I am so excited that I get to share with you the birth story of a beautiful little girl born Easter Monday 2015. It is a complete honor every time I get to attend the truly special moment a new life is brought into this world.
This is the mothers version of events, to how she remembers them.
"Around 2am I woke up feeling sick and not quite right. Got out of bed and went to the toilet and noticed a bit of bleeding so I got excited that I had my show and that hopefully that meant I would go into labour in the next week or so. Went back to bed and told Quentin that I didn’t feel very well. He replied with, “Oh ok”, and rolled over and kept sleeping. I went back to sleep but woke up at 2.30am with a cramping pain. It didn’t last too long and my midwife had explained that for first time pregnancies, early labour can go on for a couple of days so I didn’t think too much of it. I tried to keep sleeping but the pain came back so I woke Quentin up again and told him to time them to see if they were proper contractions. They were only 5 minutes apart and started lasting longer and longer so after 2 hours of us timing I rang my backup midwife (my midwife told me I wasn’t allowed to have my baby on Easter weekend because she wasn’t available as she was on night shift at Wellington Hospital).
After waiting on the phone while I had a contraction, the midwife told me to pop down to Kenepuru Hospital and she would meet me to check on me but it was highly likely that she would send me home again.
We arrived at the hospital at 5am and made our way inside which took so long cause I had to keep stopping with each contraction. Paula (midwife), checked everything out and told me I was 2cm dilated which let me down a bit as I was getting so excited to meet bubba. She said I was fully effaced though so she would keep me in for an hour and check again.
After the hour and the contractions getting stronger, Paula told us that I was 4cm dilated now and that I wasn’t going anywhere. I was so excited and nervous that the time was finally here.
The contractions continued to get stronger over the next hour and were so painful so the midwife offered the gas which helped a little.
Quentin rang our birth photographer, Tamara, around 6.30am to let her know that I was in labour and she told us to call back when I was 6cm. Paula checked me again and we discovered I was 6cm so we called Tamara back 5 minutes later and told her to head over. Paula told us that bubba would probably be here in the next few hours.
Tamara arrived around 7am and around the same time, I started to feel like bubba was really low and that I needed to push. Paula said to go with what my body tells me to do. My waters still hadn’t broken at this stage.
Around 7.30am, Paula started to get the bath ready since I wanted a water birth. My midwife, Wendi, had finished her shift and arrived just after 7.30am to check me and I was 8cm dilated. She told me she couldn’t believe it was all going so quickly and that I probably thought she’d made everything up that she’d told me about labour lasting a long time.
At 8am, we made our way to the spa room and I got in the bath. The water made me feel so much more relaxed and helped with the pain. After being in the bath for about 15 minutes, Wendi told me that I was fully dilated and I need to push with each contraction I had. It hurt so badly but I could feel bubba coming so kept on going. Finally Wendi told me that bubba’s head was right there and that I needed to really push with the next contraction and once the head was out to stop pushing and she would guide the body out slowly.
At 8.45am, I pushed and her head came out and straight away the rest of her just followed and I saw her pop through in front of me. I grabbed her out and held her close to me and told everyone, “I did it, she’s here!”
We had skin to skin time while waiting for the placenta. After cuddling for a while I asked Wendi if bubba was a girl so we checked to confirm. I had a few small tears so Quentin had skin to skin with Scout while I was stitched up.
We called our family and they arrived to meet Scout over the next couple of hours.
Our beautiful girl, Scout Dawn, was here and healthy. It was the best feeling in the world to hold her in my arms and feel the crazy amount of love for her."
Mum was so strong and beautiful throughout the entire process. I encourage you all to write your birth story even if you did have a birth photograher there!
Birth is simply amazing!!
Tamara, Birth Photographer, Capturing precious moments, Wellington.