"I was hoping and praying that my baby would come early as I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
I had several false labours (which started exactly the same as my previous labour) but as the name entails.. got to a point and just stopped all together.
Every night I would go to sleep hoping that ‘tonight would be the night’.. I would monitor the ‘labour pains’ and I would wish that they would progress and become super intense so I could finally meet my baby.
After 9 days of having false labours (and false hope) I woke up and I knew that my waters had broken. It was only a trickle not a gush and I had no contractions unfortunately. It was 4am in the morning so I called my midwife who told me to come in at 7am for an inspection unless I started having contractions sooner.
We went in for an inspection where the midwife officially diagnosed that my waters had broken but were sent home and told to wait for contractions to start.
The day came and went with no movement. I had some little twinges that night but decided to try and get as much sleep as possible in case things did progress.
From about 2.30am I had definite contractions but they weren’t super regular so I would just wake up to check the time to see how far apart they were. At about 4am things were in full swing and my contractions were 5 minutes apart so I woke my husband, Nick and we drove to the hospital.
It was the most uncomfortable drive I have ever experienced! I was watching the clock the whole time trying to calculate how many more contractions I would have to endure before we got to the hospital. I remember some being just 2 minutes apart and judging by the increase in speed Nick was driving at, he too had noticed.
We made it to the hospital and pretty much straight away I assumed my position on the floor on all fours over a bean bag.
I remember sweat dripping down into my eyelashes, shaking my head and thinking ‘I don’t think I can do this’. I had forgotten how much it hurt.
30 minutes in, I felt the urge to push.
Because my waters had broken 24 hours before hand, the midwife was monitoring the baby’s heart beat. It was a bit difficult to pick up the heart beat at the best of times so she was pushing it into my belly quite hard. While I was pushing I could hear the heart beat fade in and out and I felt the midwife trying to push harder/readjust the monitor to try and pick it up. It got to the point where we could no longer hear the heart beat and I could feel the mood start to change. My midwife said that she thought it was just because of the position so we might have to move around.
I found moving so uncomfortable so I really wasn’t keen on the idea. The midwife sensed my unwillingness and said she would give it one more contraction in that same position.
I knew I had to get my baby out with that contraction because moving just wasn’t an option for me. So with the next contraction, I birthed the head.
Then the mood really changed and my midwife spoke with urgency and told me I had to keep pushing over and over and over.. Even after my contraction had stopped. 1 minute later my baby was born. I was so exhausted I could barely move. I managed to peak through my legs where I saw a pair of tiny ghost white legs. I then heard the midwife say ‘floppy and pale’
I heard alarms going off but I didn’t realise it was for us until a bunch of people stormed into the room. It all was happening so quickly and I still didn’t really understand what was going on. I then heard the midwife cutting the umbilical cord and that’s when I knew that things weren’t good. They took my baby over to a little station in the corner and worked on resuscitating it.
At this point I realised I didn’t even know the sex. I asked Nick ‘what is it?’ and he replied ‘I think it’s a little girl.. I heard them say ‘she’’ The context was: ‘she’s not breathing’ …a sentence no one ever wants to hear and definitely not the way you envisage finding out whether you have a son or a daughter.
The doctors worked on her for a while before deciding she would be best going into the NICU. They quickly showed her to us before they took her away. Thankfully she only needed help breathing for 30 minutes and she was then upgraded to special care.
The doctors and midwives don’t know why she needed resuscitating.. they told us it was unexplained. They said it could have been because of ‘wet lungs’ (where there aren’t enough contractions to squeeze out all the liquid from the baby’s lungs) because my labour was so quick (My labour was just 2 hours and 20 minutes).
After spending 5 days in the hospital we were able to take home a beautiful healthy little girl. I am forever grateful to the midwifes and doctors whose actions and quick responses made all the difference.
Finley is our beautiful rainbow baby. She joined our family after 18 months of unexplained secondary infertility and 3 heartbreaking miscarriages. We are so blessed to finally welcome her into our lives.
We are still adjusting to life with another little one and trying to navigate some big little feelings with our toddler but we are so in love with her and couldn’t be happier.
Is being a mum is hard? Ofcourse! But it’s no where near as hard as wanting to be a mum (or a mum of 2 or 3 or 4) and it not happening. I will never take for granted all the late nights and early mornings, all the tantrums or the pooey nappies because I am lucky enough to experience it all. Even the worse days with my little munchkins are far better than the days I spent yearning for them.
I am one of the lucky ones. I got the beautiful healthy baby I was yearning for but unfortunately so many others are not as lucky.
So to all the women who are experiencing or have experienced infertility or miscarriage, I see you "
