The Birth Story

Hi! I'm home from the hospital now and I have a gorgeous little boy who we are so in love with! We are so lucky. And now for the birth story...

We went in for our induction on Monday night, and the procedure was to be identical to Preston's induction so we knew what we were in for. I was given prostaglandin gel to work overnight - with Preston I was given it for 24 hours and spent the latter half of that labouring only to get 1cm dilated, so I wasn't expecting anything to happen this time, since I was only being given it for 12 hours. After a night of mild cramping but nothing too major, I was examined and to my suprise, I was 3-4cm! Hooray! And since I'd had some sleep, I felt pretty normal.

My waters were broken at that point to move things along a bit, which started proper contractions immediately, and I walked to the delivery suite (having several contractions on the way, and feeling very proud of myself). There I had my epidural put in which is a pretty scary experience, and this was in preparation for the hormones I was about to get which brings on a quick and painful labour (so epidural is to make it more comfortable). The epidural seemed to be a bit much for me and it numbed almost my whole body including up to my eye so this caused a bit of drama amongst the anaesthetic team since they couldn't figure out what the problem was. (Anyway, by the time I was ready to push, it was started to wear off a little so that I could sort of feel what was going on. My eye was a bit droopy and wouldn't dilate for the rest of the day but wore off and is fine now.)

The hormones kicked in really fast and when the midwife told Dan to get the baby clothes on the warmer I was really shocked - I thought it would take the rest of the day to have the baby, but no, apparently I was 8cm and fast approaching full dilation and we would have a baby before we knew it! I was still feeling pretty normal (although I'd had quite a few contractions before the epidural kicked in) and had heaps of energy and it all felt a bit surreal that I was about to give birth under such good mental conditions.

And it wasn't long before I was pushing out Maxwell! He had his hand up by his chin so I ended up with a bit of a tear but not as bad as with Preston. I couldn't believe it when I was holding him at last after such a long stressful pregnancy and nothing was wrong with him after all the tests we had to have.

I had told Dan I didn't want any horrible photos of me straight after the birth when I'm all fatigued and sweaty and gross, but I actually look normal and I felt great! It was a fantastic birth experience - really controlled (from all the medical intervention) which I guess is not really the norm of the birth experience, but it was so reassuring to have everything all organised and planned and then feel so full of energy afterwards and ready to be a new mother.

We transferred to Birthcare for 3 nights which was good - I didn't necessarily need to be there that long as I know what I'm doing and Maxwell is the perfect model baby who does everything right - but it was good for us to have some special bonding time together.

We can't believe how much of an easy baby he is compared to Preston - he sleeps a lot (what a novelty!) and doesn't cry much (we will have to buy a baby monitor this time) and then just like Preston, he knew straight away how to latch on and gulp down milk. I have so much milk that yesterday I thought I was going to explode! I've been doing controlled feedings today so now I have the supply under better manufacture which is more comfortable. Although both boys are/were such vigorous feeders that I again have extremely painful bleeding nipples :( A couple more weeks of intense pain and then they should be desensitised hopefully - I managed to feed Preston for a year! He's growing well - he has already put on 100g in 5 days, and comparitively Preston had put on 35g by 7 days. They were only 20g difference at birth, and born on the same day of gestation.

Here's a comparison of them both on about day 3 sleeping at Birthcare:












So now we are adjusting to being a family of 4. Preston is being so lovely to Maxwell - he sings to him when he cries which is soooo cute, and he is really interested in helping with any tasks for him, like getting nappies and things. He's so excited to show him off to people and he explains (with big arm movements for accentuation) how 'Maxwell just popped out of my mummy's tummy!'

Maxwell is so cute and adorable, and we just love him so much :)