Welcome to the world

It has taken me awhile to post this as we have been a little busy. But we are very pleased to announce that Angus Joshua arrived into the world nearly 3 weeks ago weighing a healthy (but unexpectedly small) 2930 gms (6pds/70z).
Here is the story of that day. It was such a wonderful experience for me (compared to Charlotte's arrival) so I wanted to write it all down.
We arrived for our scheduled c/s nice and early. I hadn't slept much the night before which I had expected and I got quite emotional leaving the house. I gave a sleeping Charlotte a big kiss goodbye and did start to feel a bit anxious then. It was only on the way to the hospital that James and I finally decided on the name! (just about the point we passed our local bunnings, in case you were curious).

We went to our room at the hospital and they came and prepped me. This took ages as a new midwife was being trained but it did make the time go faster. Before we knew it they were taking us down to theatre. We met with the anaesthetist and I talked through my concerns after the last spinal I had. Coincidentally, he was the anaesthetist who did my first IVF procedure. I found that really ironic that he was there for our first step towards a family and also our last.

Then we all walked (waddled) into the theatre and I was up on the table. He put the cannula in then I had to lean over for the epidural. It hurt a little bit but before long I could feel the warm flush as it started to work. Sile then walked in and started cracking jokes which was really reassuring. Straight away I started to feel sick and I felt like I couldn't breathe. The anaesthetist was saying that everything looked fine but then the "machine that went ping" suddenly went ping. My BP had dropped quite low but he acted quickly and brought it back up. Then I could feel all the pushing and actually asked if that was alright, but I think by that point they had already started. Next thing they had dropped the drape and lifted my head and I saw my son being lifted from me. I was just amazed. He started to cry straight away. They took him straight away to be checked and James went to cut the cord. It wasn't long before they came and put him on my chest. It was so wonderful, we had a close cuddle and he felt so good to be there. I was just about crying. His skin felt so soft and warm and it was such a wonderful moment. After a while (I really am not sure of the time) they took him off me and wrapped him up warm and gave him to James. I looked over and James was having a bit of a cry.
I still felt a bit sick but they were really good and responsive to that. I was aware of everything whereas with Charlotte I had no idea what was going on. They were having a discussion about how high the spinal should go when I realised that my fingers shouldn't have pins and needles in them. They all laughed when I told them that and Sile kept saying how sensitive I was. (many many times actually). Before long they sent James to recovery with Angus and cleaned me up. I was then wheeled into recovery.

There they checked his blood sugars (because of the GD) and gave him to me for a feed. He latched on straight away which was great. We were only in recovery for about 45 mins (again so different to Charlotte which was about 4 hours). We did hear another lady in the bed next to us being brought back and commenting that this was her 7th baby - all boys!! James and I just looked at each other. Two will have to do for me.

I was still feeling a bit sick and unfortunately once we were back on the ward I started vomiting, but we had lots of skin to skin time and lots of cuddles. Angus had to have his blood sugars checked regularly and before a feed. Once it was too low and they had to give him some formula. But then he had 3 tests in a row over the limit and then they said he was ok and didn't need checking anymore. He had lots of feeds that day although I did have to be "milked" once by the midwifes. Not the most enjoyable experience one can have but it was all for a good cause.

I was pretty exhausted for the rest of the day though and was still vomiting for several hours. We actually had some family want to come and visit and we had to tell them no. I was not a pretty picture! Looking at the pictures I looked so pale. This actually became a bit of a joke as the nurses frequently said I looked pale, then would have a discussion with each other about how pale I was compared to the last time.

The next day I was up and moving around. I had alot of pain in those first few days, and it wasn't until Sile changed my pain meds to voltaren that I got any relief. I was also feeling very sick all of the time. Last time I felt great within a few days but this time it took ages for that sick feeling to go away. And my appetite didn't return until Angus was about 10 days old. I actually found that very frustrating, especially being in hospital with limited food options. The food there is actually quite good but everything seemed unappealing to me. The baby blues kicked in the morning of day 4, just as Sile walked in. My milk had also come in so I was very sore from that as well as the pain from the c/s. We talked about staying in another day as I just didn't feel ready to come home but once the voltaren started to work we changed our mind.

Cutting the cord


Our first family picture together

A precious angel