Meeting Nelly

She is here.

The love of our lives has burst into the world, stolen our hearts and captivated us with every move she has made so far.

Nelly was born on Wednesday 20 March 2013 at 12:55pm weighing in the lightweight division at 6lb 15oz and standing at 49cm tall.

She has incredible gangly legs, long fingers that belong to a pianist, big feet that will probably become familiar with basketball sneakers in good time and long sparse eyelashes that she bats at her father and makes him melt on the inside.

Speaking of her father, she is his spitting image.
I look at the two of them snuggled up together and my heart soars.
It's like he has his little twin and can carry her around in his pocket. 

When I reached 7 days past my due date I was sent to Monash hospital for some routine fetal monitoring which showed that she was as happy as a clam but that I didn't have much fluid left for her to swim in and I was told that if she didn't come the next day that I would have to be induced.

I didn't think that I would make it to the induction as I lost my mucus plug whilst at the hospital and the contractions were getting closer together on Tuesday.

This photo is from 41 weeks, the day before I had Nelly. 

I rang my OB on Tuesday and told him that I had some bleeding and my contractions were closer together and he advised that if I didn't give birth naturally that night as he predicted then he would see me at 7:30am the next day for induction. 

Knowing that we had an end date in near made me so excited.

Cat and I spent the Tuesday getting things ready, shopping for The Husbands birthday present and eating doughnuts whilst timing my contractions, before giving up when we were told by a midwife at Cabrini that they were not strong enough to time as I was still talking and walking through them, despite them being relatively close together. 

The Husband cooked us a nice healthy dinner so that we would have peak energy for the night or day ahead of us and I plodded off to bed around 10:30, able to sleep through the contractions until they woke me up around 4am and from there I dozed in and out before being unable to sleep anymore and decided to start timing them as I was having to talk myself through them as they got stronger and stronger. 

Our alarms went off at 6am and it was time to get ready to go to the hospital, be induced and meet our daughter.

I had a nice long shower, made some porridge and generally wafted around waiting for 7am to arrive but before 7am showed, Cat was knocking on the front door and I was stealing hash browns from her.

We drove to the hospital and I realised that I still didn't feel any nerves or terror, as everyone had told me to expect, just excitement and anticipation.

We arrived at Cabrini and were taken straight to the delivery suite and upon walking through the reception area we heard screams that can only be described as something I would usually associate with cruel and unusual punishment. 

I made a comment about the screams and the midwife remarked that it probably wasn't the best idea to take a first time mother to be through at that exact time as the mother in the suite was minutes from giving birth. 

I thought that these screams were going to be coming from my mouth in the hours to come, but that's not how it panned out. 

I was given an internal at 8am after we had sat around for half an hour and was told that I was only 1cm dilated and to expect to give birth around 6pm that night and that my OB would be in shortly to induce me. 

We were ready for a long day ahead of us, we had muesli bars, red frogs, poweraid and apple juice - my usual power foods.

When the OB came in he got straight to work and produced a long metal rod with scissors on the end and broke my waters (not a pleasant experience) and remarked "First haircut" and put a cluster of long black hair on the back of my hand and flounced out.

I couldn't believe that they had cut her hair, she was right there, she was real and this was really going to happen. 

After my waters were broken I was pumped with a hormone to bring on the contractions and that's when I discovered that the contractions I had talked my way through that morning were nothing. 

These bad boys took my breath away and I called for the oxygen which did nothing until the midwife turned it up and then it made me woozy enough to not want any more. 

I had no birth plan but knew that I wanted to try and go as natural as possible, if women have done this since the beginning of time without pain relief, surely I could too?

No. I couldn't. 

As the midwife said to me "There are no prizes for putting yourself through unnecessary pain" and I called for the epidural at 10:00am after two hours of contractions, thinking I had another 8 hours of this ahead of me. 

The Husband and Cat were so supportive, they knew I wanted to go pain relief free but it just wasn't going to happen, I couldn't handle it and they could see that. 

I used The Husband as a support beam to lean on and continued to suck on the oxygen as the contractions came whilst I was getting the epidural which hurt but I knew that sweet, sweet relief was on it's way. 

I was given the lowest strength of the epidural which meant that I wasn't numb anywhere, but all of the pain was taken away and I could still feel the pressure of my contractions and I relaxed instantly

Straight after my epidural was administered, the midwife realised she hadn't given me an internal since 8am and after the exam she was very quick to remark "Oh. You are 10cm dilated and the head is there!!". 

No wonder the contractions hurt so much, 9cm in 2 hours was a good effort if you ask me. 

I don't know if I would have asked for the epidural had I have known that I was already 10cm and that The Baby had moved lower and was ready for action so maybe it worked out for the better that we didn't know until it was too late.

My OB was called and it was time to start pushing, which was an incredibly odd sensation as I could not feel where exactly I was pushing, I just had to luck it out and hope that I was pushing in the right place. 

I had Cat at the business end and I was using her and the midwifes hips as stirrups as the stirrups were not high enough for me, and The Husband was by my side the entire time, both giving me all the encouragements and love in the world that I needed to hear.

The Husband got out of having his hand ripped to shreds as I had to hold under my thighs whilst pushing.

When the OB breezed in and took a look he seemed to just sit back and hang out and forbid me from going to sleep.

That's right, I fell asleep during pushing through the contractions. I was so relaxed, I had zero pain and there was no screaming or groaning to be heard. 

After awhile I was told that my blood pressure was dropping, and they couldn't tell if the baby was being affected by this and it was time to use the forceps as my pushing was not strong enough.

All I needed to hear was 'forceps' to give me the extra strength that I needed and was told to reach down and touch her head, with that, I pushed her out with no need for forceps but I did tear naturally and had two stitches. 

I could feel her coming out and cant even find any words to describe what that felt like. 

When I saw her pulled into the air, looking around and gasping, my emotions gave way and I was a blubbery mess. It was time for The Husband to cut her cord and her to be wiped off and placed on my chest. 

I loved her instantly but it still hadn't hit me that she was mine. She had lived inside of me for so long, and now here she was, chillin' on the outside, the spitting image of The Husband.

I would seriously rate the pain of giving birth with an epidural as a 1/10. It was awesome and I am a drug convert now. 

Just kidding.

Kind of.

We referred to her as Nelson before we knew her gender and that turned into Nelly but never did we think that we would actually be using it in her official name.

She is such a good baby. I just cannot believe that we created her and she is ours.

There is too much love and I don't want to gush on about it forever!