August 26th, 2012

Hi guys! I have a few minutes here and thought I give you a quick update: I had my baby on August 24th at around 1:00 am!!!! I am so in love with her words really cannot describe it. Thought I type a quick birth story to share with you. Will try to keep it brief (but I'm a chatter, lol):



I had my weekly prenatal appointment on August 23rd and was having some random contractions and pains but as I was convinced I'd be labouring late, I got dressed, did my hair and makeup and drove myself to my midwife's office. I did not know I was in early labour! This was me at around 2:00 pm on Aug 23rd, leaving the house:



At the midwife's office, she gave me an internal exam and told me I was 2cm dialated already. However, she told me to take it easy I may still have a few days left to labour (my due date was Aug 28th). So I drove back home at 3:30 pm, having irregular contractions but not thinking anything of them. My husband got home at 5:30 pm and by then the contractions were much worse. We had dinner and started timing them for about 45 minutes and it hit us that I may be in labour. We took a nice shower together, and did some more timing: contractions were 3 minutes apart, lasted 50 seconds and had been going on for over an hour. We paged my midwife Natalie, and she said she'd be right over.

Natalie was at our house at 8:30 pm and told me that I was now 5 cm dialated and it was time to go to the hospital. She then said that she had told the other midwifes this afternoon that I'll be labouring tonight! But she didn't want to tell me that so I don't get too excited, hahah! We headed to the hospital and got our delivery room. I walked around a bit trying to deal with the pains, but it was much too much! I was measured again at 7 cm dialated, at that point I got into the room's Jacuzzi (9:30 pm) to try and cope better.

My plan was always to have a natural birth and despite the intense pain, I was still committed to it. The transition part of labour hit me hard though, I wanted to die! So at around 10:30 pm  I started to beg for an epidural. Natalie measured me then at fully dialated so it was too late for an epidural anyway! The rest was a blur as I was in too much pain I barely remember a thing. I remember Natalie phoning my other two midwives and my husband, Marc, caressing my back and telling me it was time to push.

I pushed for only 30 minutes with guidance from my 3 midwives and it was the most intense yet gratifying experience ever! Sofia Calysta was born at 12:45 am on August 24th, she weighed a good 8 lbs 8 oz and her height was 52 cm. She has a full head of hair and really red skin, hahah! They put her on my skin and she started breastfeeding right away.

We only stayed at the hospital for 2 hours after for Sofia and I to go through the routine procedures (my parents had arrived then too). Her entire labour had lasted about 6 hours and I had no tearing thankfully. We slept the night in our own home, with our brand new baby! I was so happy that she was healthy and feeding, that I had managed to tough it out without pain relief and that we were home :) I would not be able to do it without trusting my body, having guidance from my midwives and having my rock, my husband there throughout labour.

Here are some more pictures:


Marc and I, few minutes after birth, all smiles...


The next morning with my lil jelly bean


And again here in her Woombie...peacefully asleep

Hope I didn't ramble on too much! Thank you all for following me through this pregnancy journey and for your sweet comments here, on Twitter and on Instagram. I'll be resting for a couple of weeks but BeautySpot will be back as usual with makeup, hair, fashion AND baby posts.

Have an amazing week!!