I have written previously about our journey to grow our family journey to grow our family and journey to grow our family part 2 and finally after 6 years of hoping, doubting and waiting we have our newest arrival little Eve Esther Ann. I thought she would come early as I was having a lot of braxton hicks contractions but as the due date came and went I had a feeling she would probably be born on April Fools Day; that would make sense after all as it seemed like someone was playing a trick on us finally falling pregnant after all these years. I was seeing the midwives team at the hospital and they asked me if I wanted to be induced and I said yes. They booked me in for March 31st, we were all relieved about this as March 30th is Emily's birthday and we thought it would be better if she had her own day and then when we arrived at the hospital at 6.30 am they told us they were understaffed that day and could I come back the next day. I chuckled to myself as we left, the next day was April Fools day.
We had decided Emily could attend the birth if she wanted, the boys were not interested but Emily was, she messaged Jayme (who is living in Adelaide) back and forth during the birth and afterwards she summed it up very well with one word, intense. They broke my waters and said if the contractions didn't start within 2 hours they would have to intervene more, I prayed that was all I needed and sure enough with only 15 minutes to go to the deadline the contractions started. I found it more exhausting laboring at 45 compared to in my 20's but thankfully like the others it was short and only two and a half hours later at 2:58pm little Eve was born weighing 7 pound 14 or 3.520 kgs. They placed her on my tummy and we just stared at each other, I couldn't believe she was actually here. Emily cut the cord and we all immediately fell in love with her. She had a bit of ginger coloured hair and she lay there for an hour just looking at me, not a single cry or whimper.
Over the next few days we stayed in hospital getting to know each other and learning to feed. My milk didn't come in and for the next 2 weeks we tried medication, essential oils, herbs and expressing with the breast pump but to no avail. I was heartbroken that I could not feed her as I had done with the others but with her loosing weight rapidly in the end I was relieved that I could give her formula in the bottle and she could thrive and be happy. I believe that everything happens for a reason and in time we will know why I couldn't breastfeed her.
The day we got home we had a scare as I heard her making a funny gulping noise
in her bed and as I looked in I could see that she had turned blue and couldn't breath. I grabbed her and tried to open her mouth to see but her jaw was clenched shut, I screamed out to Chris and she began breathing again but then seconds later it happened again, when it happened a third time, I put her upside down and breathed into her nose, I was panicking by now and didn't know what to do. I called out to Heavenly Father to save my child and Chris called the ambulance. She came right seconds later and it turned out she was choking on her mucous, apparently this is fairly common as they don't suction them at birth anymore. I was traumatized from the experience and so afraid for her life. I kept thinking, it took 6 years for her to come to us, I don't want to lose her now. That night I kept her beside my bed in her bassinet and every time she moved or made a sound I jumped up to grab her. Thankfully it didn't happen again.
A few weeks later we had her blessed. Jayme came over from Adelaide to meet her, Chris' sister Helen came down from Melbourne and Simone and her family came. Chris blessed her and everyone came back to our house for lunch. It was a wonderful day to share with family and friends.
2 comments:
Your a great Mum Lisa
3520 kgs woah! She is adorable
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