Cooper's Birth Story

I was woken at 10.30pm by my waters breaking... nothing like what you read about, 'a light trickle that you may mistake for urine', are you kidding me? This was like someone had emptied a bucket of water into my lap.

I headed for the bathroom to clean up and Adam stripped the bed and threw everything into the wash - if nothing else we are at least practical. Contractions started pretty much immediately and Adam situated himself in front of his computer plugging in the length of the contractions and the frequency. I called Mesh and she gave me the only piece of advice that has proven to be unhelpful so far, "nothing will happen for ages, go back to bed and try and get some sleep".

We chatted for a bit and despite Mum saying in advance that she did not want to know any details until we had a healthy baby in our arms - we called her too. At this point contractions were about 15-45 seconds long and about four minutes apart. So much for going back to bed. At 11.30pm it was becoming too much to bear - I had been in labour for an hour and the pain was already pretty intense. Seriously how do people do this for hours on end? I figured I must be getting soft in my old age.

We took the next 30 minutes to get dressed and grab our go bags, throw the laundry in the dryer and dog proof the house. Left for the hospital about midnight and arrived there around 12.15am. Walking in from the car I was offered a wheel chair - I don't think so, the only thing keeping me going was feeling like I was in control of at least something.

We registered again - despite registering in advance months ago. Waiting in triage the nurses were somewhat lacksadasical, 'no hurry, you will have hours before anything much starts happening'... are you kidding me lady? Can't you see things are happening already? Then another 'are you kidding me' moment. "We need to check to see if your waters have broken", I am sitting in a pool of water, doesn't that tell you more than that ridiculous little q-tip will be able to tell you?

A second nurse came in, all relaxed and smiley, 'I will just check to see if you have started dilating yet'. 'Wow - 9.5cm, we need to get you into a birthing room', and things went from somewhat blase to total panic stations, I would not have been surprised if red lights had started flashing in the corridors accompanied by a 'wah, wah, wah' sound. (They didn't).

The room was not ready, there was no doctor available and there were twins being delivered down the hallway but Cooper was not prepared to wait. 45 minutes after walking into Meriter I was holding our son in my arms.

Jan 17th 2012, 1.02am
8lbs 12oz (3969gms)
21 inches (53.34cm)

Struggled to get hold of Mum and Dad, and Mesh, who had all decided there wouldn't be any updates for hours. Surprise!

A few stitches later and we were moved into a post natal suite where we would spend a couple of days getting to know our little guy before heading out and introducing him to the world. One of the most surreal aspects of the delivery was how polite I was to the nurses - I vividly remember my requests between contractions "Please, may I have some water?" and "Thank you very much."  I am not usually that polite at the best of times.