What a blur this week has been! I can’t believe that my little man is 1 week old tomorrow – so sad already that the first week is over (although, I’m happy to have the first week of breastfeeding pain behind me!)
I really didn’t think I could match Tommy’s labour with one just as good (as far as labour goes…) but little Harvey has topped them all!
I love a good birth story and like to have them recorded for later on when my memory fails me so here goes…
On Sunday we went to church as usual, I was telling everyone that there wouldn’t be a baby until Thursday (my usual 6 days over) and had lots planned to keep me busy for the beginning of the week. I had been feeling hardly any signs of birth – braxton hicks weren’t painful and would come and go quickly, I only had one night when I woke up with soreish contractions but they went away after a couple of hours so I really wasn’t expecting anything to happen until the end of the week.
That night I felt really tired and went to bed pretty early (unusual for me), my body must have known something was going to happen and was prepping me! I woke up at 3:30am on Monday morning with contractions that were about 10 minutes apart and were quite painful, but didn’t get out of bed for them as I was sure they would stop in an hour or so. After about 15 minutes I woke Jaron to tell him what was going on (and to get him to rub my back!) but told him not to wake up too much because it was bound to be a false alarm.
After another 15 minutes the pain became really intense and I couldn’t lie down anymore so went out to the loungeroom where I could walk around a bit more. At 4:30am things really started to change, I was feeling shivery and started shaking and was feeling really spaced out – it was so surreal, like I was in a different place, so I got Jaron up, he called the hospital to see if we should come in (they said to listen to my body and do what I felt like I should do – I was so confused but decided we should probably make a move!) then he called my Mum.
Mum arrived at 5am and by then I was starting to feel panicky and a really heavy bearing down sensation (I was transitioning but didn’t realise it at the time). Jaron and I quicky jumped into the car and drove 15 minutes to the hospital. Half way there I got the urge to start pushing and couldn’t resist it – Jaron called the hospital as we were driving and they said to try not to push and hold on until we got there. Ha! It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do!! Thankfully, we made it to the hospital, I was in the middle of a contraction and had my eyes closed but as soon as the car stopped, my door whipped open. I remember thinking to myself, how on earth did Jaron get around to my door so fast? Then when I opened my eyes, I was greeted with a whole entourage of medical staff with a trolley, wheelchair and a bed! Usually I would have been a little embarrassed to be carrying on in front of so many people – let me tell you, it was REALLY hard not to push, I felt like an animal!! But funny how when you’re in labour you couldn’t care less what anyone sees or hears!
I was wheeled upstairs into the birthing suite, we got there at 5:15am – had a contraction as I was getting off the wheelchair, another one when I sat on the bed and my waters broke, then in the next contraction I pushed as hard as I could (my strategy for getting babies out fast!) and Harvey was out in one big push!
The whole experience was so surreal, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but another half hour would have been nice because everything was so rushed and intense. But I’m definitley not complaining, it just took a few days for us to get our heads around it all!
He’s here now and as cute as can be! These photos were taken when he was about an hour old, he looks so smooshed up and chubby and has really changed already in just 1 week. Harvey is our biggest baby – almost 2 pounds heavier than Tommy was! And half a pound bigger than Oscar and Lil. He is perfect in every way, I’ll leave you with a few more “fresh from the womb” photos and will try and pop back with some more from the rest of the week soon!
