Before I forget...

The eternal optimist in me had made fabulous plans to blog all the huge moments of Felix's arrival and his first few months, as and when things occurred. Obviously, things did not quite go according to plan and all I've managed to do was post a piccie of Felix and Jason (see below).

Well, I have finally found the chance today to blog a bit. (Read: Felix is sleeping and I'm not passed out next to him.)

Christmas Day
I woke up at 8 on Christmas morning to pee for the16 millionth time during my pregnancy. Being the grumpy pregnant late night owl, I quickly plonked myself back in the bed when I was done, only to shoot straight back up again cause I felt the "Bloody Show". No, not a drama nickname I've given to what I experienced but the actual medical term for it.

I told Jason the baby was coming, and he shot straight up as well and started saying "Let's go to the hospital" over and over again. I wasn't convinced at first but when there seemed to be a little more blood, I caved.

We checked in at 9-ish at the Hospital and were checked out at 11-ish because I was 0 (not even an-ish) dilated. As we were sent off, my doctor happily said "See you in 2 days!".

So there was nothing for us to do, but go home and wait.

Christmas Night
I can't remember what happened that afternoon, I guess we were just too anxious, but late afternoon, I decided a movie marathon would be best to pass time. So that's what we did, we watched "Love Actually", "Home Alone 2", "Die Hard" and "Batman Begins". Jason likes to say the movie choices got steadily more violent as the pain increased. I think it was somewhere between "Home Alone 2" and "Die Hard" that my contractions started and we started timing the length and gaps between. Only way to describe the contractions - worse period pain ever. Jason was so sweet and gave me back rubs and made sure my hot water bottle was there to ease the aches.

Boxing Day
At 230 in the morning, we realized that the contractions were only a few minutes apart, and decided to check in again at the Hospital. 230 to 930 was a blur of pain, falling in and out of sleep. I got a shot of painkiller/anesthesia (I didn't care what it was, so long as it reduced my misery before my scheduled epidural.) The epidural shot was awful. It took 4 tries to find the right spot, and the first 3 tries hurt pretty bad. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people for whom an epidural doesn't work 100% :S. I could still feel most of the pain of the contractions.

[Movie myth busted - in the movies when the doctor checks how many cm dilated the poor gal in labour is, the female actress never ever shows how painful/uncomfortable the check actually is. It is, oh it is.]

At  2 in the afternoon, I was fully dilated and the pushing process started. Here, I must say that I surprised myself (and Jason) by not swearing at all, but I think I was pretty noisy. I kept apologizing after screaming/moaning though. The pushing process is really not as simple as people yelling "Push!" at regular intervals and you pushing. There were so many instructions being yelled at me simultaneously by the midwives "Push!", "Think of Baby", "Look at your tummy!", "Spine down", "Pull the bars on the bed!". It was havoc. Once I was able to process all the things I had to do when pushing, the midwife tried to encourage me by saying that I was doing a great job and that a few pushes more I'd be done. In all that havoc, the eternal optimist in me was reawakened and I literally told myself, "3 pushes and I'll see baby!". I was wrong.

After half an hour of pushing, my doctor told me that we weren't progressing as well as I should and so he'd be using a vacuum to assist the delivery, Felix arrived not long after that. He was a screamer. The midwives immediately placed him on my chest, and he stopped screaming or crying, and just looked at me with his massive eyes, and he had me, I was in love. His face as he stared at me is burned in my memory.

The vacuum, and I mean this so much, sucked. Though very grateful that Felix arrived safe and sound, it resulted in a burst blood vessel for me. I was in excruciating pain, and couldn't sit or lie flat.Since it wasn't visible, nobody knew why I was crying and moaning and just thought I was being a baby about the usual aches and pains from giving birth. After I begged Jason to ask the midwives to give me something to knock me out, they finally got it that I wasn't just being a baby and that I was in serious pain. The doctor was called and he discovered the burst blood vessel. He then (Hallelujah!) gave me something to stop the bleeding and to help with the pain

I was then taken to the maternity ward. We stayed for 3 nights. An extra night cause I was still in pain, and an extra extra night cause Felix had slight jaundice. A lot of it is a blur now, but I remember being so comforted by the fact that our loved ones were there to see us and how incredibly happy I felt when Felix was brought to me later. Whenever he was taken to the nursery, I would listen for the sound of the baby cots being wheeled cause I'd be hoping it was Felix for me.