Paige Veronica's Birthstory ~ Born 06 January 2008 @ 2:08am

Weight: 9.91/2 lbs or 4360 grams

Length: 54 cm's

Finally!!!, I went into labour on Saturday the 5th January. Real (non BH) contractions started at 2.40pm and by 6pm I was at the hospital (1 hour before my scheduled induction!) to find I was 2-3cm dilated and in active labour, so the latent phase was very nice and fast.

When my contractions got to be about 3-5 mins apart I went on the gas. About this time, a women in labour in another room started screaming out in pain and we could hear her despite the fact the rooms were sound proof! It seemed that everytime she screamed I got a contraction, like we were insynch or something! I got rather stressed out listening to her so decided to get in the shower for awhile, which worked wonders in drowning out her screaming and dulling the pain.

My widwife eventually called for me to get out so she could monitor my progress. My husband left to get something to eat and came back with pizza stinking of garlic and I was complaining `ooohhh garlic` while thinking, if the baby decides to come out too quick now it will be cos she can smell that yummy pizza lol and it will be all daddy`s fault. We even feed my mw, who loved the pizza and wasn`t shy about helping herself to seconds later ont!

By 10pm I was 6cm dilated and the contractions were getting extremely painful and coming hard and fast. My husband was a pillar of strength standing calmly by my side the whole time. This helped calm me down a lot, as did him telling me to slow my breathing down when the contractions were happening. Rather than break his hand off, I grabbed a big clump of his t-shirt and squeezed the heck outta that! Surprisingly, I never abused him once!

After awhile I could handle the pain no more and asked for an epidural. It took a good half an hour for them to perform as the next available anaesthetist needed to be called in from another ward. It was finally carried out and by 10:30pm the pain was gone! For the next 2 and a half hours I was able to sit up and relax, drink a cup of tea and chat away to the mw and my hubby. Then at 1am my mw announced it was time to push. She told me when a contraction was happening (as I did not feel anything) and as she held one leg and my hubby the other I was told to give two to three really good pushes. It didn`t hurt at all, but it was really tiring and nearly everytime I was pushing I would get a heartburn attack which was really annoying as it shortened the amount of time I was able to push the breath out for! My hubby was good in that he keeped stuffing my face with heartburn chewies! It wasn`t until her head was right down in my birth canal and the crowning started that I could feel the pain. This was when I realised I was in transition and that despite the pain, it would be over real soon. I actually found the contractions to be worse than the crowning, but then the epidural probably took the edge off!

One hour and 8 mins later, it was all over and my baby girl - Paige Veronica came out on the bed uttering a wee cry (much to my relief) and with her little left hand signalling the `rock on` sign (it must of been all the Ozzy Osbourne daddy sung and played to her while she was in the womb).

There was meconium in the afterbirth and my placenta was well and truly expired. Not surprising given that she was 11 days post due date. They needed to give my baby an O2 bag to clear all the mucus in her tummy which she did not like one bit. Luckily she had not swallowed any of the meconium and it was clear mucus.

She weighed in at whopping 4360 grams (or 9.91/2 pound) much to everyones surprise as I did not carry that big according to my midwife. Baby must of been well hidden/positioned in there! Unfortunately given her larger size, mummy ended up with a full perinium tear and needed sutures . Now at day 7 (Paige is a week old today!) it hurts to pee and is hard to sit, but it is gradually healing up nicely.

So that`s our birth story. A very positive one in my opinion. It lasted 8 hours which I think is neither too short or too long and I think epidurals are a wonderful scientific invention! Mum and Dad are fairing well despite the sleep deprivation and baby is starting to thrive and has settled in really well. We are so proud of her and totally and absolutely madly in love! She is our darling princess and is as cute as a button! ~ like her mummy of course :0)

Hi! My name is Kellie and for a long time now hubby Shane (married 2 years, together 9 years) and I have wanted a baby. Finally in March this year we were able to make that dream come true! Amazingly, I fell pregnant immediately and we now have a beautiful xmas gift to look forward to!

Between 7 and 15 weeks I suffered severe morning sickness/ nausea (although I never threw up once). The name MORNING SICKNESS is complete hogwash as I found it got worse as the day went on and was especially bad at NIGHT! Just when I thought it wouldn't get any worse, at 11 weeks I was feeling nauseous all day, everyday! The only thing that seemed to help it subside was sucking on and sniffing cut up lemons! Hearing that morning sickness usually lessened in its cruelness by 12 weeks, I couldn't count down the mins/hours/days fast enough! 12 weeks came round however and it still wasn't letting up. I felt like it was never going to end! To make matters worse there would be the odd day where I would feel absolutely fine. This was just down right cruel as I would start to get my hopes up that it was going only for it to turn around and bite me right on the butt again! Finally at about 14-15 weeks it stopped. Since then I have felt 100% better about being preggies :-)

FIRST SCAN -13 Weeks, 2 days

Looks like he/she is sucking its thumb already!

08/07 Finally this morning we found out the sex. We are having a precious wee baby girl!!! We are naming her Paige Veronica (Veronica after my mum's mum who I unfortunately never got to meet). The sonographer even gave us a free 3d picture of her (see below). Seeing her like that was so cool and emotional. She looked so happy in there kicking away like crazy and just loves checking out her hands and fingers constantly. The sonographer said it looked like she was feeding herself grapes she was being so delicate! I can't wait for Week 24 when we have our third scan of Paige entirely in 3d/4d!

20 Weeks, 1 day