Welcome to the newest 'About Birth' baby – Ella, born on 24th March 2016. Congratulations to Heather and James.

As you'll recall, she was due on 15 March. We met with our obstetrician on the 16th, and decided to book in an induction on the 24th. I was really hopeful that I'd go into labour naturally, and showed some really promising signs that week. I'd had the "show" on Saturday the 19th, and had Braxton hicks contractions all that week. I went into get the gel inserted on Wednesday the 23rd, and the OB said I'd dilated 2-fingers & softened enough to not need the gel...

So I was still hopeful to go into natural labour overnight. It was not to be. I didn't feel great about the induction. I had a bit of a cry at home in the morning, and again once we got to the hospital. But after I got that out of my system, I was committed and focused on having the best birth in the circumstances we'd chosen. I was hooked up to the syntocinon by about 9am. I was in established labour by 11am. By 1pm, I'd only dilated 3cm, but within an hour was fully dilated. By 4pm, I was crowning and ready to push. I tried various positions and found that standing and leaning over was the most comfortable. I lay on my side at one point (horrible!), and tried kneeling, but standing was the least painful. Towards the end my legs got tired, so I kneeled on the bed with my arms over the raised back.

From that position, I could bear down during the contraction. Then for the final push, I was on my back. I used the TENS machine for as long as possible, but unfortunately its signals were interfering with the baby's heart monitoring. So I swapped to the gas for about an hour (probably from about 4-5pm), and then nothing for the final push phase. Once I was on my back, Ella's heart rate started to drop a bit, so my OB decided to use the Ventouse to get her out quickly. The placenta took a bit of time to come out, but by that point I no longer cared - I had our beautiful little daughter on my chest, and we were looking at each other & I was instantly in love.

She was already making sucking motions with her mouth and was wide-eyed and alert. I had a bit of a tear, so she just stayed on my chest & I focused on her to distract me from the sharp pain of the needles & sewing going on "down there". My sister, Catherine was with us for most of the labour (unfortunately, she needed to leave to catch her flight back to Sydney at 4.30pm, so missed the delivery by an hour!). She and James tag-teamed rubbing my back and saying supportive things. I had a few moments when I wondered why on earth anyone would go through that experience - what a stupid idea! But apart from that, I didn't notice a clear "transition phase". If I'd know how much I'd be hooked up to, I'm not sure I would have gone through with the induction.

I didn't realise the syntocinon would be attached for the whole time, let alone the foetal & my heart rate and contraction monitoring. But in hindsight, I don't mind how it happened. Ella did 4 large meconium poos within about 16 hours, and it would have been much worse if any of that had come out inside of me. And I still got through with minimal pain relief, which I'm really proud of. Ella has been feeding really well and is generally pretty calm (of course she has her moments like any newborn!).

James and I are doing really well. He's been really helpful and supportive, and it's lovely seeing the expression on his face as he holds Ella. I'm glad he's home for a month so we can start to develop some rhythms.

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