Isla Rose Currie

I've been a bit quiet lately. And if you follow my Facebook page you will know why!

Baby number 3 finally made her long awaited arrival!! And as always I have a good labour story.

July 2-one day before little miss' due date and I was pretty much losing the plot. By now I had done EVERYTHING to induce labour. Raspberry leaf tea, walking, kerb walking, hot baths, I was hand expressing colostrum (nipple stimulation), eating hot currys etc etc. You name it, I was trying it. But nothing seemed to be working, this little girl did not want to come early.

By the evening before my due date I had picked up the flu from Mr4. Thanks!! I had a runny nose, sore throat and a nasty cough. By dinner time my tummy was hurting. All that coughing was giving me a 6 pack...or so I thought.

Later that night as I was laying in bed hubby came in and asked if I needed to go to hospital.
"Don't be stupid, I've just been coughing too much" I told him.

I had sneakily been keeping track of contractions- 8:09pm, 8:32pm, 8:39pm, 8:49pm, 8:59pm, 9:16pm, 9:43pm, 9:50pm and 9:59pm. They were completely scattered and the pain wasn't getting the slightest bit worse.
But at 10pm I looked to my husband and said "take me to hospital"
10:01pm I called out to mum "call an ambulance I need to get to hospital"

I really don't know what it was. I still wasn't 100% sure I was in labour for real! Mum called the ambos and told the lady on the phone that I had a history of not making it to hospital. The lady told the ambos to come with lights and sirens going.

When they arrived the paramedics didn't seem too phased. It was 2 males (just like last time) and my contractions were 10 minutes apart (sort of, they still weren't very regular). The hospital was a 35 minute drive away but the paramedics thought we had plenty of time.

I begged for pain relief but was told that the green whistle thing was a no go...I had it last time with Mr4 and loved it!! I got up on the bed and was wheeled into the back of the ambulance where I was stabbed with a needle...an IV. I absolutely hate needles, they are my big phobia. For me to have an IV inserted while conscious is a pretty big deal. I told the guy I didn't like him for doing it to me. Oops. And then I said sorry.

I was told to say when I was having a contraction. When it started and when it stopped. So every time I had a pain I told them. The contractions were for real now. They were getting painful and closer together. I could see the look in the mans face. He thought we had plenty of time-but now he was getting nervous about delivering a baby.

When we left mums house my contractions were 10 minutes apart. When we arrived at the hospital they were 2 minutes apart. I had progressed that quickly!

Because of the time of night all the doors into the hospital were locked and people were pretty slow to let us through doors. I could tell NOW that the ambos were getting worried, it was taking a long time to get inside and I was in pretty full on labour.

Finally inside the midwife did an internal "um your about 5-6cms gone" seriously?!? I had only been in labour for an hour-ish.

Now for the nitty gritty details. Look away now if you don't want to read about childbirth

The midwife told me to pee and I swear on my life I peed for like 2hours! I actually said to the midwife "I'm not sure if I'm peeing or if my waters broke" she checked and it was just pee! Seriously
where had this come from?
I had gas for pain relief which I was totally stoked about. I love that gas. It makes labour totally worth it.

I also had a crowded room. The midwives never left my side-they knew that this baby was ready to come out. She told me baby was in the birthing position from the second I walked in. In the room were my midwife, a dr was coming and going quite regularly (I'm guessing this is because if the labour was long [yeah right!] I would need a pile of drugs to help my body cope with the stress, thanks to the steroids I've been on for my arthritis). I also had the lady from Cell Care. She was there to collect my baby's cord blood and tissue as we chose to have it stored. A friend of mine was my student midwife, so she was there as well. And of course hubby was there holding my hand-or more like having his hand crushed by me.

My contractions were getting pretty much on top of each other but this time around I felt like I had more control. Like my head was in the game. I knew when my contraction was at its worst and I was telling myself 'it's going away now, I can do this now' it still hurt like hell though.

After about 45-50minutes in hospital my pain reached this absolutely blinding, can't breathe, can't think, can't function, holy shit I'm going to die stage....baby was coming.

My waters broke, I screamed like hell, I think I pushed and out came my princess.
She was put straight on my belly and I just stared at her. She was perfect. My first thought was 'gosh she looks like Bradley.'

I was so happy my friend the student midwife got to catch my girl which was pretty amazing-we had been friends since we were born and now she was catching my baby!

Hubby cut the cord and my student midwife went off to faint-poor girl, it was a late night and she had missed out on dinner and drove a long way to try and make it to the hospital before baby came.

The midwife tried to get my placenta out but it wasn't happening. Apparently if your bladder is full it won't come out as easily. She asked if I could get up to pee. That wasn't happening. Because of the speed of the labour and those lovely hormones I was shaking like a leaf. Literally.

So how do you pee when you can't get up? Well the midwife got a catheter. Shoved it in me, I peed out like another 10thousand litres ( seriously where was this pee all coming from? I didn't even feel the need to go!!) and then out came my placenta. I don't look at that shit though cos it's gross.

I was still cuddling my little girl but I was DYING to know how much she weighed. I wanted to know if I got my little girl. Finally the midwife out her on the scales and hubby told me she was 3.695kgs. "What's that in pounds, I can only tell if a baby is big or small by the pounds" I made hubby google it to convert kg's to pounds. 8pound 1 ounce. YES!!!!! My smallest baby yet! I was so happy, the midwives thought I was crazy-an 8pound baby isn't usually considered small.

The dr then came in, shoved my legs up in those horrible stirrup type things. It's really an embarrassing thing to lay on your back with your legs at odd angles up in the air with a midwife and nurse looking at your lady bits. At one stage all I could think was 'thank goodness I shaved my legs today!' I had a teeny tiny first degree tear. The dr said usually it wouldn't be stitched because it was coming together so well but where I tore was close to some blood vessels so they decided to put a couple stitches in.

While hubby was playing doting daddy the midwife came and held my hand, I breathed the gas like crazy and the dr sat down to get to work.
After having my first daughter I was stitched up but I was unconscious when it happened. This time I was awake and could feel the pulling sensation. It actually sucked. Like I could feel when she was pulling the stitch through. Yuck!

Finally I was done. I cuddled my beautiful girl again. Then it was time to get cleaned up. Hubby dressed our beautiful girl and we got packed up and off to a room we went.

A couple hours later, about 4am, a dr came in. The first thing he said to me was "I'll check the baby now and then get you ready to go home today"
Woah! Seriously? Apparently public patients who are onto their third baby don't get to hang around for long.

That morning our big kids came to the hospital to visit us. But because it was the second last day of school they both had class parties they wanted to go to, so they visited us quickly and then headed to school. Mr4's first words about his new sister were "she's got fat cheeks" Miss5 was just so overwhelmed. She is so in love with her baby sister.

14 hours after Isla was born I was taking her home...well back to mums place because we were still staying there.

Isla Rose Currie. Our perfect little girl.

That afternoon I went to pick the kids up from school. The teachers and other mums thought I was crazy to be picking the kids up 14 hours after giving birth. But I felt AMAZING.

That night Miss Isla slept from 8:30pm till 5am (with a quick nappy change at 2am). I was pretty happy with that for her first night in the world!

The next day I woke up with a huge earache. Off to the drs we went. Not only did I have a cough, runny nose, headache and earache I had an upper respiratory infection. Seriously I gave birth with a respiratory infection?!? My GP knows me well and had a good giggle about that!

The first few days I had really sore boobs-Isla has an amazingly strong suck. She just about sucked my boobs right off it was so strong. I also had way too much milk, I always do, so my boobs was so big that getting Isla to attach properly was hard.
A few days of using a nipple shield and we were going good. Hubby had to make an emergency run to buy a breast pump (as my old one was up in Tom Price) because I had way too much milk and I was so engorged and so sore. After a couple good expressing sessions I was feeling much better.

Day 8 we left the city. We had a few more dramas. Mr4 had developed glue ear from his ear infection a couple weeks back and was told he couldn't fly. So he had to join my husband and our dog for the two day drive north. They had an awesome boys only road trip. The photos and stories from the trip were amazing, I was jealous!

But my girls and I had a plane to catch. We had some seriously full baggage but we were happy. My girls were amazingly well behaved for the flight. I however was still recovering from my ear infection and my ears were popping and going crazy. As we started to land my left ear was so overcome with pain I thought I had burst my eardrum. It took a good 2 days for me to be able to hear again.

But we have arrived in the Pilbara. Warm sunny days and cool nights are what we are all about right now. We also moved house the day after we arrived here...but that's another story for another day.

I promise I will write that though because we have been having an amazing time here so far. It's only been 4 days but I'm enjoying being out of the city.

Have I put you off having kids now? Or is your story better than mine? I love hearing other peoples labour stories. I think childbirth is one of those things that you can't plan for. I have always refused to write a birth plan. I think it just sets you up for disappointment, as long as baby comes out healthy then I think that's all that matters. Who cares if you didn't have time to play that soothing music, or light those aromatherapy candles? Chances are you will want to punch your husband at some stage and you will scream for more drugs even when you wanted a drug free labour. Just go with the ride. And at the end you will get a little bundle of cuteness to love.

The very first thing I remember after Isla was born was my husband saying "she screamed louder with our first so it can't have been that bad this time." That was my 'I want to punch him' moment.

Isla Rose Currie
Born 3-7-2014 spot on her due date (there is only a 3% chance of that happening)
12:15am
8pound 1ounce
3.695kgs
50cms long
36cm head circumference
My smallest baby to date (which meant we were unprepared and had no clothes that fit her properly!)

My iPad isn't loving me right now, so I can't upload photos today. But on my Facebook I have posted a couple baby pics. Facebook page is The Currie Way Of Life...check it out.

Next time I'll try post some pictures of Isla, the kids, our new place and this beautiful red dirt town we live in.