Birth story.

11 years ago on the 18th feb at 10:21 after 14 hours of labour I fell completely in love.

I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl

When you are growing up people often ask what you want to be when you are older, my friends always replied with the usual, vet, teacher, doctor etc but even from a young age I remember thinking, I just want to be a mummy.

It was may 2000, I had just completed my diploma in child hood studies and was leaving college. I found out I was pregnant 2 weeks before we officially left. I was 18. I knew instantly that I wanted to keep the baby, and did not give any thing else about my life a second thought.

This baby was not planned in the way most are, we were not married, we didn’t have our own house but we loved each other and a baby was desperately wanted.

It was a fairly easy pregnancy, the morning (year right) all day sickness was quite bad and seemed to go on forever, I finally stopped being sick when I was 6 months pregnant. There were no problems or worries. I had been given three due dates, the first was the 6th of February,  then the 8th and finally the 15th. The scan said the 8th and this is the date we went by, my dates worked out at the 15th and I have no idea why I was also told the 6th. Fairy had her own ideas though and was born 10 days late.

My brave, courages, shy, amazing, funny, worried young lady this is the story of the day you stole my heart.

labour was hard, I started contracting regularly at 20:30pm on Saturday evening, I stayed at home for as long as possible, finally phoning my midwife and making my way to hospital at about midnight, my mum drove us to the hospital, I remember leaving her house and seeing a young man sitting on the kerb at the end of her road, with his head in his hands, I was so worried about him, I wanted to stop and make sure he was okay, but we just drove past him. I never found out why he was sitting at the end of the road looking so sad in the middle of the night.
My labour was advancing quickly, when I arrived at the hospital I was 7 cm dilated and the midwife was sure she was going to meet my baby way before she went home. Ha ha

The next few hours seemed unbearable, my whole body began to shake uncontrollably and I felt so sick. I was tired and felt like this was never going to end, I spent the next few hours sat on a toilet, It was the only place that I felt comfortable, I kept falling asleep between contractions only waking when I had one then going back to sleep. The next thing I was aware of was  a ‘new mum’ opening the toilet door wanting to use the toilet, it must have been a shock to see us all squashed in that tiny cubical, but I was not moving for love nor money, that toilet was like my saviour. When it got to 7:30 am my lovely midwife insisted that I go back into the delivery suite, she examined me and I was fully dilated, I was told I could push when I had the next contraction. I was so tired at this point. I managed to push the baby down enough so that her head crowned very quickly, but then for the next 2 hours she refused to move, with every contraction she would show a tiny bit more of her head, but would then slip back as soon as the contraction finished, I had not had any pain relief what so ever and I can remember the midwives trying to get me to have gas and air, but it made me feel so sick that I refused it. My midwife was being joined by what seemed like the whole department, which in reality is was not but at the time I remember thinking, ‘god how many other people want to come and have a look’, I so wanted to go to sleep and have every one leave me alone, my body ached, I felt sick and I had people fussing over me, I hate fussing, I was getting angry and I remember shouting ” Just get it out, I want it out”  I can’t remember Jason or my mum being there at all it just seemed like I was surrounded by strangers. My midwife whom I had seen the whole way through my pregnancy, placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “right we need this baby out, they want to use forceps”, there is no way on this earth that I was having forceps, I could no longer feel my contractions so a midwife placed her hand on my tummy and told me when to push. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, her head was out, she was already screaming, which is a very wired feeling, another push and my baby was  born, she was placed on my tummy and instantly the pain was gone, it is the most amazing feeling, words can not describe that moment, she was still screaming but I fell completely in love with her. she was so skinny and I could not believe it when they told me she weighed 9lb 5 oz.

All that effort and pain had been worth it.

She was and still is so beautiful, perfect little fingers and toes her smell was like no other and I felt like I had been waiting to meet her my whole life.

The love is so strong right from the moment your eyes meet, I never knew you could love something with so much passion untill I saw her.

Fairy,  life has not always been kind to you, you have struggled and felt sad more times than any little girl should, but you made our world complete when you were born, you changed me, made me stronger, you gave me my dream and I love you with every beat of my heart.

Happy Birthday my lovely little lady.

xxxxxx