with babies being born everywhere and people announcing they're pregnant nearly every week on my social feeds it would be a lie if i said i wasn't broody. I miss being pregnant and i miss the smell of a new born baby and those lazy days of just feeding,napping and feeding some more. But there are no babies in the pipeline just yet.
We talk about it weekly but quite frankly i don't think either of us have the balls to be like yeah lets do it! so we umm and arrr about it instead. But with all the new born squishiness its made me think about how Mason came into this world and how his birth story is practically my favorite story to tell, and the fact i'm actually really boring and don't have that many to tell anyway.
I guess i should start at the beginning. Mason was a surprise, and i'm not ashamed to say he wasn't at all planned. Me and his dad had really only just met and it just happened. He freaked out and distanced himself for a while and i just got on with it. we lived about 60 miles from each other and it was all a bit too much. We stayed in contact throughout my pregnancy but i didn't see him after i was 10 weeks. I know people are going to think what a dick head,how could he do that. but seriously he was 22, i was 18 we weren't together, i kinda didn't expect anything from it. I was a pretty screwed on 18 year old, i had a flat, a car and a good full time job, so i knew i could probably do it on my own anyway, when i say on my own, i mean i could when i moved back home to mum and dads!
Fast forward 30 weeks and its the day before my due date. The nursery was ready, baby grows had been folded and re folded again and again while i was on maternity leave and I was just waiting for a baby.I had a really easy pregnancy, i loved it, but i wanted this boy out. On the Sunday i went for a 4 mile walk with my mum, something i'd never really done before with my mum but it was lovely. Surprisingly didn't really tire me out as much as i thought it would and i was still full of energy so, i also walked down to my brothers house too [ it was a 10 min walk down a hill nothing too major].
Its now 4.30am Monday morning, and i wake up thinking i need to go for a wee,so i went but when i got off the loo i was still weeing [ like ew, why cant i stop myself from weeing] I stayed really calm cleaned up the mess wrapped a towel round me and stood at my mums door whispering 'mum,mum wake up, mum' she didn't wake up [bitch] so i went back to bed and just ignored it [as you do].
7.00am i hear mums up, so i called her into my room and i told her i think my waters broke [ i wasn't sure though because it wasn't a gush of waters like it is in the films] and she started going crazy, panicking and just being weird. she told me to ring the birthing centre and see what they said. I was all a bit too calm for it, and just ignored her and ran a bath and chilled in there till about 8.30am. I then called the hospital and they said come in were examine you and were see. So i got out the bah text ray and said my waters broke, he calmly replied 'cool' and that was that i drove me and mum to the hospital. At this point i was having braxton hicks, no real consistency between them and they didn't hurt, and i knew they would send me home so i was okay driving 30 mins to the hospital and back.
I got the birthing center [ i wanted a water birth] and they began to examine me. this made me slightly sick because the midwife was talking about touching my babies head and i freaked me out, then suddenly i hear this alarm and she rips her hand out of me and legs it. [no consideration for my Vajayjay at all] she then comes back calm and a cucumber and starts asking me when i last felt baby move. when i thought about it i hadn't felt him since my waters broke [my back waters apparently] so they took me too this room and i was hooked up to a monitor [there goes any chance of a water birth]
so its now about 10.30am on Monday i'm attached to this machine in a random ward with no one on for what seemed like days. quite frankly i thought i was going home i clearly wasn't. I was having contractions but they weren't phasing me at all, when the midwife came to check on me she asked if i could feel them as they were going up on the monitor but i couldn't my belly just went hard. After being on the ward for a few hours i was starving and started to realize i wasn't going anywhere any time soon so mum and i went to the shop to get food and magazines to keep up occupied. I was then moved to a room on my own round the corner from the labour ward and that's where we set up camp till i was in proper labour. My mum stayed with me the whole time bless her.
Every 4 hours [even through the night] i had to be examined and have something shoved up me. Now people say you loose all dignity when you have a kid and i just wasn't ready to loose mine. Every time someone came in i would try and still be under the covers,or id hide my face or just cry [yes actually cry] with embarrassment. i couldn't get over the fact that i had a stranger elbow deep in my nuuun. I did manage to get some sleep Monday night so be it only 4 hours.
Tuesday morning, i'm still having contractions, no real timing between them but it had been more than 24 hours since my back waters broke so they did let me go on to the labour ward where they were going to brake my waters fully and put me on a drip. by this point i was about 3cm dilated, nothing major no real pain, just a headache. I was put in this massive room in the corner of the building with a massive window. i had a lovely midwife too. I was all very chilled. she broke my waters which is possibly the weirdest feeling ever and they put me on a drip. this is when everything started happening.
The contractions were getting stronger and quicker, every 2 mins in fact, but i still wasn't feeling them. I was just led on the bed watching it rain, but i was shivering. mum asked me if i was cold and i said no and the midwife quickly jumped in and said ' your body is in shock from the pain, are you sure you cant feel it' and i couldn't.
Things weren't progressing as quickly as they should of so i was getting up and walking about still on Instagram of course [haaaa] and watching the monitor go up every time i had a contraction. I then had a doctor come in and look at masons heart beat on the monitor. it was doing something funny, but she said lets leave it another hour. about 30 mins later, another doctor comes in and says the same thing, about an hour passes [maybe longer i'm not sure] and a different doctor comes in and looks at the monitor and looks at the midwife and says 'what is she still doing here get her to theater'... i was really calm up until this point, i mean really calm, nothing was phasing me, until i heard those words.
The midwife was explaining what was happening and what was wrong with mason. [his heart wasn't doing what it was meant too, it wasn't going up and down but staying really level and apparently that's not normal] so i cried, sobbed like a baby, i thought he was going to die, i was going to die, basically we were all going to be dead. then in walks my midwife i had from my very first midwife appointment and she really calmed me down again, then mum walks in full scrubs [which was hilarious] and i was back to normal [so i thought] but apparently the moment they told me i was going to have an emergency C-section my blood pressure decided to go up, and up, and up. The doctor came in looked at me and said ' you need to calm down, otherwise we cant get this baby out'
I was then marched down to theater after putting on those horrible green socks and i was given a spinal block. Do you know how impossible it is to sit still while they are giving you an injection that could potentially paralyze you if your not while your having a contraction... yeah they asked me to do that. I lead on the bed and had an ice cube rubbed on me from my toe to my nipple to see if i could feel anything, I couldn't... and away they went. Explaining everything incision that they were doing, EVERYTHING.
If your wondering what a C-section feels like, imagine someone doing the washing up in the belly, or someone punching you on your left side but you can feel it on the right. Its strange, painless and somewhat fascinating. I don't know how long i was in there or what but i heard the words ' and we have a baby' now, i saw said baby, but i couldn't hear said baby, so i panicked looked over to mum crying, and was saying 'mum,mum what happened' she laughed [bitch,again] and said nothing hes perfect and i was given this baby, with his eyes open, with bright pink lips just looking at me.
I've cried at most episodes of one born but when he was born i was just so happy, i couldn't cry, also i was so sleepy from some codeine they have given me for a headache just before i went down to theater so all i wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Mum was holding him and i was taking pictures trying my hardest to keep my eyes open. then everything was a bit of a blur. I think mum took him back up to my room, and i was left to be stitched up. That in itself was a very strange experience. i was half awake half asleep hearing doctors talk about what they were having for dinner, i swear to god i heard one playing candy crush, and i could see what they were doing to my tummy from the reflection of the light. The whole thing was strange. The room is so bright, you feel like your in heaven. i basically thought i was dead, and then i picked that moment to fall asleep. some time passed and i saw mason again, and mum gave him too me, we started feeding and he latched on so perfectly, and then in comes a cuppa and some toast! the first time you have toast in hospital its the best thing. but after that its shit! horrible in fact! I remember texting ray saying 'he's here' and i got the very calm reply again of 'cool' then we spent some time texting each other, sending him pictures ect. he was working away so i had to wait for him to come back till he could come and see us.
the first night mum stayed with me, she slept upright on a chair, she actually hadn't left my side the whole time we were in there, she was amazing. I thought mason slept all night that night, turns out he didn't, mum got up to him, apparently he wasn't hungry either, or if he was i don't remember feeding him but she changed his first nappy and everything. she went home the next morning to get some sleep and i was left with this baby, this perfect,peaceful, beautiful human being, and then i was mum. forever and always, and its the best thing that ever happened.
we stayed in the hospital for 48 hours, didn't leave till the Thursday evening, and i was happy, felt amazing, i was walking around better than some of the ladies that gave birth naturally, but i was so happy to be going home. So ready to be the best mum i could.
my biggest tip would be to not stress, as hard as it may seem, if you need to have a little cry about it and then get on with it, then do it. I wanted a water birth and what i got was the complete opposite, it was a little scary but i just had to get on with it and trust the doctors and midwives.
keep your eye out for the next post on those precious first 2 weeks with a new born.
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