Date Added

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Posted In

birth, Kyla, me, pregnancy

Kyla Jayne

Description

so…. after much anticipation, eager waiting and patience, Kyla Jayne came into our lives! and WOW, she is awesome!

This is the story of her birth. (its more like a novella)

On Friday, 16 July, i saw my gynae. i was in just for a ctg monitoring and a quick check-up. She did do a quick membrane sweep (which hurt!), but thought that i would still see her on the Monday. She said that she hoped that I would go into labour on the weekend, and that it could happen on the Sunday. Somehow knowing all that, made me very nervous of what was to come. It made it all very final and real, labour was coming!

B, the kids and I chilled pretty much all day and on saturday too. We had decided that we would enjoy our last few days of being a family of 4 and give the kids some extra TLC just in case. it turned out to be a good thing that we did

I woke up on Sunday at 4:30, with very definite contractions. they were sore, and i couldnt sleep through them. I told B, but they werent sore enough to need his help yet, so he carried on sleeping. I took my pilates ball downstairs, put on a movie and started bouncing. I heard Jack cry at one stage and came upstairs to find him standing at the gate crying for me. (he has never climbed out of bed in the night) i got a HUGE fright, but gave him a cuddle and put him back to bed with B. i went back down and carried on bouncing. i called my mom to tell her that i was in labour, and that we would be having a baby that day. BUT by the time b and the kids woke up, my contractions had stopped! frustrating to say the least. but the same thing happened with Jack.

so we carried on as normal. by 11, my contractions were back, but they were 20minutes apart, and werent very long. B needed to go to a bookshop in Parow to buy a textbook, so we all got in the car and went. we had packed the baby bag and my bag into the car just-in-case. we had lunch with my mom as normal. all the while my contractions were very irregular, but still not very sore. after lunch we headed home and just took everything as normal. we did have McD’s for supper, as i didnt feel like cooking… understandably so!

after the kids had finished their movie, i was starting to get quite sore, and my contractions were starting to become more regular. we had previously decided that we would take the kids to the hospital with us, even if it was the middle of the night. but that sunday night, we decided that it wasnt fair on them. things were going to be strange enough without waking up in a strange place without us. so we called my mom, and she cam over to spend the night. we explained to the kids what was going on and what would happen if we werent there when they woke up in the morning. (keep in mind that we have never been apart really, and that they have never been apart from both b and i at the same time!)

we put on a movie, and i watched and bounced. towards the end of the movie, my contractions were around 5-6minutes apart and were starting to get serious! we decided that it was time to go. we started leaving the house at 12, but it took us 40minutes to actually leave, as we lost keys and gate remotes along the way

we got into hospital at 12:45ish. they put me on the monitor, incorrectly, so my contractions werent showing up! once they moved the monitoring pads, everything worked properly and BAM! suddenly my contractions were very definitely showing up. at 1:30 i was 4cm dilated, but my water hadnt broken. my midwife, jaqui was called and she was there by 2am. from their on out, things got hectic! my contractions got worse and worse with every passing second. in fact i dont think that they ever actually stopped. I was breathing and squeezing b’s hand with everything i had. by 3:30 i couldnt take it anymore and asked for an epidural. i felt like such a wuss and a failure, but i was so so so sore! i kept saying to b that it was worse than with Jack.

while waiting for the anaethetist, i tried some Entinox gas…. HORRIBLE!! it felt like i had been drugged, and only my face and left arm went numb. b was apparently pretty worried about me, as after 3 breaths of it, i was all wonky and out of it. it was all very strange. i could hear i was talking loudly with a slight slur, but couldnt control it at all.

once the anaethetist arrived, i was in such pain that i could hardly sit up. he did the epi, but it only worked on the left side of my body. i was lying there, telling him and b that i didnt want to feel the pain anymore. it was as though every contraction just melted into each other. he had to re-site the epi, and do it all over again. the second time it worked better, but still took ages to kick-in, and took a larger than normal amount of drugs to quell the pain. also during this process (hindsight is 20-20), im sure that i wanted to push. i kept telling them that i wanted to lift my legs, it was such a strange urge, but he (the doc) kept telling me not to.

After the second Epi attempt, my left leg was completely numb! i had zero control of it. it was really odd, I could see it moving, but there was absolutely no feeling. B managed to get some sleep after my pain was gone. His poor hands… im surprized that i didnt break his fingers or his hand. i really was squeezing them pretty hard.

At 7am, my midwife checked to see if i was fully dilated and suggested breaking waters as they hadnt broken yet. i was fully dilated but, somehow my membranes were gone! it means that at some point my water broke, but none of us have any clue as to when that happened! i never felt the gush, we never saw any water, the bed was dry etc etc. and when she checked my dilation, Kyla’s head was right there. Jaqui swears that she pulled Kyla’s hair, and when she did, Kyla’s heart rate went up just a tad and i could feel her moving. so we switched off the Epi in anticipation of Kyla’s entry into the world.

Tania, my gynae, arrived just before 8 and also checked everything again. (theres no such thing as privacy during birth!) but i didnt feel ready to push as i was still too numb. she said that she would come back just before 9, after she had finished her first c-section. i started to get a bit nervous, as the epi was wearing off quickly and i was starting to get sore again. but we waited and just chatted until Tania’s return.

I felt ready to push when Tania came, so we got going. It was incredible!! such a stunning, beautiful delivery! i started pushing at 9am, after 3 or 4 series of pushing, Kyla crowned, 1 push later her head was out, half a push later her shoulders were out, and then Tania said to just breathe and let my uterus do the rest. and it did, half a minute later, there she was! my beautiful new princess! (thinking about that moment makes me teary-eyed!) it was awesome! i fell in love there and then. i couldnt wwait to hold her. She came out, and started crying and pink. thats a first for us, the other 2 came out very limp and didnt cry. B cut the cord, she was wrapped in a towel and handed to me.

as soon as i started talking to her, she calmed down. it was like she knew who i was from that second. with jessie, i got a shock that she was a girl. this time around, i was so excited to have another little girl. was an amazing feeling. it took us a few minutes to name her officially. but Kyla it was/is!

she is incredibly beautiful and God is indeed victorious and gracious!