As I woke up on Saturday, 12 January at 6h30, I felt pain like contractions – not too sore but not something to be ignored. Started timing them but they were mostly irregular again but sometimes a few would be 7 minutes apart. This carried on until about 8h30 and then nothing. For the next few hours my belly just felt tender but no more contractions or cramps.

So once my little boy woke up from his morning sleep, we got ready to go do the usual Saturday morning grocery shopping. My tummy started paining a bit so I decided that I’d call the hospital when we got home. As I got in the car, around 11h30, the pain felt more like the contractions again so started timing them. No sooner did we arrive at the shop that they were coming 4 to 5 minutes apart and more intense than the earlier pains. So I told hubby that we must rush through the shop cos I didn’t want to risk my water breaking here as I’d just die of embarrassment. Before even arriving home, I noticed that I was getting 3 contractions in 10 minutes that were really painful so started panicking. Got home and grabbed suitcase whilst trying to sort out my little guys stuff too… was crazy getting everything organized so quick and crying in pain with every contraction.

Arrived at the hospital at about 12h00 and they hooked me up to the foetal heart / contraction monitor and took blood pressure – since it was high it indicated that my body was dealing with pain!! And the foetal machine was indicating there were definite contractions. The nurse did an internal and said I was 4 to 5 cm dilated. So they took me over to the labour ward and contacted the doc who said he’d come now since my last delivery was so quick that I was sure to deliver soon – he got there like 10 minutes later and said that it would be quick, as the nurses said too that I’d dilate quickly. Not too much longer and I was given my epidural – heaven.

Around 13h30 they did another internal but there was no change and said they only check every 2 hours so we must wait!! Finally the next exam at 15h30 showed that I’d dilated to 6cm and the head was right there with the water bulging around it. The doc decided to speed things up so they put some drug into the IV and broke the water as they felt that this was slowing things too. Within an hour I was at 8cm and ready to start pushing. The fourth round of pushes and my little girls head was out. The doc was really pulling on her head to get the rest of her body out which wasn’t coming too easily. Finally there she was on my chest screaming those little lungs out – she didn’t stop until she ate and boy did she eat ;)

So my Stephanie Mae was born at 17h15 weighing 3.30kg, 50cm tall and head circumference of 35cm and the most beautiful shade of pink I ever saw.

a few minutes after birth		later after a cleaning

My little boy 14mths		Stephanie 2 weeks old Weighs 3.9kg (+600g) and grown 2.5cm