In preparing for baby number three, I noticed that I had never actually published Mr Moo’s birth story on the blog. And seeing as I blog for myself and my family to remember, as much as I love my readers to follow our story – I thought that I would make the time to put it down in writing before number three arrives. P.s. really need to work on a blogging nickname for number three.

Mr Moo’s birth story starts the week before he was due. My parents had come down to Canberra for Easter, I was a week overdue, and my Mum was trying everything she could find on the internet to help me go into labour. I had PUPPPs and I was super uncomfortable.

After a weekend of long walks, eating curries, taking stairs sideways, pushing on pressure points, drinking raspberry leaf tea, eating pineapple, I was going no where fast. In fact, when we pulled up at church for Easter Sunday, my Mum turned around and said ‘Now remember that we are all praying for Shari to go into labour whilst we are in there.’

All of our prayers didn’t have an impact, as almost a week later I was getting ready for a night in hospital before being induced in the morning. Daddy and I went down to the turkish pide house in yarralumla for our last meal and then took a short walk around the lake’s edge before checking into hospital. At around 10pm, the nurse advised Daddy to go home and get some sleep as tomorrow was going to be a big day.

I hoped into bed and went to sleep, only to be woken up with some pains at about midnight. I took out my iphone and opened the contraction app that I had purchased and had been so keen to use. I monitored the contractions for an hour or so as they got closer together and stronger in intensity. After an hour, I buzzed for a nurse, who told me that I was probably just nervous and that I needed to go back to sleep.

I  tried to hop back into bed, but it was no use. I was in labour and so I monitored the contractions for another hour and then pressed the buzzer again. With contractions coming every five minutes at 2am, she informed me that I better call Daddy to come back into the hospital.

I stood, rocking back and forth through contractions, waiting for Daddy’s car to appear in the carpark. I was worried that the contractions were coming so quickly now that he might not make it. It hindsight, this was a crazy thought as you took another 12 hours and a vacuum extraction to arrive – but this was my first labour and I had no idea what to expect.

We were moved into a birthing suite and I laboured walking back and forth across the room. When I was pregnant with you, I thought about how I wanted to labour in the bath or the shower, but the thought of water and getting wet literally made me want to vomit – so I stayed dry. I kept asking that the air conditioning be turned down {as in cooler} and I remember that when I would open my eyes everyone was fully rugged up and said that it was freezing in the room, but I was HOT!

I laboured with gas and air as it all got harder. The gas and air made me hallucinate a little. I had images of Daddy climbing up to take the cross off the wall and then at one stage I thought that Daddy’s friend Mihow {who serviced the equipment at the hospital} was in the room.

Once, I was finally ready to push it took a long time. I pushed and pushed for two and a half hours until a new midwife came in with my OB. They helped me into a new position and then decided that I needed a little extra help – so you were vacuum extracted.

They popped you onto my chest and all I could say was ‘I love you’ over and over and over again. You weren’t breathing properly, so they took you away from me and I lay there hoping that everything was alright. I then had realised that I hadn’t even asked if you were a boy or a girl, I cried out ‘OMG, what did we have?’. And the OB replied ‘Oh gosh, a boy’.

 

So out you popped, with a lot of effort, on the 5th of April – two weeks late – weighing almost 4kgs and 54cm long. A head of dark black hair and looking just like your Daddy

People kept telling me that my next labour wouldn’t be as traumatic as that. But your birth story was very similar to the story that my own Mum had told me about when I was born – so I didn’t think that it was unusual. I was so tired that I didn’t realise that you were in neo-natal for about an hour and that Daddy had been running back and forth between the two of us – worried sick. But soon enough, we were both cleared to return to our room together and start our lives together.

Do you love birth stories? Have you shared your birth stories? I would love for you to link them up in the comments section below – I love reading birth stories.