My healthy 10 pound girl is here!

Warning - super long story!

My due date was 15/04 and on 12/04 I had booked myself an induction massage. They use reflexology to try and trigger labour. Prior to this I had been trying everything to get labour happening - raspberry leaf tea, bouncing on the gym ball, evening primrose oil capsules, sex, pineapple. I had my 40 week appt scheduled with my obstetrician the next morning where she was going to do a sweep if I hadn’t gone into labour naturally to try and move things along.

Nothing seemed to do anything. I had my massage in the morning and went about my day, including a bath when I got home.

Fast forward to the evening and my hubby and I were staying at my parents place (as we do every Thursday). We went to bed around 10pm and I said to hubby that she must be sitting really love because I was feeling quite uncomfortable down in my pelvis. I sat up for a couple of hours watching tv in bed because I couldn’t get comfy. At about midnight I lay down to see if I could fall asleep.

I woke around 3am to go to the bathroom to find my underwear was quite wet and wondered if my waters were leaking. Decided to go back to bed and sleep. Woke at 3:30 with the same sensation of liquid so again went to the bathroom but this time I noticed I had what felt like dull period aches.

I went back to bed again and lay there waiting for the “period pains” to come again. By the third one I was pretty sure I was in early labour but they were about 15 minutes apart so I was trying to relax. I lay there timing them for a while and hubby woke up at about 4:15am and asked if I was ok because he could see me playing on my phone. I told him what was going on and he asked what I wanted to do and I said well they’re about 10 minutes apart at the moment so until they get closer there’s not a lot we can do!

By 5am they were 7 minutes apart and we decided to get up and have some breakfast and a shower so that when they reached 5 mins apart we would be ready to go to the hospital. My mum had heard us talking so got up too and helped us get ready. At this point I got my bloody show.

We arrived at the hospital at about 7am. They got us settled into a labour suite and hooked me up to the CTG to keep an eye on baby and me. The midwives said they could see my contractions 5 mins apart and lasting about 1 minute each. They called my obstetrician who said she would be in at 8:30 to check me and check if my waters had gone.

When my obstetrician went to check me she just got her hand in there and my waters broke. She said “well your waters hadn’t broken but they have now and you’re 3cm!” She said if I wasn’t 5cm by 12pm then they would give me the drip to speed things up.

From there I wanted to go as along as possible without using pain relief so I bounced on the ball and watched Gossip Girl (haha) on my laptop. I decided around 10am to try some gas and air on a low dosage to see how it went. I stuck with that as the contractions kept escalating until about 11am when they told me that I needed to start thinking about an epidural if I wanted one for when the drip went in.

The contractions we getting so intense that I was heavily breathing through them with the gas and air but I was feeling nauseous and like it wasn’t enough to get me through the contractions.

At about 11:30 they called for the epidural after I’d vomited and felt like I was at my pain barrier. The anaesthesiologist got there and I tell you what, he was so efficient which was an absolute blessing because by this stage my whole body was shaking with each contraction. My husband said it was really hard to watch. They checked me right before I got the epidural and told me I was only 4cm (!) which just absolutely killed my spirit so I was glad I asked for the epidural.

After the epidural my husband started calling me the Phoenix because it was like I’d risen from the ashes hahaha. I went from shaking uncontrollably to “I think I just had a contraction” with a smile on my face.

From there a few hours passed and at about 3:45pm I told the midwife I needed to poo. She said right well we’re going to check you again then. My husband happened to choose this moment to go to the bathroom himself so when he came out I said you just missed that - I’m fully dilated and we’ll be pushing soon, they’re just calling the obstetrician! The midwife told me that if I get the urge to push with any of the contractions to let her know. By the time the next two had passed I said I’m going to have to push on the next one.

After three contractions the midwife ran out of the room and was frantically looking for another midwife to call my obstetrician again and tell her to hurry because the baby was coming.

Within a couple more contractions, my obstetrician arrived and she had a look and said we’re going to get the head out in the next contraction so I want you to push and bear down as hard and long as you can. I did that and she started telling me to stop quickly after a couple of pushes- she said if you keep pushing now you’ll tear and you haven’t yet but if you wait til the next contraction you won’t. You’re going to hate me for it though because her head is half out. Oh my god- that was painful- the ring of fire is legitimately painful! The next contraction came and her head was out. The obstetrician said in the next one, we’re having a baby, you’re going to get the body out. I actually think getting the body out was somewhat more painful, it felt like I felt her shoulders hit my pelvis at cracking pace as the obstetrician helped her to get out. Then all of a sudden it was so strange, she was here and in my arms! Only 18 minutes of pushing which I’m pretty proud of!

Story about her name - when we decided to find out her gender at 20 weeks, hubby and I decided that if it was a boy, he got to choose the name and if it was a girl I got to choose. We did a cake reveal with our families and sure enough it was a girl. We’d made a clause which was that the name either one of us chose had to be off the list of 5 boy and 5 girl names that we both agreed we liked. That way we both knew it would be a name we liked and not something random. My husband had suggested Lyla because he heard it from the Oasis song titled Lyla. I instantly loved it and knew if we had a girl that’s what I’d choose. After finding out we were having a girl, he decided he didn’t want to know what I’d chosen until she was born. It was such and incredible moment when she was placed on my chest and I got to introduce him to Lyla Grace, he absolutely bawled his eyes out and it was beautiful!

Lyla was born on 13/04 at 4:18pm. 53cm long and 4.58kgs (10 pounds 1 ounce) and head circumference of 39!

She’s a big healthy girl and we are so in love with her!