My due date was 23rd July but we’d had a feeling baby boy might make his appearance sooner. Little did we know how much sooner that would be! 😂

My waters broke unexpectedly on the Monday at 36 weeks exactly after a full day at work. Thankfully I was home, and hubby had coincidentally taken the evening off work for a slight illness. I had been getting up to clear away dinner when I thought to myself ‘I didn’t think my bladder control was that bad 😂🤣’. - it wasn’t. My waters had broken pretty prematurely and so it was off to the hospital for us. This was around 7pm Monday.

The midwives were very thorough and hooked me up to be monitored. I was in a local, low risk hospital and they had a policy to transfer if before 36 weeks do we’d just made it!!! I spent the night being monitored and just waiting for contractions to begin. The midwife suggested that we’d have our Bub by the next day so we were getting excited.

In the morning the doctor explained to us that since labour had not begun spontaneously and because I was not yet at term (37 weeks), they would like to send me home to allow baby to grow a bit more. They scheduled an induction for the following Wednesday if nothing had happened before. This was a massive anticlimax but I kept telling myself ,whatever is best for bub.’ I was discharged with antibiotics to take every 4 hours as the risk of infection was now high. I also had to monitor my temperature and pulse meticulously to make sure any infection was caught early. Thankfully no worries in either of these areas occurred but we were back and forth to the hospital for the week being checked - the staff were probably sick of me!

I was so uncomfortable due to the low levels of fluid, causing baby to sit low and directly on my pelvic bone. Ouch! Needless to say I didn’t do a whole pot that week other than lying on the coach trying to rest (easier said than done)!

Thursday rolled around and I started getting mild contractions overnight - not regular but comparable to bad period cramps. These disappeared the next morning. Friday night - same thing although this time the pain levels were upped so there wasn’t much sleep happening. I remember looking over jealousy my husband sleeping away wishing so much to be able to rest. Again the contractions slowed again during the day but reoccurred Saturday night. This time they were becoming increasingly unbearable and although not super regular I decided to call the hospital at 6am Sunday morning. We were told to come in to be checked out.

When we arrived I was again hooked up to the machines for monitoring and of course the contractions died down (still intense but super irregular). The lovely doctor came in an hour later and after chatting suggested I be induced to hurry things along. I was so relieved and stared to mentally prepare myself that this was it!

The syntocin was started at about 9am and then the waiting game began. The contractions stared to become intense around 11am and I laboured through them with the help of some gas until 4:15 when our precious boy made his grand entrance. He weighed 3.1kg (6lb12oz) and was perfection. I felt so great (exhausted but great) despite a tear and episiotomy.

We settled in for the night, trying to establish feeding. The next day the next section of drama began. The doctors had routinely taken cord blood to be tested and results had revealed a blood incompatibility between me and my sweet boy. After measuring more blood it was discovered that he had elevated levels of bilirubin (by product that causes jaundice) to be present in his blood. Being born technically premie (36+6) meaning that he needed to meet more strict indicators. As he wasn’t the doctor ordered some time in a humidicrib under UV lights.

Although this was super common I felt heartbroken. 😭 my beautiful baby was unwrapped, tiny and crying unable to be picked up in the crib. His little glasses made it seem even worse.

We had to the up the feeding to try to flush the toxins out so breastfeeding was put on hold as I pumped and used formula. He also has a tube attached for feeding. As this was a low risk hospital the staff were trying to transfer us to a larger hospital nearby but there were no beds available and we stayed out (much to my relief)!

Bubs was under lights for a day, out for a day and then back again. On Saturday we were finally discharged with the provision that we would have another blood test Monday to check bilirubin levels. I was so relieved as cabin fever had well and truly hit after 7 days in hospital.

Monday rolled around and yep - levels up again above acceptable levels so back to the hospital again. Baby boy was admitted and I had to stay to help feed. 24 more hours under UV and then a day to monitor and we were sent home again with instructions just to keep an eye on it.

Well 6 weeks on and we have a healthy baby boy with no jaundice anymore. A lengthy ordeal from waters breaking to being sent home for good was over two weeks. In hindsight the situation could have been so much worse but at the time with hormones pumping through my body it was really upsetting. All well worth it to have my precious babe with us 💙💙