She is here!! Apologies that it has taken me almost month to write a post regarding my newly arrived offspring, but the last month has seriously felt as though I stepped on to the Gravatron (spinning ride at Dreamworld) and my head only just stopped spinning (in a good way of course!). Sophie Rose Tranter arrived on May 29th at 6:43pm via c-section. I thought I would be disappointed that I didn’t get to have her naturally, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I know a lot of women look back on their birth experience with rose-coloured glasses, but I truly feel it was the best outcome.

Leading up to my due date, I kept getting the feeling that there was something not quite right happening in the birth department. I would feel her engage and think “this is it!!”, only to feel her move back up near my rib cage. This happened a few times each day & I started to wonder what was wrong.

On the day of her birth, we had an appointment with my obstetrician. She did a scan and things appeared to be okay, but once we started talking about her decreased movements and her engaging only to move back up. Initially the OB wanted to have the baby’s movements monitored, and after some discussion we concluded that it was likely that she would need to go in and get her.

Due to my usual coffee in hand; we couldn’t deliver immediately as there’s a risk with eating and surgery or something of that nature.. so we allowed for 6 hours in order for my body to digest the liquid gold coffee and booked in Sophie’s birth. Steve and I walked out of the office a little bit shocked, I remember looking at him and saying “we are going to be parents.. tonight!!”. After we left the obstetrician’s office it all became a bit of a whirlwind. We did a dash to the shops to grab some comfy pants, I watched Steve eat some lunch, we drove home to pack, delivered the hound to my in-laws, collected my mum (she wasn’t going to miss this event, even if it were her last day on earth) and headed for the hospital.

We “checked in” and then after that people appeared and we got ready to do this thing. I have to admit that it was kind of weird saying to the receptionist “um.. hello.. I’m here to have a baby”. For those who have had c-section births, I apologise if my experience was extra awesome and that you however do not feel the same way about being cut open, but seriously.. for me.. it was fine. My biggest fear was the idea of facing the operating theatre still awake; I guess because every other surgery I have had has involved me going to sleep and then waking up dosed with high levels of pain meds. I had no reason to be afraid though; the staff are so great at what they do and it all happened without me not really being too aware of the fact that I was being cut open. What surprised me the most was how fast it all went, or more so how fast I felt that it went.

It turned out when we got to the whole “and now I am going to pull out your baby” moment, the cord was around her neck twice over. My OB handled it with complete ease and within seconds I could hear the cries of my beautiful tiny human. She came out perfect, 7 pounds exactly and measuring 45 cms. After that it became a bit of a teary, amazing, beautiful blur.

As for my love, he was amazing. He always has had this way of being the calm in any storm that we face together, but he remained super chilled throughout the entire experience. I said this the other day on Instragram, I did not think it were possible for me to love him any more than I did prior to giving birth.. but watching him become a father and how he interacts with our daughter has expanded my little heart.

The only complaint I have is that it took 12 hours for my epidural to wear off, so I had to stay in bed and request for my dear husband to fetch me my baby every time she stirred. Once I had feeling back in my legs, I was pretty chuffed with how good I felt. The next morning I showered myself and was up walking around. Of course I was a little tender, but not nearly as much as I expected to be. It’s now four weeks on and I have been painkiller free for two weeks. My biggest hurdle has been refraining from getting behind the wheel (or at least trying to).

If there’s one thing I could change from this experience, I think it would be having more faith. Throughout my pregnancy, I would say to my colleagues and friends.. “what birth plan? the plan is to have the baby!”. My friends made comment about how super chilled I was and how it was a little shocking for me (I’ll admit, I was shocked myself). Upon reflection, the days leading up to my due date I became a little stressed out about the what-if’s and I hope for my next birth I can look back on this experience and know fully that my family were completely taken care of. Knowing that the cord was around my sweet daughter’s neck, there are so many things that could have gone wrong.. but they didn’t. She is here safe and I am thankful that I have people on my team who covered us in prayer leading up to her arrival.

As for the steep learning curve that I call being a parent; I plan to write another post about all that I have learned in this short four weeks.

For any Mum’s reading, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments or experiences.

Sasha