Many years ago, while I was still a wee youngun’, I remember seeing a galpal’s mom breastfeeding her little brother and somehow, I ‘saw’ a little pipe like thing attached to her mom’s tummy. Now, this was an image I saw as a little girl of perhaps 5 or 6 years old. I never knew then that that was breastfeeding and no one told me. So the image of having a pipe sticking out of me to feed babies have always intrigued me coz I used to think, when will my pipe come out.

As I grew up, many friends got married, had kids and when I went to visit them, seeing them breastfeed was no biggie. They seemed normal and unashamed to pop one out and feed the open mouth. And it was then as well, that I thought, ‘O….that looks pretty easy enough,’ and thought that I could handle it with ease when the time came. But by then, I knew that I wasn’t ever going to grow any pipes anywhere on my body.

Today, I have a baby of my own AND I’m breastfeeding 99.9% of the time with the occasional formula feed when I have to rest a boob or if I’m out and about, and not home to feed Ella. And it is now that I realise that freastfeeding is no easy feat. I used to think it was a mere get baby, put baby to boob and voila, baby would feed. Needless to say I was dead wrong!

I never in my wildest imagination thought that there would be certain techniques and methods used to get the nipple into the baby’s mouth or how you need to tilt the head back a little so that baby doesn’t choke, or how you need to align baby for a chest-to-chest position and well, the list goes on! Sad to say, I’ve been having issues every now and then with Ella latching on. Some days we’re good, other days she just doesn’t latch on nicely that I pretty much get chomped on and Ella literally draws blood – jokes asides. Seriously.

But I think we’re both getting the hang of it and although sometimes I know she isn’t latched on properly, and I feel a little pain, I’m willing to risk. As long as I can take the pain and am not left nipple-less, I’m good. It may not be 100% right but as long as I know she’s getting her fill, I think we’ll be ok.

As at today @ 2w4d, she is 3.3kgs, measuring 51.5cm with a head circumference of 34.5cm. So she’s growing well.

Arianna is 12 days today. Funny how alsmot 2 weeks have passed. This is the story of her birth.

It was around midnight, about 1am on 11 Aug 2007 that I felt a slight ‘leak’ and was a little shocked. I knew at the back of my mind that my water had broke but somehow, I refused to believe it. I went to bed immediately and called Ted to tell him. He was on his night shift.

The whole the next day, nothing happenned at all. No contractions, no more leaking…..so I just chilled out at home and planned to go out for our pre-anniversary dinner since Ted would be working on Sunday night.

About 5.30pm, I felt ‘wet’ again and slapped on a pad, just in case and  called the hospital to tell them and get more info. They told me to call them back at 7pm. At 7pm, the pad wasn’t that wet and I was told to wait and call back to update them at 9pm. With all that monitoring, our romantic dinner was shoved. Sure enough, the pad was more wet and slightly tinged. We were told to come in.

We arrived at The SAN (Sydney Adventist Hospital) at 10pm and was whisked away to the a monitoring room. The fetal monitor and gadget to monitor contractions was strapped on. Since nothing much was happening, Ted left for home to get a good rest and wait for ‘the’ call. I spent the night at the hospital with no or very slight contractions happening. I managed to get some sleep, which was good.

By 6am, I was moved to the delivery suite and and the midwife on call had my hot spa running to help with the contractions. Ted came in about 9am, and still nothing was happening. By 1`30pm, I was told that since the water had broke and no contractions were happening, I had to be given syntocin on drip to get thing along. And so after lunch, I was hooked up. Within 1 hour, the ‘fun’ had began….

By 2.30pm, I began the contractions at 2cm dilation after getting my first vaginal examination (VE) and it was more getting regular. Pain management wise, I still had things under control with breathing and Ted massaging my back. I also used the swiss/gym ball. Somewhere along the way, as the contraction were getting harder as they had upped the syntocin from (I think) 70 to 90 to 120 and finally to 240, I had also jumped into the bath for a hot shower which did me a whole lot of good. Thanks to Ted….what would I have done without my rock!!

By 6.30pm, the contractions were getting harder and more painful….I got VE done and was told that I was up to 5cm. The hot wheat packs, massaging and swiss ball wasn’t helping much so I asked for the gas and was soon hooked up. I am still not sure if it was any help as I seemed to have been inhaling it at all the wrong times! Thankfully it didn’t get me sick at any point, instead I felt very stoned and Ted is still laughing about it!

By 8pm, I had dilated to 8cm after another VE, I began to have the urged to push plus I was grunting like mad by then. I had Ted walking in and out of the room getting the midwife because I was so sure it was time. But the nurse said that I had to try to not push. I told her that I was going to anyway but not with all my might, just to guide the baby down and she was fine with that. My OB came in and was updated about my condition. He told me that by 10pm, I should be able to starting pushing baby out and left.

Not even half an hour later, the urge was so bad that I had Ted out the room again, and when the midwife came in I told her that it was getting so bad that I really couldn’t hold it anymore. She quickly got me up on to the bed and rushed to get my OB. I insisted that I wanted to deliver on my knees and so I was propped up, and started pushing as my OB came in. It was about 8.30pm by then. I was in that position for awhile but it wasnm’t going very well with each urge to push. So my OB suggested that I try to birth on my side so they moved me. I was in that position for awhile but I didn’t feel confortable and without me realising, I was on my back, knees up, chin in and pushing away!

Boy, it was tough work! I’m not sure how people can say that a birth can be a ‘beautiful’ experience but to me, it was certainly one in a million kind of experience. I had a mirror placed in front of me and with urge to push, I huffed and puffed and pushed with all my might, I could see my baby’s head slowly emerging. At one point, I just couldn’t push anymore because the stretching and stinging sensation was so bad that I just couldn’t push anymore and that was when my OB said that I had to get an episiotpmy because my perinium had stretched too thin and  I couldn’t push anymore so I got the cut. Now when I think back, it was darn scary watching a baby’s head with a circumference of 33cm coming out of you – I think I could have done without seeing it really. Didn’t do me any good honestly.

With 2 more pushes, Arianna swooshed out at 9.39pm, screaming her head off as they placed her on my chest. The feeling of having her in my arms was simply beyond words. Its true what they say, the pain just disappears when you have your baby in your arms.

Sadly, the ride was not over for me. My placenta was ‘stuck’ and it took awhile for it to come out despite getting a syntocin jab. Even with the jab, I still had to push it out. It turns out that my OB suspected that there may be some of the placenta left behind which was why I was haemoraging. So after I was stitched up, I was ushered into the OT for a 10 minute procedure where the leftovers were manually removed while I was under general anesthetic, hence I didn’t need need any operation. Because I had lost a lot of blood, I was in the recovery room for almost an hour because my blood pressure and pulse was erratic. All in all, I lost almost 2 liters of blood.

It was midnight when I was returned to my room where I found Ted still holding Arianna. What a wonderful sight to me and certainly a relief for him. I had all sorts of drips hooked up to me and a blood pressure gadget permanently stuck to my arm. Thoroughtout the next day, my blood pressure was monitored because it was very low and I had a temperature as well. Thankfully, it was all ok by evening and all the drips were taken away.

I had to spend 5 days at the hospital. 4 days as part of the package and an additional day since Arianna had lost more than 10% of her birth weight and she also had a slight case of jaundice. We were back home on the 17/8/2007 after fetching my Mum from the airport.

The end.