Trial by Fire

this is the story of my first solo doula-ing effort, it's what i wrote to a friend about it but edited for the privacy of the family. there are photos but i might take a while to get them, the photographer has a lot on her plate!

i left here at 10 pm, got there and mumma was having strong but irregular contractions. way too early for hospy. then honorary grandma arrives and the next door neighbour drops by telling us to get an ambulance ......
uh, NO.

i sent mumma to bed for rest and after 20 minutes she was having 5min contractions , much better!!! some water was leaking as well 
so off to hospital. my car wouldnt start and i left my bag in my car in my panic to catch a ride with honorary grandma who was about to drive off with mumma so i didnt have my spare clothes or deodorant or food :)

at hospy they didnt give us a room, didnt believe mumma was in labour, put her on a bed with continuous monitoring, she was uncomfortable and i kept asking if she could get up and the midwives were really not happy with me, i got "the look" so many times
then mumma's blood pressure is high and wont come down with meds so we at least get a room so she can have an epidural to get bp down, they give her syntocinon/pitocin to get the labour better established and she sleeps while she is pain free. The cranky midwives come to say goodbye to me when they go off shift :)

so mumma sleeps and i wait and after hours and hours mumma is only 3cm dilated and we have both about given up, i am pretty sure she will need a c-section but keep waiting.
Mumma has been traumatised by the epidural and is exhausted then they want to put one of those medieval screw things in bubs head (to better monitor baby's heart rate) and mumma looks at me like "do something" and i say to the midwife "look if you examine her and she isnt progressing maybe we can avoid the screw and just take her to theatre" so they agree to that but on examination she has got to full dilation in the last hour  :). i can barely believe it, she is ready to have this baby!
she doesnt want to push but baby needs to be born soon so we tell her to sleep another 20 mins which she does and then 15mins pushing and baby was there. I held her leg up because she couldnt feel it so i was RIGHT there next to baby as she arrived. The dad was SO cute. he never wanted to be there for blood etc but he was hiding behind the curtain and watching and i said if he can watch from the curtain he can be with her so he came out and he was right there when bub came!!! a few minutes after the birth he gave me the HUGEST bear hug i'll never forget!!!

i cant remember bubs (unfamiliar sri lankan ) name,  she was 2.9 kg and perfect, latched beautifully to the breast.

so she was born at 1.40pm then i waited for liam to get the train to pick me up and we got a lift back to the car and we roll started it he drove me nearly home but he had to do something so i dropped him off but the car wouldnt start again so i had to wait for road service to come and i told the guy my story and he put a new battery in and i came home and showered and went to bed at 8pm, 37 hours after i had got up the day before!