It makes sense to start with the most life-changing event that has taken place: the birth of our daughter Georgia.
Key fun facts:
1) Labour can feel like period pain. This meant that I spent the first half hour of my labour frantically googling "labour+period+pain", arguing with Sam over the term that I was using ("cramps") and trying to call my mum to see if I could be in labour.
2) Water births are amazing.
3) If your family have a history of fast births, expect one too.
4) The birth process is a mere drop in the ocean, compared to actually LIVING with the baby.
5) Entonox is flipping fantastic.
Baby was 39 weeks gestation and my friend Penny came to stay. We went for a swim in the ocean, ate some nachoes and had an ordinary night. I felt tired and had a sore back, so I left Sam and Pen to watch a movie and went to bed early, but when Sam came to bed I hadn't actually got any sleep. At around midnight I started to feel what I would call "cramps", which just felt like period pain. They'd come and then disappear, and I realised that this could possibly be it after about 4 of these. After waking Sam to make him download a contraction timer app and confirming (thanks google) that this probably was labour, we realised that things were happening quickly - intense contractions every 2 or 3 minutes.
I didn't want to wake Penny, who was sleeping in the spare room, so demanded that we move to the lounge. The next hour was made up of me ordering Sam around, trying to go for a walk to ease the pain, and mainly arguing as to when we should call the midwife. When we finally did at 1:30am, I couldn't even talk to her, so she opted to come over and check me out immediately. It turned out that I was already 7cm dilated, so couldn't take any more time in getting to the hospital. After Sam had packed his bag (?!!!!! grrr) we left. THIS WAS EASILY THE WORST DRIVE OF MY LIFE. Note to self: sit in the back seat next time. We live in Whitby, which is ordinarily a 40 minute drive to Wellington Hospital in the CBD. Thankfully there was no traffic at 2am...
By the time we got there I couldn't even walk- I was SO thankful when an orderly turned up with a wheel chair and took me up. There is NO DIGNITY in childbirth. But it is amazing.
My midwife Shelley started filling the birthing pool when we made it into my room. Note: these take FOREVER to fill. Didn't make it into the pool until around 3am. By then I was reaching the "transition" phase, which is the roughest and most painful part. Entonox helped me to focus at this crucial point, though the super delightful student midwife Danielle had to keep reminding me to use the gas.
The actual "pushing" only lasted about 30 minutes, and I kind of paced myself with this and took it slow, only pushing properly when threatened that I would be CUT.
The most powerful moment that I remember is when Shelley said to me, "Look down, Kate", and I saw her head was out (and covered in hair!). Then a second later bub was hauled up onto my chest, looking like a beautiful, perfect skinned rabbit. I couldn't breathe. My baby felt the same and made no noise at all. Everything was perfect. I felt like I was silently laughing, but was only gasping.
Georgia (Sam and I looked at each other and knew that was her name already) wasn't making any noise at all. She lay quietly on me in the warm pool and everything was exactly as it was meant to be. Shelley pushed the emergency button and the room filled with the emergency resuscitation team, but I wasn't worried, it was perfect. Georgia took a breath and they disappeared as quietly as they arrived.
We'd planned to spend a couple of days in post-natal care at Kenepuru Hospital following the birth. My gorgeous girl was born at 4.06am, and we were out of the door by 6:30am, after a hot chocolate and toast. I was in a complete daze as Sam carefully drove our little family back on the same roads that we had torn down a couple of hours earlier. Surreal.
