Oakli arrived 2 weeks early as predicted and leading up to this I repeatedly watched birthing documentaries and mentally made notes of what I’d try to do better this time (less screaming, more pushing) AND if the labor was as easy as my pregnancy, I’m pretty confident I might have pushed her out 100% naturally. This wasn’t the case though.
It was Sunday 14th February, around 1am when my contractions began. I was in denial and even tried to sleep through it, showered twice in hopes I’d feel better but by 5am Mandrew made the call to family “its time!”.
The early morning drive to the hospital was quite (6am) and thank god mandrew put petrol in the car the day before hand since I’d stubbornly argued to do it the next day. By the time we arrived I could barely walk and I was thankful I had brought a throw rug from home to bury my face into everytime a contraction crippled me. My waters finally broke while being assessed and by then I had tears knowing there would be no time for an epidural and I was going to do this again drug free.
I remember my midwife stating the time was 7am and she predicted to have the baby out by 7:15am. Despite the growing pain, it made me determined to just get the job done, and the pain gone in that short amount of time but an hour past with 2 new midwives and things weren’t going as fast as initially predicted.
Baby was in posterior position (face up position) which I later found out put alot more pressure on my back and in turn made for a much harder labor. In the end, Oakli was helped delivered with forceps, a vacuum extraction and a ‘mild dose’ of gas was all that I was given to get me through birth but when her deep black eyes blinked at me and her warm body lay upon me, I was temporarily distracted. The procedure afterwards to make sure I didn’t haemorrhage was another short hurdle but in the end I was grateful for a doctor who was efficient and a midwife who was sensitive to my needs.
This all happened in just under 2 hours and despite the difficult labor I had renewed energy because it was all over.
Mandrew later fed me breakfast, we called and messaged those close to us the good news. We went back and forth with names and the icing on the cake was it was Valentines day (Aunty Nat was right). Outside looked like such a beautiful day and we had a healthy baby girl ‘Oakli Heart Smith’ who I couldn’t wait to show Willow.
We are truly blessed, recovering well and today marks her 14 days old.
