Birth story

Wow I can't believe our baby girl has been with us for over a month! I feel like she's changing so fast I haven't had a chance to document everything! I'm trying to hold on to these precious early days of her life so here is her birth story.

At my 39 weeks appointment on the Thursday, the doctor noticed my blood pressure been really high so I received a membrane sweep to bring on labour naturally. This turned out to be quite effective as my water broke 3AM on Friday morning. We called the hospital but they told us to come in at 8AM. At the hospital we had breakfast and I was scheduled in for an induction at 10:30AM since it was going to be a public holiday long weekend. Hubby and my sister were there to support me. After 16 hours of labour using an assortment of pain relief (TENS, gas, morphine and finally an epidural!), my labour was deemed 'failure to progress' by the doctors and we made the decision for me to have a cesarean. Good thing bub wasn't in distress so the whole thing wasn't rushed.

I remember lying there with hubby beside me, both anxious and excited to meet our little one. Then at 2:09AM, the doctor finally said it's a baby girl! I cried tears of joy and thanked God for her safe arrival into the world. Mae didn't cry but sort of shrieked and went silent. When they handed her to us, she just stared at us with her wide eyes like we were the strangest things. It was funny and quite a precious moment! We didn't have long together as she was whisked away while they stitch me up. That wait to see her again felt like forever and I remember being so thirsty! Finally when they wheeled me back to the room, I was able to have skin-to-skin with my baby and attempted to breastfeed her. The first few days in hospital was a bit of a blur. The physical pain, tiredness and the hormones-induced emotional roller coaster was overwhelming. Fortunately I was able to establish breastfeeding and just looking at my peacefully sleeping baby girl made all those negative things easier to overcome. We had to stay in hospital for 8 days because my blood pressure got higher and I was placed on medications. It turns out I have pre-eclampsia.

When we were finally discharged to go home, I felt the world has changed. Indeed our lives have changed forever. We couldn't believe it. She's finally here. We are parents.