A story of birth for all who are interested...

Well tomorrow my wee boy Fletcher will be 2 weeks old. For the last two weeks I have gone out of the house about 10 times - 8 of those include hanging out and getting in the washing, and the other 2 are Church and family. Needless to say my life is somewhat different now, but I do LOVE it and it's is a very good different. Each day always has some sort of surprise in store for us (usually in Fletcher's nappy) and each day is better than the last (so long as we got some sleep the night before).

Anyway, here is my story of how I birthed a human... I know a lot of you don't want to read about this but for those who do, I will leave out the gory details and photos :)

But first, a photo of the subject for you...

It's hard work having a nappy change - fallen asleep on change table.

Fletcher was born on a Monday at 5.12 pm, and here's how the days leading up to that time went...
On the Friday before, I woke in the night with some pains. They were what I imagined to be labour pains, but I was not too sure so started timing them just in case. They were somewhat regular for 2 and a half hours and then they just stopped. A little disappointed but back to sleep I went and the next day we had an awesome day at the beach with lots of book reading, swimming, some walking and some tummy burying in the sand (so I could lie on my front) - totally awesome when you are pregnant!

Saturday night was much like Friday night but going through most of the night instead of just a couple of hours. Sunday evening and night followed suit, however the contractions then got stronger and more regular and there was a very strong pain in my lower back. This is it! I thought, so at 4am when I was in too much pain to sleep or rest, we called the midwife. She informed me that my cervix was soft and I was on my way, but still had a long way to go. So we both tried to get some rest and relaxation as we would need this when it was all go.

By 11.30 on Monday morning I was very ready to go to the hospital - I could no longer bear the pain of the contractions, or so I thought. When we arrived I was 6cm dilated which I was very happy about - I was a little afraid that the midwife would tell me I was only 2cm dilated. However, then everything stopped again. I was exhausted by then after a couple of nights of little and interrupted sleep, so was very disappointed when it all stopped. My midwife gave me the option of going home or staying and getting intervention (breaking my waters). I wanted everything to happen as naturally as it could but I also didn't want to go back home again so I got moving to try and speed up the process. Still nothing so by 2.30 she just said 'Right, let's break your waters', and Tim and I agreed. By 3pm the contractions were coming very regularly and were very strong, then by 4 they were relentlessly strong. By 5 I was ready to start pushing, which I did at about 5.02 and he was born 10 minutes later. Simple as that really. Apart from the build up of the labour over the weekend, it was a pretty quick and straight forward birth. I had no complications, only had some gas as pain relief (which was totally AWESOME!), and our baby boy came out very healthy and beautiful. He was perfect right from the start.

We were so blessed to have a safe and straight forward birth and a beautiful baby as a result. I am happy to say that I actually enjoyed the birth. There was a crazy load of pain but it was so worth it and it was the most amazing experience. Nothing can prepare you for labour or birth but before we went in to it I had said that I wanted to go into it and through it with the most positive attitude I could. There were definitely times when I wanted to punch someone - anyone - and give up, but for the most part, I just did it!
Hope you have enjoyed my story and know that not all birth stories have to be terrible ones - there are good birth stories out there :)
Here's another pic for you: Warning: the contents of this photo contain nudity...

Cute much?