Sitting here watching her sleep and thinking it's my turn to share the story of her journey into the world! Before I get into it I first need to share a lil bit of info leading up to it. My pregnancy was a struggle, I had terrible nausea and vomiting almost the entire way through (it did ease off towards the end but not completely) and in the last month my mental health really took a turn for the worse. I couldn't wait for my baby anymore and it was feeding into my depression so badly that I was barely getting out of bed, let alone eating or anything else. My partner eventually convinced me to seek help with my mental health, by this time though I was 37 weeks and any antidepressants wouldn't kick in til after baby was born and I knew once she was here my depression would be better (not perfect, but managable). So I started asking if being induced was possible.

Tuesday 22nd of Jan I'd been out all day to appointments and with my family, when I finally got home and started to try and relax and fight off the depression, I noticed that I was having light period like cramps every 5 minutes or so. This continued all night from around 6:30pm til eventually around 2am after 3 phone calls to the midwives at the hospital and less movements than normal I decided to go in to get checked. I was put on CTG for awhile, and if I was having contractions they'd stopped because I was sent home with instructions to come get another CTG and an ultrasound done at some point later in the day (by this time it was 5am Wednesday)

CTG and ultrasound Wednesday all looked good, but I was told that I could ask about induction then, so I had my cervix checked (it was long and closed) and was told to come back for another CTG and ultrasound Friday and that I could be induced Saturday the 26th. Woo success I had solid answers and my baby would be here before the week was over! My depression started to settle at this news, but then my anxiety kicked in about the induction process and if I really wanted to put my body through that knowing inductions could be shitty, but then also knowing that I was at risk of harming myself if I kept waiting and knowing i wanted my baby out more than anything.

Thursday night my partner and i decided to have a quiet night together and get some quality time, because we had a family dinner planned for Friday night as a lil pre baby celebration. Midnight Thursday comes around and we decide that we really should get some sleep, and it was a good thing we did because I wake up 5am Friday morning needing a drink and to go pee, I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, stood in front of the towel drying my hands and notice liquid dripping down my leg. Thinking oh maybe it's a bit of wee and sit back down on the toilet. Get a little bit more liquid but just enough to make me wonder, so I put a pad on and go back to bed. Sit in bed and wake my partner up to tell him that my water could have gone but I wasnt sure. In the process of lying down and getting comfortable again i noticed a few gushes of liquid. I quickly got back up and every move i made i had another gush. The 5 steps from the bed to the toilet had completely soaked the pad and now i knew that was my waters. Rang the hospital, and my grandparents who had to drive us there (neither myself or my partner drive).

Got to emergency at the hospital at 6am, they took my observations and said I needed to wait for a room in assessment centre because it was busy this morning. Not sure how long I was waiting in emergency but I'd soaked through 4 pads at this point.

Was moved to assessment centre and had a canular put in because I'd come back GBS positive and would need antibiotics and then to be put on oxytocin so I wasnt in labor too long since my waters had gone.

I had started having contractions in emergency, but they didnt start to hurt til we were in assessment centre and at this point i started wanting to think about pain relief. I'd been left alone a fair bit at this point and was feeling kind of abandoned by the midwives. I was offered some panadine forte when i said i was in pain but it didnt do anything.

Around 12:30pm I was finally moved to a birth suite. They had some trouble getting babys heartrate picked up on the CTG so they had a doctor come check me and attach a heartrate monitor to babys scalp. I was at 3cm at this point. I was in a decent amount of pain and not long after I asked for some gas. The gas worked pretty well and I was coping through the contractions, at one point I remember thinking if it stays like this I could keep going for awhile, but they were still talking about giving me oxytocin to speed things along and i didn't know if i could cope if it picked up too much more.

Sometime after 3pm they were still having problems with the heartrate monitor so the doctor came back to redo the scalp clip and check me again. I was now 5cm and everyone was like oh you've been busy. But they finally decided and started to get the oxytocin ready to go.

My contractions picked up in intensity after being checked and by the time they had the oxytocin hanging up ready to go in my drip they decided I didnt need it.

I got really fuzzy after this and could barely take the gas out of my mouth to breathe in fresh air. I wanted something more than gas now but we didn't get the time! Not long after babys heartrate dropped and half a dozen people appeared in the room. All I noticed was my partner backed well back and there was a nurse telling me that they were going to give me something to slow my contractions down and give me and baby a break, but baby's heartrate settled before they could.

Not long after this I knew it was time to push. I don't really remember much between being checked at 5cm and pushing. But it was only 40min from that doctor checking me at 5cm to when she was born at 4:16pm on the 25th of January.

I cried, my partner cried. My baby was finally here. 28 weeks and 1 day, 11 hours from when my water broke to giving birth. I had a second degree tear and two smaller lacerations on my labia/clitoris. The midwives were all impressed and said it was a textbook delivery.

Welcome to the world Bridget Claire. Mummy loves you more than you know. 25/01/2019 4:16pm 2.96kgs (6lb5oz)