He’s Finally Here

Good god I’m tired.

I have been working on this post for over a week. I’m not even kidding. I started it the night of the 28^th. It has taken me this long to finish it and actually get it posted.

I am tired.

So here is the constant work in progress.

28^th of August.

The predator has officially arrived.

As I write this Matt is currently doing his first solo nappy change which is both great and funny to witness.

Those tar-like poops are something else.

The last three days have been an absolute whirlwind like no other. Thursday I went for my 37 week appointment which ended with my doctor very concerned not only because of the measurements being >98^th percentile but I was retaining more fluid than was expected, swelling in just one leg, random headaches, vomiting and high blood pressure.

Because of all these things he sent me off for some urgent blood work and urine testing.

Honestly, we didn’t think anything of it. The week before I’d had to go and have my blood pressure monitored and nothing ended up coming of it. During the appointment we planned on inducing me the following weekend, which meant pushing the labour back even further than the 38weeks and four days that we had originally agreed on because of the increasing size.

Then Thursday night I got a phone call.

It was a phone call that I wasn’t expecting.

There was protein in my urine. I don’t know how much, I forgot to ask and honestly it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest.

I was showing early signs of preeclampsia.

My doctor wanted to err on the side of caution and evacuate the child as soon as possible. Now it was up to me on how we decided to do that.

I could choose to go vaginally or be cut open and I had twelve hours to decide.

When I relayed the situation to Matt he spent fifteen minutes staring into the abyss. I didn’t blame him in the slightest.

We’d gone from having an extra few days to prepare to having two days.

How the hell did we get here? How the hell did we get here so fast?

I managed a total of three hours and eight minutes of sleep that night. The next day I called my doctor and informed him of my decision. The risks of the pre-eclampsia, the potential size of my child and the thought of being torn vagina to asshole made the decision an easy one in the end.

So, at this point I was preparing to go into hospital on Sunday.

By 2pm I was informed that only emergency c-sections were done on Sundays and that I was getting admitted on Saturday morning at 6.30.

Now suddenly the week that we had to prepare was cut down to less than 24 hours.

Safe to say everyone went into overdrive.

Mum and dad were already over helping us spring clean the house before the baby came, Matt took the night off work to help get things done and I cooked enough lasagna, pasta bake and quiches to feed Matt and I for a few weeks. Safe to say that the chest freezer is now chock a block.

That night I once again only got three and a half hours of sleep. There was so much to do and we needed to be at the hospital so early. I could nap later.

Saturday morning Matt and I woke up, gathered our things, said goodbye to the cats (as the dogs had thankfully been picked up in the haze of Friday) and made our way to the hospital.

Predator was generous enough to fit two more pukings into the drive to the hospital and then another one while I waited to go into pre op.

I ended up getting some anti-nausea medication that helped get me through to the operating room. Along the way I amused a number of nurses, midwives and the anesthetist. If my brother thought that I’d gotten worse since getting pregnant he would’ve hated seeing me that day. I was hilarious.

From pre-op we headed to the operating room. I got to have a really fun needle in my spine so that I wouldn’t feel the epidural go in. While Matt might have avoided the twelve hours of labor and contractions and my nails digging into his arm to help me deal with the pain he didn’t miss out on me digging my nails into his arm.

That first needle was….well I won’t lie it was really shit . Matt’s arm looks…exactly how you’d expect it to look after I dug my nails in. And I dug them in deep. Those marks didn’t go away until the next morning. Some of them, the next night.

The epidural itself, well they weren’t lying when they said it felt like a warm bath after the fiery hot poker to my spinal cord.  It didn’t take long before I felt like I was floating on a cozy cloud. It also wasn’t long before the anesthetist was helping me lay back on the operating table. About three seconds after he started laying me back I joked about how up close and personal we were getting considering my husband was in the room. I then told him to buy me a drink first.

Honestly why I’m allowed to interact with other people especially under the influence is beyond me.

I’d been told the general process of a c-section by a few different friends who were nurses and was fully expecting to feel myself being tugged in two different directions at one point. I felt nauseous from the antibiotics and ended up throwing up for the fourth and final time that day. I felt hands rummaging around in my gut like Matt when he goes through my bag looking for something.

Blindly and unsure what he’s actually looking for.

There was pressure on my ribs which I later found out was from another doctor pressing his arm down in a way that reminded me of someone trying to get the last of the toothpaste out of the tube.

7^th of Sep

A week later Matt is still telling me off for making the doctors laugh while they’re elbows deep in my abdomen. Look to be fair it was a solid black market organ joke. Despite both Matt, Sophie my student mid-wife and my OB knowing me fairly well, none of them actually expected me to make a joke about them stealing my kidneys. I did consent to them taking half my liver. The other half grows back so it’s fine.

The other doctors and nurses were expecting my OB to roll with the jokes even less.

Before I knew it there was this slimy, weirdly coloured living doll being put on my chest. He was crying and then I held him and he…stopped. He stopped crying and it was the strangest yet most amazing feeling in the world.

I had just seen the tiny demon child that had been tormenting my insides for the past nine and a half months, come out of me and now I was holding him in my arms.

How was this real?

As we left the operating room I thanked everyone for coming and let them know it was a pleasure.

Honestly, they were all probably wondering how easily affected I was by drugs to be like this. If only they knew that it was just me being my hilarious self.

I knew that there were going to be plenty of people in my life, people I’m close to and people I’m not, who would have an opinion about the fact that I went in for an elective c-section. I also know that those opinions would not be supportive. One previously mentioned family relation would most definitely have comments to make about how I hadn’t experienced real natural child birth and motherhood blah blah blah.

Up until that day I was sure that there was always the next time. You know what though? That day was a far more pleasant experience than what it would’ve been if I’d tried for the “natural” birth. Especially with how high the risks were of things going wrong.

Predator’s head was stuck and had to be forceped out. They had to extend the incision because he was bigger than we expected. I’m 10 days post-partum and my incision tells me when I’ve over done it. There is legitimate risk of tearing open my incision if I’m not careful and adhere to the restrictions that have been put on me.

The birthing experience itself may have been a positive one, but I would not consider this the easy way out in the long term. I’m lucky that I have good support. I’m lucky that Matt is here and present and takes care of me when I can’t take care of myself. I can’t imagine how the women who don’t have a good support network or caring partners would be managing after a c-section.

I’ve probably rambled on for a lot longer than was necessary. I definitely haven’t had enough sleep.

For now though I will leave some adorable pictures of my little man. My little man who was born at 37 weeks and 6 days, weighing in at 4.14kg (9pounds 2ounces), 51 cm long and a head circumference of 37.5cm. He came out dark blonde, pale and blue eyed. Matt is salty as hell that our little one looks just like me and nothing like him. To be fair, they sleep the same and they’re both portable heaters. I also told him that he could have the next one.

It’d only be fair if we both had little mini me’s.

Oh. One last fun fact. Predator Cub was born to Help by Papa Roach. Personally I find that kind of cute.