The best day of our lives, the day our baby boy was born.

Reminiscing back to the day we delivered Noah is all very clear. There are no blurs to this story, I can remember every scream – every HIGHLY painful contraction – every midwives face – every cold shower and every minute that we held him as a fresh newborn. I hope I never forget

The images that were taken on Noahs Birth Day are by no means perfectly positioned, beautiful flawless birth images – there was no photographer and there are a number of images that did not make the cut of an online blog haha. BUT they are raw, they are completely exposed and I am extremely grateful to have these memories to treasure forever.

I worked a full time position in my job from the day I found out I was pregnant untill I reached 37.5weeks – Tired and Uncomfortable is one way of putting it.
The last day of work I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face – So many nerves and many more happy tears at the thought that in 3 short weeks I will meet my baby and not to mention the Binge TV and Pajama partys I would be having while on my semi Maternity Break before bubs arrives, how relaxing! HAHA – WRONG.

In just 4 short days I would experiencing what some call Hell – Oh I mean Labour.

Monday 23rd March 2015 – Last midwife appointment – little did I realise this at the time. I entered the antenatal clinic with my usual waddle and went in for my check up. The ladies were so lovely and excited for this appointment as we were so close to the finish line. We had the measurements taken and usual chat and we were 2/5 engaged and head down in the pelvis! HOW EXCITING this felt like it was all becoming real suddenly and I couldn’t wait to share with everyone, baby is head down baby is head down! My baby was transverse (laying side ways) and then breach (bum down) for weeks and weeks and we did everything we could to turn this baby around to get the show on the road and so when we finally had head down it was the biggest relief!

The last photo taken of my ‘bump’ at 38weeks.

 

 

Tuesday 24th March 2015 – Today was a highly stressful and emotional day for my entire family, we had a serious health scare and my beautiful aunt was admitted into hospital so they say big families is great in times of need, aint that the truth! We had 20+ family members crowding the emergency department – waiting and waiting. So this brings me to the point of this day, back and forth to the hospital and up and down hills I walked approximately 20,000steps that day
Clearly baby Grosvenor saw this as a sign to make an exit – so we were on!
5pm that afternoon – Braxton Hicks – Arnt these things quite the bitch! I was lucky enough to have not felt any braxton hicks through the entirety of my pregnancy so when they came on, I thought ‘Oh Great, cramping for the next 2weeks off work, how is the irony’
They lasted only 1 hour – Prayers were had after this moment, thank the lord for sparing me from the false labour – I mean how cruel.

Wednesday 25th March 2015 (Noahs Birth Day) – 5am I am woken up suddenly by the pressure of the little one inside doing a huge tumble and in that sleepy haze I was in and the extreme force of the roll I actually thought baby might of popped out – quite literally! Untill I actually hear a Pop – Yep, the old waters breaking.
Either I am an extreme ninja with lighting fast speed, or I was consciously worried about my internal fluid running through my sheets that I was up and out of that bed and into the bathroom before it even touched my leg! When your pant crouch catches the complete fall of it – WINNING!
And in the creepy way my husband explains it – I pocked my head out of the toilet door with the biggest grin on my face and screamed WE ARE IN LABOUR!
Now, the next 1.5hours go something like this
1. Hubby insists on him going back to sleep because he has a big day ahead – Apparently.
2. He trys to convince me to have a nap, it may take awhile hunny – Sleep ? Are you F*n Kidding Me.
3. I play through repeats of The Block on TV while bouncing up and down on an exercise ball and timing my contractions.
I downloaded one of those dodgy apps that counts between your contractions and tells you when its probably time to make a move, and while that was progressing into ‘Get To The Hospital’ I was mid episode of Room Reveals. Now this thing alarms at you, full alarm – Hospital Time Girl!
I went from 9minute apart contractions to 2minute apart contractions in less than 1.5hrs.
It was show time!

We rang the hospital just to advise them that we are heading up soon and what stage we are at – You would want that bed ready sister because this baby isnt waiting – HA, WRONG AGAIN!
They had the nerve to tell us that we should have breakfast and rest and slowly make our way up as these things can take time – I WAS TOO EXCITED FOR THAT!
So I jumped in the shower and got dressed straight away and we were up there by 8am.
Amoungst all of these details I am actually forgetting to point out – Between the time my waters broke at 5am and we arrived at the hospital at 8am I could not walk from the car, I was stopping every 3steps with that pain I was telling you about above – HELL aka Labour.
When women describe labour pains as in-describable, that’s the word right there! You are in extreme pain to the point you cant even feel your own body anymore, it gets to that point that everything is numb and you are so overwhelmed with the pain you could vommit, you do vommit! Torture could be another term used.

8:30am – I was examined and set up in our room – When explaining to the midwife that my waters had broken at 5am she asked me to remove my padding and come and lay on the bed, what padding ? I wasn’t wearing any.
She then went on to explain that if my waters had broken, I would still be leaking and therefore need a pad so she wasn’t hopeful that she would see any progression.
7 cm DILATED – Well, wasn’t she shocked.
We were opting for a water birth so the midwives ran, actually running down the hallway to get this bath filled up because it can take up to 45minutes to fill as its so large! They were worried id be birthing the baby right where I was laying if they didn’t hurry.
After the series of timeline above I was feeling so in control and I couldn’t believe that I was about to meet my baby – Is this the labour ? Thats it ? Shit, I can handle this its not too bad so far.
Then I’m excited for this delivery – lets do this!

Now the next series of timeline is where I feel disappointment – defeated and in extreme core tightening pain to the point of no return. Oh how the past couple of hours have set me up for a complete mis-understanding of how labour can really pan out. My hopes were high and they were quickly brought back down to earth – very very quickly.

9:00am – Bath Time – We made our way into the dark and moody steamed room where there was our birthing bath waiting for us.

Hubby was very insistent during this pregnancy that there is absolutely no way that he will be plunging himself into the same water that our baby and placenta will be entering into, he will be the support from the side line.
Well, he had the board shorts on and was leaping into that water before I had even attempted the climb into that thing – could I love this guy anymore ? What a man.
We didn’t have a birth plan, as in there was nothing written down, at all. We wanted to go with my body and to be honest we had no idea of what to expect so we went into the hospital with an open mind with the hope that we could deliver bubs in the water with no interference or medication. I was open to the idea of having gas through the contractions as long as I was still feeling in control of my mind so we had the gas brought into the bathing suit and we gave her a whirl.

We breathed through each contraction and were between the bath and the shower for over an hour when this all mighty demon and scream beast took over my mind and I could not control the outburst, these contractions were killing me ( well, I mean they felt like they were )
Mid contraction and going to town on this gas machine and hubby turns to me and says – Babe, that gas bottle is empty its not making the correct sounds.
SAY WHAT! I have been powering through what feels like absolute agony for the past hour with no relief. Safe to say the midwife quickly snuck out and replaced that bottle with a fresh one quicker then you could say ‘Highly emotional and aggravated mum on the loose’
Obviously I was making myself somewhat obvious to the entire midwife suite that I was in active labour by my crys that all of a sudden we had 5+ women surrounding the bath watching myself progress with these huge smiles on their faces, apparently they hadnt seen a waterbirth for awhile so I was on show, oh great.

10:00am – Time To Push – When the midwife had done her examination and mirror check (very pleasant, right!) we were at 9cm! God give me strength, by this point I had lost complete control of my body and was an emotional wreck, the intensity of the contractions was so strong I couldn’t move a muscle I was in a complete body spasm and even the thought of moving into a different position was knocked away pretty quickly. My hips felt like they were being bashed apart with a sledge hammer over and over and over again with no break. I just kept saying to the midwives, is it time to push yet ? is it time to push! Please GOD let me push. I just wanted this to be over, we went from the feeling of period cramping to full contractions in what felt like minutes so I don’t think I had mentally prepared for that, I was screaming through each contraction which at this point were only 20seconds apart so in other words back to back with no break. I had my aunty holding boiling hot water from the shower head on my back, I had my mother in law holding a cold washer on my face and the husband cradling my head and making sure that damn gas was still working.
When the midwife asked if I felt like I needed to push, I just agreed YES YES YES Lets Push I need To! I was in such a state of pain I couldnt tell what my body was doing, I was numb with pain so we started pushing.

After 1 hour of back to back contractions and full blown chin to chest pushing I was examined. The examination from hell – prepare yourselves for this explanation because It still gives me the chills.

We were back to 8cm and severely swollen, my heart sank! Are you kidding me – I felt like my body was failing me.
So we changed positions and to help the gravity I went onto my hands and knees and rested my head on the bath and the extreme pain that followed this was on a whole other level – something wasn’t right! We have upgraded from the sledge hammer on the hips to a concrete jackhammer that was crushing my bones and I was crumbling – I was not in control.

The midwives are now wanting to intervene so she did an internal which felt like she was literally reaching for my soul and squeezing it hard! The screams that came out of my mouth are in-describable and I hadn’t even felt the brunt of it yet! The next contraction was coming on so I’m starting to prepare myself and the arms are holding hubby so tight the poor bloke had no circulation or feeling left and the widwife decided that this was a good time to tell me “Im leaving my hand in through this contraction and im going to hold open the Lip while babys head moves down, the swelling is stopping the progression” And that she did!
As this contraction was ripping through my core her entire arm was lodged inside holding open the lip so baby could move down so not only is a giant skull making its way out now Im stretched beyond belief to accomodate 2 limbs, surely this is what was going to break my pelvis and hip bones – completely snap them in 2!  This near broke me, the tears started and this was the point where I knew I didn’t have much left to give.
2.5hours has passed with back to back pushing – 7cm Dilated – we had dropped back to 7cm f*cking dilated.

At this point I was in shock, I wasn’t sure what was happening and when I heard the word Epidural I didn’t give it anymore hesitation, give it to me now!
We were taken back into our birthing suite and hooked up to the ultrasound machine – baby is posterior. So in other words the baby is spine to spine and sunny side up. Not the way the baby should be laying for an easy delivery.

We made the decision to receive the epidural to allow my body to relax, and swelling to go down which will encourage baby to turn around the correct way for delivery and ensure we can have the safest natural delivery possible. This was a personal decision that we had made together, in the hope that this would bring our little babe into the world the way that we had hoped for, this was our last option.

THANK THE LORD for the epidural, I was numb from the ribs down to the toes and I could finally have something to eat and try and rest before I completely shut down.
Complete and utter bliss for the next 5hours – Numb numb numb! I could eat, I had a nap and my hips were relieved of the stretching, god this was a nice change.

 

6pm – Show Time! After doing another examination baby has turned and we are at 10cm! THANK THE LORD.
So here we go again, we started the pushing process.

We are into 30minutes of intense contractions and pushing and baby wasn’t making his way down as we had of hoped so the Dr was called in – this is where the calmness in the room shifted and became a whole lot more serious! She explained – ‘if baby doesn’t make its way down in the next 3 pushes I am going to assist with a vacuum delivery’ which essentially means they attach a machine pump to the end of babys head and it suctions to assist in bringing baby down. So we attached the machine and on the next contraction was told to give it my absolute ALL to try and bring this baby down, and with the next contraction she pulled – as in Foot on the bed yanking as hard as she could kind of pull!  And out came the vacuum cord and no baby! F*ck – the machine had slipped off his head. My heart sank so far into my chest I had this complete sickening feeling that something wasnt right, I just knew my baby was in distress
It didn’t help that in that moment I looked at the doctors face and she looked extremely concerned, shes on the pager and before we know it there are 10+ midwives and nurses surrounding me in the room.
We need to get this baby out.

On the next push and vacuum suction if there is no baby we are being taken in for an emergency c-section.
So with all of my strength and will power and complete determination I pushed as hard as I could and with the help of the doctor and the vacuum, baby was turning the corner and was stuck there! Without hesitation she gave me an ‘Episiotomy’ which in other words is a small incision made to quickly enlarge the opening for baby to pass through.

6:55pm – Noah was Born – We have a beautiful healthy 7.5pound baby boy with blonde hair and a squished up little face and might I say the most precious little cry!

 

And cry we did – all 3 of us! Not much can explain the feeling of when your baby is placed in your arms for the first time, it is a feeling you’ll never experience again and an out of this world emotion.
We are happy we are healthy and we are so in love

 

Noah laid on my chest for the next 2hours soaking in all of the cuddles and skin to skin – oh, and I still cant feel my legs.
I was on the bed until I could feel my toes and able to stand which wasn’t until 1am! 6hours after the birth – not ideal but a hell of a lot better then being in surgery.

All in all we experienced a 14hour labour from waters breaking to delivery with 10.5hrs of active labour and approx 4hours of active pushing.

Hubby was right by my side helping wrap bubs up nice and cosy and shower off all of the complete shock id been in over the past 14hours and we made our way down to the maternity ward at 2am for a sleepless, full of tears & rude awakening first night together as mum and son.

 

As soon as Todd left to head home for some rest, we settled into our room and what a night we were in for. Noah cried for majority of the night, unsettled and suckling his little hand for hours on end even after feeds. To be honest, I feel a little robbed of the breastfeeding experience on those first nights in hospital, I should have spoken up and asked for help but the whirl wind of emotions during this time its very overwhelming and we just attempted it on our own. I didnt feel like Noah was attaching properly, and I had milk dripping down my entire chest and my shirt would be soaked after every feed

Noahs first bath was in the hospital and you can see the bruising that he suffered from the vacuum delivery – this subsided after around 7days, we were just advised to lay him on his side untill it healed as you could see the discomfort when he was laying directly on the bruise.

 

We were discharged from the hospital after 3 nights (incl delivery night) and made on our way

The excitement you have to take your baby home for the first time is beyond anything ive ever felt, this was love outside of my chest.

 

6 weeks after Noahs birth he was diagnosed with Severe Tongue and Lip Tie in the 90% Severity

We chose to have both of the incisions made to release the pressure and ensure he was able to latch and feed properly, once the healing was well and truly complete and the feeding was getting easier for both of us we had a much better experience and I am extremely proud to have powered through the 3 cases of Mastitis, the engorgment, the leaking and the pain of latching to be able to continue our feeding journey together for another 7.5months.

Pure Bliss and Blessed beyond words.