My impatient wait: One last post...

So much for me coming back to write about Ivy's birth and post a picture!

I think this is going to be my last post on this blog. This blog for me was about my struggle with infertility and then my emotional pregnancy, which I never really thought would end in an actual real live baby. I have now conquered my infertility (well for now) and I have a wonderful beautiful perfect baby who makes me so happy that I sometimes feel that I am just going to burst with love for her. But before I finish, I will tell you about her birth and the time since then and of course post a few pictures.

Ivy was so tiny when she was born, but absolutely perfect in every way. I didn't really realise just how tiny she was at the time, but I look back at photos now and can't believe how small she was.

I was induced on Wednesday 7th July. We arrived at the hospital early and were settled into a birthing suite. Unfortunately the maternity ward was full to the brim, so we got the "spare" room, which didn't have all the trimmings that some of the other rooms had. I was hooked up to the monitor, which constantly read Ivy's heartbeat, my heartbeat and any contractions. I was told I would have to be hooked up to this for pretty much the whole labour as small babies have a much greater chance of going into distress through contractions. An hour or so later my obstetrician arrived and checked my cervix, which was only around 1cm dilated (I had been 2cm two days before so not sure how I went backwards!). He then tried to break my waters but apparently they were like titanium (his words). So nothing happened. Half an hour later after walking around the room, my waters suddenly gave way with a pretty impressive gush. For some reason I got the hysterical giggles and just stood there laughing while standing in a pool of fluid.

It must have been about 30 minutes later that I got hooked up to the oxytocin drip, which I absolutely hated by the end of the day. My labour was not what I had hoped for as I was connected to a drip for the entire proceedings, as well as the monitor. Tubes and machines everywhere. It meant that I was pretty much confined to the bed, apart from short bouts where they unhooked me from the monitor and I got to walk around the room wheeling the drip thingy with me.

I completely lost track of time and things are now quite hazy as to when they happened and in what order (another reason why I really should have come back and written this while it was fresh in my mind). I do know that my labour was well established with regular and quite painful contractions by 11:00am. Mid afternoon my obstetrician stopped by and checked up on me and I was very disappointed to find I was only 2cm dilated after all those contractions every 2-3 minutes. I had some pethidine at some stage in the afternoon which took the edge off but it still bloody hurt a lot.

The midwife checked my cervix at around 7pm and I was only 4cm dilated. I couldn't believe it after 8 hours of painful contractions. I had another shot of pethidine. Suddenly contractions started getting a whole lot more painful (which I hadn't really thought was possible, they were already pretty severe). Now I asked for a epidural as I thought I couldn't cope with it any longer and I still had 6cm to dilate. The midwife kept saying "we'll talk about it in a minute" and eventually I realised that it must have been too late to have one. The last hour I really thought I was going to DIE. I was out of my mind with the pain and the contractions seemed to come one on top of another with no chance to recover in between. Then I felt ready to push. I think the midwife thought I still had a way to go but I was ready and when she checked, Ivy's head was there ready to come out. Suddenly she was racing around getting ready and my obstetrician came in the door about 5 minutes before she was born.

The last bit really stung, I can't imagine how painful it would be if Ivy's head had been bigger than it was. Her head came out and they told me to stop pushing (apparently she was tangled in the cord). But my body took over from my mind and the urge to push was just so great that out she came. They weren't ready and they missed catching her, but she landed safely on the bed. Then up onto my chest and all I could see where these beautiful big dark eyes and tiny little body. Her hands and feet were purple (apparently normal) and she had a bit of a conehead. But she was so beautiful. She spent the next three hours on my chest. My sister came in (she couldn't wait til the morning!) and helped me try to get Ivy to breastfeed. Not a huge amount of success there, but she did suckle for a short time.

Then Michael got to dress her while I had a shower and we moved into another room. Ivy's temperature had dropped a bit low so once we were in the new room she was placed back onto my chest for more skin-to-skin, which is the best way to warm up a cold bub. Michael immediately feel asleep on a mattress on the floor (they were so full that we had to be placed in a tiny room that just had a single instead of double bed). Ivy and I lay awake watching each other until 5am when she finally went to sleep. It was a magical night.

The next morning the paediatrician came in and decided that Ivy needed to be in the Special Care Nursery due to her very small size. The next week had lots of ups and downs as Ivy struggled to get her footing in the outside world. She had a nasal gastric tube fitted and was tube fed formula directly into her tummy through the tube every four hours. At the same time I was attempting to breastfeed her and expressing colostrum/milk. She was so tiny and just had no energy, so would fall asleep at the breast. Her mouth was so tiny that she just couldn't latch properly and it was take several attempt before she would latch well enough to have a go. Sometime she wouldn't attach at all. After 4 or 5 days she developed severe enough jaundice to warrant a day and a half under the lights. That was really horrid as she could only come out every four hours for a few minutes at a time.

After six days in the special care nursery, Ivy's tube was removed and we started bottle feeding her (as well as still trying to breastfeed). This was a bit of a compromise as she wasn't allowed home unless we continued to supplement the BF,and keep the nasal-gastric tube in at home wasn't an option. The following day we were allowed home.

I continued trying to persevere with breastfeeding, but my milk supply never came in. Every three hours I would attempt a breastfeed, then bottlefeed her any expressed breastmilk I had managed to get, then give her a bottle of formula. Then I would pump to try and get some more milk for the next feed. This process would take around 1.5hours, leaving me only 1.5hours in between feed to sleep (at night) or eat or shower of whatever. Attaching to the breast got harder and harder as Ivy realised the bottle was much easier. I rarely was able to express more than 20-30mls, a minuscule amount. It was a heartbreaking decision to make to give up my dream of breastfeeding. I am crying now as I re-live those hard weeks. When Ivy was three weeks old I gave up and Ivy became fully formula fed.

Ivy is now 3 months and 9 days old. The first 6 weeks she woke around every 2-3 hours to feed through the night, then her night feeding times gradually stretched out and for the last couple of weeks we've had more than a handful of nights where she has slept through the night. I give her a "dreamfeed" before I head to bed at night (give her a bottle without really waking her - no lights on, no nappy change, no noise) and she often sleeps though until 6:30-7:30am the next morning. I am a very lucky mummy.

She is a happy smiley baby and has just started gorgeous giggling. She rarely cries and it's only if she's hungry (if I'm not quick enough to get her bottle ready) or if she's tired. She plays quite happily with her toys in her bouncer, on the floor on a rug or in her little play gym. She loves to "chat" and loves smiling at everyone, complete strangers included. She loves bathtime and has graduated out of the baby bath this week as she's discovered how to splash! Last time she was weighed 17 days ago she was just about to hit 5kg so has more than doubled her birthweight. She started life below the 3rd percentile for weight, length and head circumference and is now sitting in the 25th percentile for all three.

I feel so so blessed to have her, I just can't imagine life without her now. DH is a wonderful daddy to her and our relationship is as strong and wonderful as ever. I'm looking forward to a wonderful bright future...

I promised pictures, but for some reason they won't upload. I'll try again tomorrow.