for a few hours and then got up about 12ish to go to them toilet. While on the toilet I started cramping, after experiencing a few cramps I woke Ben, to tell him that I think this is it. Now my husband doesn't drive, so to get to the hospital we need someone else to take us. SO we got dressed, Ben filled up my hot water bottle which had a teddy bear outer cover, so Ben was able to hold it's arms while rubbing my back with it. After about an hour I was sure that this was it and it wasn't going to stop, I said to him that we need to call Rob, a friend that lived down the street that had offered to take us in when the time came. Well little did we know that Rob was deaf in one ear, and that night was sleeping on the other. Ben rang about twenty times and got no answer. Oh Gosh! what are we going to do! We hadn't lined up anyone else to pick us up. Anyway we finally called Ben's Aunt who had worked as a midwife and in the special care nursery at the hospital. She happy came and got us and took us in at 1.30am poor lady.

When we got in I was checked out and discovered to be 1 cm. Oh my gosh only 1! I think this is going to be a every long and painful night!. So the Midwife suggested that I have a bath to help with the pain and also gave me panadol and sleeping tablets, while in the bath! She instructed Ben to make sure I didn't drown. I found the bath to be amazing and helped me soooo much with pain. During the next couple of hours while I was in the bath, I was chatting away to the midwife in between contractions, we discovered that she had been working at the hospital that I was born at and she remembered my mother. Because my own birth was one to remember. I was an 11 pound baby, and got stuck coming out the birth canal, so the staff had to push me back in and hold me there while rushing us to theatre to preform an emergency C-section, at the same time my mother couldn't help but push and tore the uterus from the wall lining and I was drowning in blood. SO they got me out and thankfully here I am today. Needless to say that the story of my own birth made me a little more than anxious about my own delivery.

Any how, after several hours of labouring in the bath, it wasn't having the same effect as it had before and the midwife suggested getting out and checking how far along I was and maybe trying the gas and Air. So I agreed with that. After being checked it was discovered that is now 3 cm along. So I gave the gas and air a go, and it helped for a good time. By the time 8am can, new doctors and midwives had come on duty and I was checked again, I was still only 3 cms. What! By this time I had been labouring for about 8 hours. So the doctors recommended that I have an epidural done. After being awake all night and feeding exhausted I was very ready to say yes! So that was done. Finally some relief, and off to sleep. I think I sleep for a little while. The epidural worked for a little while, and then stopped working on my left hand side. So wasn't completely in the right spot.

Around 5pm in the afternoon I was checked again and finally I had dilated to 7cms, Yay! I was getting somewhere! And But 9pm I was fully dilated and told it's time to push. I was feeling very much like I needed to poop! The midwife told me to go with that feeling and the pushing began. However because of the epidural I couldn't actually feel my bottom half that well, and was struggling with getting my mind around the whole pushing thing. So after about 30 mins of trying to push, the doctor where monitoring my babies heart beat and she wasn't coping very well with this. It was decided that in the best interest of the baby it was time to get this baby out. First they would try the ventouse and if that didn't work they would go ahead and preform an emergancy c-section. Ben and I agreed. So we were rushed up to theatre on the way we discussed how the epidural was not working fulling and that when we got there they would pull it out and put in a spinal block. However when we got there they decided to try filling up the epidural, which worked at that point, so they decided to go with that. The Ventouse was positioned on our babies head and the doctor began to pull and I was instructed to push. But she wasn't moving. SO at 11.30 pm the 30th of November a c-section was performed. However half way through the procedure that epidural stopped working on my left side again, and I started to feel this incredible burning sensation. Oh my gosh, that is them cutting me!

I began to scream with the pain. The Anesthetist that I had was Asian, and I really struggled to understand clearly what he was saying to me because of his thick accent. He placed a gas mask over my face, and they also filling the epidural again. Mean while I thought he was saying to me that I needed to stay awake and not go to sleep, But the gas that he was giving me was making me go to sleep, so I was crying looking at my husband thinking...."this is it, I'm not going to make it! Please look after my baby" Ben also thought that was I was going to die. Thankfully after a short time another nurse came to help him and she was able to explain that it was ok for me to fall asleep. Relief that calmed me so much. Sophie was Delivered and I was closed up. While in the womb she had become very stressed, as was her mother, and she swallowed meconium and also breathed some in. So she was suctioned and taken to neonatal intensive care. I was given pain killers and taken to a private room to recover.

The recovering was not fun at all. Anyone that has had a c-section will know what I'm talking about when I say that. As every movement you make hurts. However all the pregnancy symptoms I had were gone. Ben was quiet shocked when he came to visit, as the depression, vomiting and lethargy(apart from the pain killing drug kind)were all gone. He thought they had done something to me, He didn't understand how good it felt not being sick.

Sophie was being looked after by the NICU, and I didn't actually get to see her at all until about 24 hours later. Ben was able to walk up and see her anytime he wanted but I was stuck in a bed and couldn't go up there. The nurse had said to me that they would take a photo of her for me, but the ward was very busy and it wasn't until about ten hours after her birth that I got to see her for the first time via a photo. Finally I was well enough to be able to get into a wheel chair and be driven up to see her. SO gosh the feeling were difficult. She was connected to lots of different things, iv antibiotics and as well as other monitors. She wasn't well enough at that point to feed, so they helped me express and syringe that into her mouth. Thank fully she was able to come off most of those things very quickly. It was 3 days after her birth that I got to hold her and try her at the breast, she and I finally got the hang of it and her feeding tube was removed and at 8 days old we were able to go home. Now 7 nearly 8 years on she is a Happy healthy girl. That had brightened my life and I think all those that she meets! I'm so proud of my lovely little blessings, and look forward to seeing what the Lord will do in her life.

Birth Stories

If you are like me, you would quite enjoying reading birth stories, and I have read many of other peoples births stories over the years. However I haven't ever gotten round to writing down my own journeys of delivering my lovely Blessings into this world and the experience of going through that 6 times now. So I have decided that it's to to write them down, Not only for myself but also for my children and a bit of record about how they made it earth side. Hope you enjoy reading them, and will take one at a time.