Angus James born 1 March 2013

Angus James was born on Friday the 1st of March, at 11.35pm weighing a very healthy 3955g.

I felt so well through my whole pregnancy and as my due date came and went this didn’t change. I spent the 11 days after my due date walking and trying out anything and everything to try and encourage our little man to make an appearance without intervention. At 41 weeks I was assessed by the OB and we negotiated a date for induction, unfortunately Baby P was not keen to make an appearance before induction day and I was induced on the 1st of March. Everyone who saw us that day told us not to expect to see our baby today.

The induction was intense and after 2 hours I was experiencing strong & intense tightenings one on top of the other and this continued for the next 10 hours. Because the tightenings were almost constant I found it really difficult to keep my breathing on track and the best relief I found was in the shower listening to surge of the sea. I had listened to it and the affirmations so much in the lead up that I found your voice Melissa so comforting. Matt spent hours holding my iphone out of the water in the shower!!

The 3 Midwives who were involved with our labour had read our birthing plan and were generally supportive, although one did mention on several occasions that I didn’t need to go through the pain and she really felt I should consider taking something. I will admit I was so tempted and weighed up the pros & cons in my head for what seemed like hours, I asked Matt what he thought about me having a pethidine injection and he said he really didn’t think it was such a good idea, at the time I thought why isn’t he letting me, can’t he see I’m finding this hard. I did have a couple of breaths of gas and air but didn’t find any relief and the final midwife recommended not using it as it would slow labour, so I quickly tossed it aside!

The next day I thanked Matt for helping me stick to the plan for a drug fee birth and he said he knew I would have regretted taking any meds after, he was right!!

Like you said I would Melissa, I knew when it was time to start breathing him down and at this point I was able to use the birth breathing which really helped, however after an hour Angus’ heart rate started to drop and the OB was called, I felt like he was stuck and I couldn’t breath him any further down. This is where Matt and I were both so glad we were prepared for whatever turn my birthing may take because after a failed ventouse Angus was delivered with forceps! He was placed straight onto my chest and it was the most wonderful moment looking at my gorgeous wee boy!!

Angus is generally, unless he is hungry, such a happy wee man and we are just over the moon and loving parenthood and all the fun it brings!

Thank you so much Melissa for everything, even though we didn’t have the intervention free birth we had hoped, we have a healthy wee boy and couldn’t be happier!

Lynsey and Matt, Yoogali (near Griffith) NSW