The Day my World Changed: Birth Story (Part One)

The day my world changed, I felt many things.

I felt excitement. I felt pain. I felt bothered. I felt tenderness. I felt raw, down to the core, passion. And I felt like I was about to do the biggest poo of my life. That was the day that my beautiful baby boy was born.

Baby C arrived in this world at 9:00pm, on the 24^th of February, 2014. He was perfect. Ten tiny fingers. Ten angelic toes. And a very familiar face—a little clone of my precious Mr C. Three hours after my baby boy was born, the clock struck midnight and I turned 31 years old.

I had been anxious for my birthday to come and go. Usually, I count down the days until my birthday, and when it finally comes, I cherish every moment. But this year was different. I didn’t want my precious little one to have to share a birthday with anyone. Even if it did mean that I would be getting the most awesome birthday present ever, should baby C choose the 25^th of February to be born.

My due date was projected to be the 3^rd of March. Close. Too close, if you ask me. So when the 24^th of February rolled around, one day until my birthday, I felt the anxiety grow. All I needed to do was keep my legs closed tight for two more days. A very doable feat, I imagined.

I woke on the morning of the 24^th with constipation pains and a hungry belly. Now, when I say I woke up in the morning, what I really mean is that I woke up at 4am and endured another bout of pregnancy insomnia. I grabbed a choc chip muesli bar— 4am food—and chomped away at it until all that was left was an empty wrapper crumpled on the arm of the couch.

I sat and watched the morning show on TV and tenderly rubbed the pains in my belly away, wondering if this might be the sort of thing that I might feel at the beginning of labour. And there was only one thing for my curiosity: Dr Google. Dr Google said that some woman do experience constipation/food poisoning type pains as early labour indicators, but then again, Dr Google says a lot of random things. I couldn’t help but giggle at myself. Even in my last week of pregnancy, my first thought in the face of a new symptom was to consult Dr Google.

The morning show news segment displayed the date as ‘24^th February’ and I shook my head as I thought of my little baby nestled away in my belly. I knew that I was willing this little one to stay in there with all that I had, just for a couple more days, but as I looked at that date on the screen something about it seemed ominous. Ridiculous, I know. But something inside me, perhaps the constipation pains, had me thinking that today just might be the day. I shrugged it off as a silly dream. I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant. First time Mothers are notorious for delivering fashionably late babies—who was I to be the exception to that rule.

7 am arrived and I was beginning to tire. I knew that I still had half an hour of snuggle time with Mr C before he had to get up, so I popped on back to bed, rolled into his arms and fell asleep. 7:30 came way too soon. Mr C prepared for work and when he was done, he sat down beside me on the bed and gave me my usual goodbye kiss. The constipation pains were still there, so I decided that it would be a good idea to check out his movements for the day. The last thing I needed was to have a husband in a meeting across town if I truly was going into labour.

‘Do you have any meetings on today, bubs?’ I asked, careful not to give away the true reason as to why I was asking.

‘Yep,’ he replied. ‘Three, actually. At 11, 1 and 2 o’clock.’

‘Oh, cool.’ I said before wishing him luck and sending him off on his way.

Little did we know, the next time we would see each other, I would be in full blown labour.

To be continued…