My beautiful little princess has finally arrived! One afternoon, a month ago today, I was making a CD at home, a compilation of daddy-daughter songs to give to Mr Accidental as a becoming-a-dad present. The first attempt at burning the CD didn't work, and as I went to get a fresh disk, I had a sudden rushing, wet sensation and I thought I had peed myself - gross! I threw my clothes in the wash and got changed, but it kept on coming, and coming.... I rang Mr Accident with the news that my waters had finally broken , and told him that he might as well keep on heading to the gym, nothing would probably happen for hours. Thankfully he ignored me and came straight home.
The trip to the hospital was a little fraught. The hospital is on the other side of the river, and there had been two cyclones and a fair bit of flooding in our region over the previous few weeks. The bridge across the river had been underwater that very morning, and I had been strictly instructed to cross my legs and wait - I failed! Lucky the water had subsided enough for us to be able to cross the river, but there was still a lot of water on the road and Mr Accident had to drive very carefully. And on the verge. Sorry council gardeners, I'm sure the ruts in the grass will come out soon!
At the hospital I was put straight onto the fetal heart rate and contraction monitors, and even though I couldn't feel them, I was very excited to see some contractions were actually occurring! As the afternoon and evening progressed, the contractions sure got strong enough for me to feel them myself. At bed time, Mr Accident had curled up onto the teeny tiny couch in the delivery room and was sleeping. the contractions were about 5 minutes apart and strong enough to completely rule out sleep for me, but I did catch some 4 minute naps in between. Each time the pain was too intense and I let out a moan, Mr Accident would pop up awake from the couch and say "are you ok?" It took a LOT of diplomacy for me to kindly tell him, after what seemed about the 500th time, that I was actually Not OK, I was Hurting and to STOP ASKING ME THAT. He changed his half asleep, mumbled mantra to "You're doing a good job". Every 5 minutes. Thanks darling.
At around 7 the next morning not much had changed, and the midwife and OB decided to induce. The next 4 hours were a blur - once the drugs kicked in the pain hit like a freight train, waves and waves of rippingly strong contractions. The midwife gave me some mild gas, and then when the time came to offer an epidural or pethidine I kind of missed my chance, and just asked for more gas. It was great when she turned it up, it worked really well, but I became so wasted that she turned it off completely. I spent the next hour begging for more drugs, I Really Wanted That Epidural NOW Please. No joy, however.
Long story short, the relief I felt when my little one was finally born is indescribable. She was tiny, and purple and white, and the seconds between her being born and that first little squeak were the longest of my life.
At this point I have to give massive credit to Mr Accident. He really was fantastic. He was totally encouraging the whole time, helped hold the gas nozzle for me when I was too tired, and miraculously thought to get a cool towel for my forehead when that was literally all I wanted and I was too exhausted and confused to ask for one. He cut the cord, saw the head crown, and didn't (visibly) flinch at the placenta. And most importantly, he fell head over heels for our bub as soon as she was born. I could not have asked for anything more. But I still haven't burnt him that CD yet!
