17 months on and the details of the most memorable, life changing day I have ever lived through are starting to fade and blur at the edges. It's time to write the story of my daughters entry into the world, before she asks me questions one day that I can't remember the answers to.
My pregnancy was at times, difficult. I had horrible "morning" sickness for the first 14 weeks that saw me throwing up in different places all over Sydney. Outside restaurants, on the side of the road next to my car, outside my office building. My up close and personal viewing of various bushes and roadways of my suburb felt endless at times.
Once the nausea left, the tiredness kicked in. I thought it was just regular pregnancy tiredness at first but it got worse, and worse. Turns out my sweet little stowaway was sucking all the iron out of my body leaving me feeling as sprightly as an overcooked piece of spaghetti (which I couldn't eat. Or I would throw up.) This necessitated a course of iron injections, to be administered at my local hospital. For anyone lucky enough to have never been given an iron injection, let me tell you they are Not. Fun. A whole lot of not fun involving a very large needle inserted over your hip bone in an 'S' shape.
Despite all this, I loved being pregnant. Feeling the baby kicking and rolling around was like magic to me. The baby was due on the 28th January and I spent the lead up to Christmas dreaming of the following year when I would finally meet my little one. I had thought all the way through my pregnancy that I was having a boy. This held up until two days before Christmas when I had a dream and I saw myself having a baby girl. The doctor held her up in my dream and she had chubby little cheeks and frizzy black hair. From the moment I woke up that morning, I knew I was going to have a daughter.
27th December and I woke up at 35 weeks pregnant feeling huge and sore and cumbersome. I posted on Facebook that morning my intense shame that Johnnie had to do my shoes up for me, I just couldn't lean down far enough any more to get them done up myself. We spent the morning walking around our local shopping centre looking for a coffee machine to buy. I didn't enjoy being out in such a crowded place at all, I just felt a bit off and wanted to get home.
We arrived home at lunchtime and I had a nap and woke up feeling better, so we arranged to meet some friends for dinner that night. About halfway through our dinner I got what I thought was a very strong braxton hicks contraction. I turned to my cousin Georgia and said "wow that was weird, I just had a braxton hicks but it was really low down and felt like period pain." She got a funny look on her face and said something about not wanting to freak me out but that it sounded like the beginning of early labour. I shrugged it off, but when I felt it twice more in 10 minutes I started to get a little concerned. I told Johnnie that we had better go home and he asked if we could just stay till he had finished his dinner - after replying "no darling, let's go now" (or something slightly less polite than that) we headed home and I got in the bath to see if the contractions would stop. When they increased in both frequency and intensity we knew it was time to drive to the hospital.
The whole way there Johnnie kept up a running commentary about how I couldn't really be in labour, it was just a false alarm, we would be back home shortly etc etc. I was too busy gritting my teeth through the contractions to argue with him so once we arrived at the hospital and the nurse hooked me up to all the moniters and said "yes, you are definitely in labour, you wont be leaving here without a baby" his face went white and then slowly turned an interesting shade of green.
Because I was 35 weeks pregnant they decided to leave me in labour overnight to see if my contractions would stop on their own. They came into my room at 8am the next morning and still were unsure about whether to perform the cesarean (I had to have one due to medical reasons) or leave me in labour for a while longer. They discussed it and told me they would come back at 11am and make the decision then. At this point, after having been in early labour for 13 hours with no sleep and repeatedly throwing up from the pain of the contractions I burst into tears and demanded that Johnnie call my Mum and have her come to the hospital now.
My Mum arrived, and so did the doctor at 11am. After examining me and confirming that my labour was progressing and not going to stop he said "right, lets prep you for surgery, I'll put your name down on the surgical teams list and you will have your baby in the next few hours." At 1:10pm two nurses came into my room and began wheeling me into surgery. On the way there they explained that as my baby was a little early there was a chance that it could have some troubles breathing and they would need to assess this straight after delivery. If the baby wasn't crying or its lungs sounded wet then they would have to take him or her straight down to the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) for some assistance.
We got to the doors of the operating theatre and they had Johnnie kiss me goodbye, he had to wait there until my spinal block was administered and they came to bring him back in. They wheeled me in through the doors and I noticed straight away that the room was very cold and smelt like antiseptic. They transferred me to the operating table and had me sit up to administer the spinal. I was really nervous about this part and began shaking. I hardly felt a thing though and it was over before I realised the anesthetist had started. They laid me back down and bought Johnnie back into the room and had him sit up near my head holding my hand, then they began the surgery.
All that kept running through the forefront of my mind was "please let my baby be ok, please let my baby be alright" and in the background ran continuously, "what if I'm not ready, what if I can't do this, I don't know if I'm ready yet."
1:51pm, a tugging motion and then the little stowaway who had slept, grown, kicked and been nourished inside me for the last 35 weeks was pulled out of my body.
Beat....beat.
Oh I am ready. I am so ready. Please, little baby...
A cry split the air and a voice spoke from behind that high, pale blue curtain, "It's a girl. Look to your right."
I turned my head, my eyes lifted, and there she was.
Eve Amy.
It was an instant, a heartbeat. I laid down on that operating table the same person I had spent 28 years being, and in the time it took for my eyes to lift and see her there held above me - pink, crying and the most beautiful human being I had ever laid my eyes on - I simply became someone else.
Her mother, and a more complete version of myself than I had ever dreamed of being.
Choking my voice out through my tears I kept asking Johnnie if she was ok. Smiling and nodding, his hands shaking with emotion, he kept reassuring me that she was fine. As they carried her over to the warmer to wipe her down the details the nurse was making note of washed over me.
6pounds 2ounces, 45cm long, breathing unassisted and healthy.
They brought her back over to me, laid her down across my chest and as my tears ran down my face and fell on her I kept whispering over and over "hello sweet baby, happy birthday. I love you so much."
