Dear our son, Eli.

So since you have been in this world for a week I think it’s about time I take the time to write the story of your birth. Over Christmas in 2018 you decide that you didn’t want to move as much and it started to make mummy a little worried. I spoke with the doctors at the hospital and on the 1st of January 2019, the doctors decided to induce me on your due date. Fast forward to the 8th of January, the night before the induction, mummy had to stay in the hospital overnight in the maternity ward as they had to give me this special gel to help soften my cervix. The midwifes come to get me at around 9am on the 9th to take me to the birthing unit to start the induction via a IV drip. A lovely midwife named Kristin looked after mummy that morning. Around 10am they hooked me up to the drip and then about 30 minutes later mum started to feel the contractions start to get strong and regular. Your Nana and Daddy were there to help mum when she was in pain. Three hours I spent just trying to handle the pain with the funny gas they give you. I even dislocated daddy’s thumb squeezing when the pain got so intense! I even sucked so hard on the gas that I vomited! That lovely midwife Kristin came and organised an epidural for mummy. Once that was all set up it was like I was a different person. Your Nana bought us some chicken and chips so we had a nice lunch. I spent the rest of the day taking naps and just hanging out with Nana and Daddy. Fast forward to around 3pm a new midwife, Nichola started and was now the midwife looking after mummy. She was absolutely fantastic! Nichola came and checked on mummy at around 7pm and she decided that it was time for me to start pushing you out. Mum pushed for around 30 minutes when they started to notice that your heart rate was starting to do some funny things. Nichola decided to call the doctor in to come and check on you and I. The doctors name was Blake and he was just as fantastic as everyone else that mum had met in the birthing unit. Blake noticed that you weren’t exactly in the correct position for delivery as you were looking the wrong way and not face down like you’re meant to be. Not to worry, Blake managed to turn you around and had you in the perfect place. Due to your heart rate they had to get the forceps to help get you out a little faster. Mummy didn’t mind because she couldn’t feel anything happening down there. A clip and the forceps were in place. A few pushes later and Blake told mum that I had one more push to get you out otherwise Mummy would of had to go to surgery and have a c section. That was not the plan for mummy so mummy pushed so hard and you were born at 7:50pm. Just under 10 hours of labour and 50 minutes of pushing and you were here. I was so relieved that it was over and you were finally here with us. Mummy and Daddy got to give you heaps of cuddles while Blake stitched mummy up. Took him about 15-20 minutes as mummy was bleeding a lot. Once Blake was done he told mummy that she was a great pusher for a first time mummy and that I did really well to get you out. This made me feel so good.

So that was it! I had my baby, I was stitched up, the epidural was gone and I was ready to head off to the maternity ward to start recovering. Fast forward to around midnight. Mummy and Daddy were still in the birthing unit when mummy started to feel really uncomfortable and unable to lay on my right side. I ignored the pain for a little while as I thought that the epidural may be wearing off and this pain was normal. However when the pain keep growing and growing I knew something wasn’t right. Daddy buzzed for the midwife to come and she checked where the pain was and decided to call in the doctor to come and check. Turns out mummy had a blood clot in her bum the size of a grapefruit! The doctor came in and told mummy that she had to go into surgery to have the blood clot drained as it was just going to keep growing. The midwifes came in and took me into surgery at around 1:30am while you stayed in the birthing unit with your daddy. They had to put in another kind of spine block so they could operate on mummy. They sat me up on the bed to try and get the block into mummy’s spine. I tried to sit as long as I could, however mummy passed out on the bed and they had to try and get it in while I was laying down. They did 4 attempts however were unsuccessful. So they decided to put mummy to sleep to complete the surgery. Fast forward to 6:30am when mummy woke up back in the birthing unit where I was told that I lost 30% of my blood! Around 2 litres! And they had to give mummy 3 blood infusions! You spent that night in the nursery being looked after by the nurses. Mummy wasn’t feeling very well when she woke up that day. Your Nana bought your Aunty Lily in to come and meet you and that’s when mum finally got to see you again. After Nana and Lily left they let me keep you with me and we spent the afternoon sleeping until Daddy came to see us. Just went I thought it couldn’t get any worse for me, the midwifes had to call the intensive care doctors to come and see me because my blood pressure was extremely low. Mummy had to wait a couple of hours to see if her blood pressure would increase and if it didn’t mummy was going to have to go up to the ICU. They were checking mummy’s blood pressure every 5 minutes for an hour and it was slowly going up, enough for the intensive care team to not worry about mummy anymore. I was so happy that something was finally going well! I had to spend the next two nights in the birthing unit and you spent the nights hanging with the midwifes in the birthing unit. They all loved you and were fighting over who got to give you cuddles! On Friday morning they came and got mummy and took her to her own room in the maternity ward where I finally got to start to feel like I could possibly take you home! Friday night was one of the worst nights of mummy’s life. Because I lost all that blood it was taking longer for my milk to come in so you were getting very hungry all the time. You started crying at around 11:30pm and I tried to feed you as much as I could until around 2am when the midwife finally came in and gave me little plastic shields to help with the sucking. It didn’t really work well, however at least you were getting something now. You were crying so much that night that mummy couldn’t handle it anymore and she was crying with you. I felt like I was letting you down even though I knew that it wasn’t my fault. The midwifes came and took you at 3am so mummy could get some sleep and bought you back to the room at 6am to try and get you to feed again. On Saturday morning you had a huge amount of visitors! They took you to the family room while mummy and daddy spent that time just relaxing in the room and plotting mummy’s escape. Daddy stayed with us the whole day! Even when he was supposed to leave. I think he could tell that mummy wasn’t very happy to be in there. At around 8pm they came and said that I was able to go home if I wanted to and come back the next day to finalise the paper work. This made mummy very happy! So that night we bought you home and we spent the first night together as a family. You loved the car ride home. You didn’t even wake up once!

So there you have it son! The extraordinary story of how you came into the world and how much both mummy and daddy went through to get you here. We’re both so in love with you! You’ve bought us so much happiness and joy and we cannot wait to see you grow.

Love,

Mummy.