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Sophie Mae Sex: girl Born: 21 June, 2010 Age: 1 years & 239 days Birthday in: 126 days Starsign: Gemini Development: See the 19 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

Birth details

Original due date: June 11, 2010
Type of delivery: Vaginal (without pain relief)
Duration of labor: 6.5 hours
Weight @ birth: 7lbs 11oz
Length @ birth: 19.5in

Sophie-Mae`s birthstory

So my due date had come and gone, and I was becoming more and more anxious to meet my baby girl. At my 41 week appointment on 18th June, we set up Monday 21st June to be my induction date unless I happened to go into labour on my own over the weekend. I was checked at that appointment and was 2cm dialated - I have no idea how long I`d already been at 2cm for as that was the first time I was checked, but I went home happy that my body was making some progress, even if it wasn`t anything huge.

Monday came around and we were to be at the hospital at 6:30am so they could put numbing cream on me for the canula. At a little after 7am they gave me the nitrous oxide to make me space out so I could have the canula put in (I have a bad needle phobia that was heightened in pregnancy due to hormones), and after that they let me have some breakfast, then at around 8-8:30am they started the drip. Right from the start my contractions started coming around every 3 minutes, but were initially lasting about 30 seconds and were really weak. At around 10:30am the contractions were starting to get a little stronger, but at that point I`d still had period pain worse than these contractions. What made some of these contractions more painful was that right before a contraction would start, bub shoved her feet up my ribs which made it hard to attempt to breathe through them.

At around 12pm, the contractions started intensifying, and I asked for the nitrous oxide again to both help me breathe through them easier and to take the edge off the pain. I love the gas, it`s so fantastic! I was checked roughly an hour later, and was only at 3cm which was a bit disheartening - I freaked out silently thinking that I might be in labour for a loooong time still, and that scared me.

I think it was around 1:30pm that the contractions started becoming quite painful - I wasn`t screaming, but was definately writhing on the bed in pain trying to breathe through the contractions that I hadn`t had time to use the gas for, and Michael felt so helpless seeing me in pain and not being able to do anything about it but try and talk me through it. My mum even hated seeing me in pain, and although she wanted me to go pain med free just as much as I did, we both knew I needed something more than just the gas to get me through the contractions easier. So, while I was spaced out from the gas over several contractions they gave me a pethedine shot, which calmed me down a lot apparently. The nurses thought, though, that because I was only at 3cm, and the pethedine relaxed me a lot, that it was going to take me longer to dialate to 10cm.

It was around 2pm that they gave me the pethedine, and I remember being spaced out from then until they told me I was ready to push, which was a little after 4pm. The pethedine, however, caused my contractions to apparently not peak as high, but the peak was lasting longer, so that must`ve been helping me dialate. Some of the contractions were very painful, even while I was spaced out and not aware of most of what was going on. I also remember my dad coming in at one stage (my mum stepped out so that he could come in) and I saw his silohuette and grabbed his hand very tightly, which Michael was surprised about since I barely held his hand much since he was on the side of me that had the drip in.

I have no idea how many pushes it took to get her out, but I pushed for a little over an hour. I between my pushes during the transitional stage, Michael gave me water and dabbed my face with a cold hand towel, which helped me sooo much. Once I started actually pushing her out, though, he was just urging me to push and telling me I was doing a great job. At one point, while she was crowning, my mum said `Oh, she`s got so much hair` and I just said `Shut up, mum, you`re making me not concentrate on pushing` haha.

I cannot believe the impulse of the `urge to push` though, that blew me away! Towards the end of the pushing, I was breaking up what should`ve been one long push into 3 pushes because of the pain I knew was coming; I even tried to stop pushing a couple of times but the pain of the contraction would change dramatically from being in my back to right at my cervix almost the instant I tried to stop it, and it hurt so much I knew that pushing was the only thing to get rid of the pain of the contraction.

I pushed her head out and had a breather, and then felt like I couldn`t go on half way through pushing out her body but they talked me through it and 5:21pm my little princess made her grand entrance into this world with a lovely cry - she didn`t scream, it was only more than a little whine, but enough for me and everyone else to know she was healthy and really here. They passed her to me straight away, and let the cord stop pulsing on it`s own, as that`s what we asked for, and I was in awe at just how precious and perfect she was. I surprised myself by not ending up in tears, but Michael had a few tears in his eyes. I held her for roughly 10 minutes, I think, then they took her to weigh her, measure her and all that while I was out on the gas again while they have me a couple of stitches, more for convenience and cosmetic purposes than actual tearing - had one 1st degree tear that the doctor decided to stitch mostly to hide the `raw skin` so that it didn`t hurt as much when I went to the toilet, but he said I didn`t really even need to be stitched at all, and I was proud of my body for tolerating her birth so well.

Mum said I pushed her out very well, which made me proud. And apparently I tolerated the contractions quite well considering I did feel 98% of them, so that made me happy. I hadn`t wanted to have anything other than the gas and pethedine, and that`s all I had, so I guess you can say the labour and birth went exactly as planned, apart from the fact I was induced, but that`s something that wasn`t my fault, Sophie was just stubborn and didn`t want to come out.

Having my daughter was one of the best thing`s I`ve ever done in my life, and I would gladly do it all over again for her if I have to, and I even look forward to labour and birth again in a few years for her little sister or brother. She`s the reason I breathe and am sleep deprived, but she is priceless; I wouldn`t trade her for anything in the world. She`s stolen my heart, and her daddy`s heart, and everyone else`s who has met her so far. She`s a little princess.

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