I woke up at 2am, rolled over in bed and my waters broke. I woke Troy up and he immediately freaked out. He jumped out of bed saying “what, what!?” Mum called the hospital and they said to come in straight away. Mum drove Troy and I to the hospital. On the way I called Taryn to let her know what was going on. We got to the hospital at 3:30am where they told me to sit in the waiting room. My contractions started while we waited. Troy bought me some twisties out of the vending machine – I was worried they wouldn’t let me eat later on.

At 4:30am they took me to a room where a midwife examined me. She discovered that the baby was facing out towards my right side instead of down like he should have been, but she said that he would most like move during the day. She monitored the baby’s heart rate and my contractions for about half an hour, then they took us up to the room that I’d be staying in. Troy was starving so he walked across the road to get some Hungry Jacks for breakfast and to make a few calls. While he was gone Taryn and Mum both called me on the phone in my room. They brought breakfast around, which made me feel a lot better. Contractions were continually getting stronger but not necessarily closer together. During the morning I thought I was doing pretty well. Troy read a magazine that the lady next door lent us. He kept saying how tired he was and eventually I told him I didn’t wanna hear it! It wasn’t until about midday when the contractions got really bad. I tried walking around the room, leaning on a desk, kneeling on the bed and everything else that seemed like a good idea at the time. I used hot packs which worked really well. During contractions I got Troy to put his arms around me and push the heat pack onto my lower back while I hugged him really hard. Even though I knew it was hard for him, Troy was doing really well. He tried so hard to do anything and everything to make me comfortable. He tried to get me a drink and accidentally spilt it all over me and the bed, but that just made us laugh. At about 10am Troy started timing my contractions on a piece of paper towel. They were around 2-4 minutes apart and all over the place.

By 2pm I had had enough and told the midwife that I wanted to go to the birthing room. I had to wait while they cleared a room out. I eventually got to the room at 3:30pm. My midwife’s name was Robyn and she was awesome. She listened to and answered every stupid question I asked her. She examined me and found out I was only 4cm dilated and that the baby was still facing the wrong way. I got in the shower which did help a lot but in the back of my mind I knew that I’d have to get out eventually, which stopped me from relaxing too much. When I eventually did get out my stomach all of a sudden became hugely itchy and I went crazy scratching the heck out of it. I got massive scratch marks all across my stomach. During all of this, Troy stayed by my side helping me through every contraction. He got a little emotional a couple times and even cried a bit. It was very intense and overwhelming for him. During one of the contractions I was hugging him and I thought I heard him laugh. I said “Don’t laugh at me, it’s not funny!” and I head butted him! He was like “I wasn’t laughing, I promise!” He looked so shocked and I felt so bad. My head was pretty messed up, I didn’t know what was going on.

The contractions were getting harder and harder to bare and at 4:30pm I eventually I said I wanted drugs. I had always said that I didn’t want to use drugs, especially an epidural, but I was stupid and naïve back then! I had no idea what kind of pain I was going to be in. I just kept thinking “I don’t have to feel all of this pain, so why am I?!” Troy immediately said “No you don’t. You can do it!” He was trying so hard to be supportive and make me think about what I was saying but by that point I didn’t care what anyone said, I wanted the drugs! Robyn made sure that I had made up my mind and then immediately started organizing everything. We had to wait for the doctor to finish with someone else before he could come to me so Robyn suggested trying the gas while we waited. I tried it twice then gave up. It was just annoying and didn’t seem to be working. The doctor came in at 5pm and had to go through all of the legal requirements before he could do the epidural. He told me all of the risks and exactly what was going to happen, then asked if I had any questions. I said “How soon can you do it?” First he had to put a drip in my right wrist which really hurt and resulted in a huge bruise showing up 2 days later. Then he got me to sit on the side of the bed with my back arched. I had to sit really still and let him know if I was going to have a contraction so that he could stop what he was doing. He put a few local anesthetics in before doing the two big needles. The contraction immediately after he had finished was considerably less painful. I think I only felt 2 or 3 more contractions after that. I asked the doctor if it was okay for me to say that I loved him. I had never felt so amazing in all my life. The relief from the pain was so amazing I could have kissed anyone in the room! After about half an hour we realized that the epidural had only numbed the left side of my body, which meant that I could still feel the contractions in my right side. They were no where near as painful as before so I could hack it but we got another doctor to come back and he pulled the needle down a little bit so that it could get centered in my back.

Another half an hour later and I was numb all over. The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. Because I was so calm and happy we were all able to have a real conversation, which was nice. We asked Robyn all about where she had worked and stuff like that. We found out that her brother married a Mormon and she told us how “they would have those Americans over for dinner and make them eat things like vegemite and musk lollies”. We even managed to get a little sleep while we waited for things to move along. Troy was getting hungry again so he went out to get some dinner and call some more people while I tried to sleep. Because of the epidural they had to keep monitors on my stomach to watch the baby’s heart rate and my contractions. I couldn’t feel the contractions anymore so I had to ask Robyn when I was having them. They began to slow down considerably, so they had to give me a shot to make them speed up.

Robyn’s shift ended at 10:30pm so we had to say goodbye. Before she left Robyn examined me again and I was still only 4cm dilated and the baby was still facing the wrong way. I was really sad to see her go but then we got another amazing midwife. Everyone there was really helpful and kind, we were very blessed that way. Because he was getting lower and lower into my pelvis, it became too hard to monitor his heart rate, so they had to prick this little pin into the baby’s head which was attached to a wire that came out of me and connected to a machine. They also had to take a sample of blood from his head which made me sad but they said he could hardly feel it.

We continued to wait until a little before midnight when they checked me again and I was 8cm dilated. The doctor came in, put my legs in stirrups, examined me and told me that the baby’s heart rate had started to go down which meant that we had to get him out soon. He had moved into the right position which was a huge blessing. She told me that they would have to use forceps which really scared me. She assured me that everything would be okay and in less than minutes I was pushing. I couldn’t feel anything so it didn’t feel like I was pushing at all. His little feet were right at the top of my ribs, practically crushing them, which made me feel like I was going to die! They kept telling me to push but I could hardly breathe which made it really difficult. I got troy to dig his hands into my ribs and push the baby’s feet down, which worked pretty well. After the 3rd contraction with pushing, the head came out. This relieved a lot of pressure from off of my ribs which meant I could breathe again! I didn’t know this until later but blood spurted all over the midwife and Troy nearly fainted. Another midwife was pushing a chair under his legs so that he could sit down. When the head came out I heard a crack and asked the midwife what it was but she dismissed it like it was nothing. I’m guessing it was just the noise from the forceps. The midwife said that we’d push the body out in the next contraction but while we were waiting he slipped right on out of there! He was born at exactly 12:24am on Friday the 4th of August 2006. It was then that they realized that the umbilical cord was around his neck which was what was making his heart rate go down. He didn’t cry a lot at first but he made little noises, which made me feel better. They didn’t give him straight to me which made me a little sad but I was so wasted that I didn’t really care what was happening. I think they had to check him to make sure he was okay because of the cord being around his neck. While they were cleaning him up and Troy was cutting the umbilical cord, the placenta came out. I never felt more relieved in all my life! The doctor brought the baby to me and I said hello to my beautiful son, Xander Jackson. Because he had been in the wrong position for so long he had a big bump on the back of his head and there were marks on the sides from the forceps. While the doctor was putting my stitches in Xander did a big, black, sticky poo all over me and the bed. When she was done they cleaned up the room and let our little family have some time on our own. Xander was the most gorgeous baby I had ever seen and Troy and I had never been happier in all our lives.