Skye is born

On the day Skye was born, I slept in until close to 8am, when I started having fairly regular, fairly painful contractions five minutes apart. I jumped into the bath and Morgan made Gully and I amazing french toast with maple syrup and called our midwife team (because they said we should call when contractions are 5min apart). However, we all knew that it was still early days yet due to the contractions mild intensity. So, Morgan and I settled down to watch some TV and relax. My contractions became irregular and infrequent for a while. 

Morgs went down for a nap after lunch and I bustled around cleaning up the house and doing laundry as contractions gradually increased in intensity. At a certain point I could no longer just pause and hold on to the sink in order to get through them. So, I put down the cutlery tray, lay down on the spare bed and listended to mindfulness meditations to help me concentrate on my breath and begin accepting the inevitable. 

At about 3pm I SMS'd Morgs to help me out. I asked him to bring me some panadeine for the pain. I also had another bath. This bath was far more uncomfortable than the morning bath and I was soon making guttural vocalisations through the contractions. I started complaining to Morgan that I didn't like it and that I wasn't any good at it. 

At 4pm I was starting to cry and screech out on our bed when Morgan encouraged me to get to the car between each contraction--I still had no idea how quickly things were progressing. Morgan started driving to the hospital at 4:30pm. We got to the car park and I used concrete and cars to lean on during contractions to get to the birth centre.

Once we arrived at the birth centre around 5:20pm, staff got us into a room and started the bath. I started progressing really fast now and they barely had time to check my blood pressure etc... before my contractions were fast and exceptionally painful. As soon as the bath was ready, I lumbered in. After about 3 contractions with pushing Skye was born in the water at 5:50pm and put on my chest.

Skye and I were in excellent shape. We were allowed delayed cord clamping, a natural third stage and hours of skin-to-skin. Skye was very pink and absolutely ravenous, feeding almost constantly for the next four hours--and hollering if she didn't have her demands met. I knew I had a strong personality with this one! 

We were discharged from the birth centre at 11:30pm and got home by 1:00am. What an extraordinary birth it was!