Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Thank you to everyone that has followed my journey and I have loved all of your lovely comments and support throughout. It is with great excitement that I can present Bronte's wonderful birth story as we move into the new stage of our lives as a family of four. I have a feeling that my blog may get a little neglected at times but I plan to keep it up as much as I can as this time is such a blur and I love being able to record it.

I had been experiencing prelabour for a week or two, lots of semi painful regular Braxton Hicks and back ache. I was barely sleeping and getting increasingly frustrated with myself. My tummy had measured 3-4 weeks ahead in fundal height since 30 weeks and I was incredibly uncomfortable. Not helped of course, by every strangers well intentioned comments about how I was carrying out in front and what a large baby it was going to be. My lovely parents took Elka home with them for the weekend, giving me a break from the whirlwind of life with a toddler and also giving Jase and I the chance to have a lovely weekend of nice meals out and shopping for Elka’s 2^nd birthday.

Monday the 30^th of May, at 39.5 weeks, my obs assured me it wouldn’t be long and that bubs was 3/5 engaged. The Tuesday, I stayed home all day (unusual for me) and felt very out of sorts and low spirited. That night I got a painful contraction every hour but just ignored them and tried to sleep. When I woke in the morning, my lower back was aching terribly and the pains had dropped to every 15 mins. Jase decided to stay home from work to give me some support and Mum, Jase and I drove into the city to take Elka to her Wednesday daycare day. We decided to wander around the shops to try and keep the contractions coming. I waddled very slowly and although we shopped for something like 5 hours, we barely covered more than a fifth of the shopping centre. Everyone else grabbed bargains in the sales but I was very disinterested in shopping altogether (in hindsight, a sure sign I was not myself!). We headed home to rest for a few hours. After a shower at 4pm, I noticed the intensity of the contractions increase, they had dropped to 8 mins apart and I could feel pressure. I rang the hospital and due to us living semi-rural, they wanted me to come in straight away as we had a good 40min drive. When I got off the phone, I realised I had had two contractions in that time and the phone call was only 3 mins long. Cue Jase rushing around like a madman feeding all the farm animals and finishing our bag packing. Mum was off picking up Elka from daycare, so we spoke to her and she decided to meet us at the hospital. Despite Jase looking stressed and swearing that he wasn’t delivering bub on the side of the highway, we had a great trip in, even through the current local roadworks that normally require a 15 minute wait at a stop/go man, much to his relief. I remember being quite uncomfortable and watching the cars digital clock and noticing that the contractions were 3-4 mins apart. We met Mum at the front of the hospital and gave Elka a big hug and kiss. She was sad that she wasn;t allowed to come in with us but we wanted her to go home to have dinner and to get a good sleep. I watched her little face as she stared back at us as she was carried through the twilight to the car to go home, and realised that was the last time she would be my only child.

We met our lovely midwife Evie who ushered us through to our birthing suite. We were pleased it was a different room to the one we had with Elka as we really wanted a different experience this time (Elka’s was an 18hr labour with no dilation after two weeks of prelabour and hours of strong contractions, failure to progress in 2^nd stage labour requiring being confined to bed, ARM, multiple syntocin drips, gas that made me hyperventilate, a failed epidural with four top ups that didn’t work, nearly 2 hours of pushing, a broken vacuum that sent the obs flying across the room and an episiotomy).

Evie asked our birth plan as she hooked me up for monitoring – we specified that we would prefer limited interventions, particularly syntocin and that we weren’t keen on pethidine or gas and were hopeful for an active birth as long as possible. The monitoring trace showed good peaking contractions every two minutes or so but they were only lasting a minute. I had an internal and we were relieved to hear that I was 3cm dilated. Evie unhooked me and left us to our active birthing. I walked and stomped the pain away in the contractions or lent over the bed on a bean bag and just breathed through the pain. We headed to the shower and I enjoyed the double shower heads. We even ate some of the hot dinner that was delivered to the suite. Evie started some more monitoring as she was concerned that I wasn’t progressing and sure enough the contractions hadn’t changed much. We went for a slow walk around the ward and to check out our room as we had requested a double bed room for Jase to stay. When I got back, the obs arrived, commented that I looked way too cheery and did another internal. Much to our disappointment, I was still only 3cm dilated after 3 hours of contractions. He decided to break my waters at 8.15pm and after watching the end of Masterchef with us, he declared he was going home for a few hours and would expect to see us again around midnight to see how things had progressed.

There was a large amount of meconium in my waters so according to hospital policy I was now required to stay on the bed with constant monitoring on. They also put a clip into bubs head for a constant heartrate monitor as her heartbeat was too consistent and not rising and falling with the contractions like they wanted it to be. Evie left us to deal with the now stronger contractions how we wanted. I rolled slightly onto to my right side and Jase would press hard on my lower back through the contractions whilst I hit the bed loudly with my open palm to distract myself with the movement and sound and I was saying loudly the mantra of “its good pain, its good pain”. The contractions were now very strong and were not releasing before the next one was starting and I was whinging about how much water was still gushing out. By 9.10pm (55 mins after having my waters breaking), the intensity was so strong, I was yelling my mantra, slamming my hands and thinking desperately that I would need some pain relief as midnight seemed a very long way away! I suddenly felt incredibly nauseous and started demanding a sick bowl. Then with the next contraction – the pain had changed and all I could scream was “ow” rather than my mantra and I was making primal grunting noises and I realised I was pushing. Evie the midwife came running in, worried to hear that I was pushing. She tried to get me to stop as she thought it was way too soon and quickly did an internal before saying “wow you are 9cm”, she ran off to call the obs to get him to rush in from home. Jase and I were shocked – from 3cm to 9cm in less than one hour, and a minute of nausea to indicate transition. I started pushing with massive primal grunting – I have never felt anything like that pushing urge, it is the most powerful thing my body has ever done. I remember thinking that I would be so frightened as a pregnant woman if I walked past the birthing suites and heard the noises that were coming out of me!

The obs came rushing into the room, threw his keys on the table and said “oh I better get my gumboots on!”. He and Jase took a side each and coached me through the pushes. I could feel her moving down with every push and Jase was so supportive and encouraging – I could see in his face that this was really happening and I felt so positive despite the pain and shaking legs from the adrenalin of it all happening so fast. I was still in disbelief that it could be happening so quickly after Elka’s 18 hour labour. After a few more contractions, I felt bubs crown and now instead of my grunting, I was screaming “ow ow ow” over and over, I think there was an F-bomb in there also, the obs tried to coach me to “push, don’t push, little pushes etc” but although I was listening I don’t think my body really was and I think this is what caused my tearing. Once her head was out she needed a lot of suctioning thanks to all the meconium and I could see that Jase was worrying but I felt calm. With the next contraction, her shoulders were delivered and I felt that fantastic feeling of her slithering out and being thrown up onto my chest immediately.

We were so unprepared for a fast labour that I was still in my bra and hospital nighty so we were desperately trying to get me all out of it so I could have bare skin time and so bubs could feed straight away. She latched straight on and continued to feed strongly for about 45 minutes. We could all tell she was a big bub and the midwife predicted over 4kgs – she was right, she weighed in at 4.17kg or 9pound3. Jase revealed that he thought she had had the cord around her neck but then had realised that it was just a big neck roll of fat!

After she had finally finished feeding and my second degree tearing was stitched up (requiring more local needles then I ever want to get in sensitive regions again!), I got up for a shower and had a massive temperature dive that resulted in uncontrollable shaking. So I had to be taken in a wheelchair wrapped in warmed blankets for Bronte’s wash. It was a quiet night in the maternity ward – only 2 births and so all of the midwives were coming to congratulate me as they heard it was a 9pd3 bub born drug free. I hadn’t thought much of it, being on a high of seeing my baby and having had a labour with pain relief and one without, I now realised that either way is simply a great achievement in itself, but it was nice to have people acknowledge that she was a big bub for me and that it was damn hard work! I am just so pleased to have had such a positive birthing experience filled with love and laughter, Jase and I felt so close and it was a true team effort.

We settled into our lovely room and I spent a sleepless night buzzing on adrenaline whilst Bronte and Jase happily slept. Elka met Bronte the next morning and she was so excited and her face when she got to hold Bronte just melted my heart and was one of the best moments of my life. She still adores Bronte and may kill her with kindness. My parents minded Elka for our four night hospital stay so that we could rest and relax and bond with Bronte which was wonderful.

Bronte is a champion feeder. I am recovering well although the pregnancy chiro said that unfortunately due to the huge out in front bump that I had, I have the worst abdominal separation she has seen and she was sceptical that I would be back horseriding for at least 3 months. She did support my goal of 6 weeks however, so I have a lot of exercises to do to achieve this.

I am loving being a mummy of two and am smitten with my girls. Her name is because we loved the name Bronte, that its relatively uncommon and thought it worked with Elka being another strong girls name and it reminded us of Jase’s nannas name- Bonnie. Victoria is my middle name and I love it and it is in acknowledgement of my side of the family since both girls have Jase’s last name.

Bronte Victoria

9pd3 (4.17kg)

51cm, head 35.4cm

Labour – about 5 hrs 45mins all up

The all important pictures:

Elka meeting Bronte for the first time - she is smitten

My not so small girl in her going home outfit

Elka had made a welcome home sign with balloons and she ran straight past me to Bronte despite not seeing me properly for 5 days!