A story by Andrew and Leonie about the birth of Morgan. A four hour labour and a four week early baby that was ready to face the world.
My husband and I chose not to find out the sex of our baby, but we were convinced it was a boy. We had chosen boy names and had lots of blue things, only a couple of pink items – just in case.
I had ordered a belly casting kit from the Ninemonths site and had planned to cast as close as possible to my due date to obtain an accurate representation of how big I actually got!
On the Queen’s birthday long weekend (and a month before I was due), Andrew suggested doing the cast. I was not happy, as I thought I would get bigger still but relented at about 4.30 pm on Sunday 13th June. I went in to look at how the cast was drying at around 9 pm and was shocked to see how my torso actually looked. I settled down to watch television and at about 10 pm felt a shift down below, sort of like a "lock and load". I got up to go into the bathroom and flooded the floor – my water had broken.
I called out to Andrew who was on the computer, to please come in to the bathroom for a minute. He did, and the look on his face was priceless. He got the cordless phone and we telephoned the hospital who told us to come in. I had not had one contraction.
On the way down the stairs we packed my hospital bag (I was going to do it the next day!) and put a couple of baby items in just in case.
As I got into the car I had my first contraction. I tried to get out of the car, but struggled with all the towels he had put on the passenger seat. I got back in and we drove to the hospital ( a 15 minute drive that we did in 9 minutes) and had a contraction in the car, and another in the carpark. The staff put me straight into the labour room as the contractions were coming very frequently.
I found the gas really unhelpful, and just tried visualisation. My obstertrician was on holidays, so they called his stand in. He arrived in a t shirt and jeans and just stood there watching – apparently all was going "to plan".
Our gorgeous baby girl was born 4 hours later. A four hour labour, and 4 weeks early, she was born with eyes open ready to face the world. She was named Morgan Alannah after we tried to remember what names were actually on our girl list. She was a good weight for a premmie – 6lb, 14 oz and apart from needing a little oxygen, was perfectly fine.
I was up and moving around quite ok less than 10 minutes later, and honestly felt like I could go back to work that week. As I had only just finished work the Friday before, I thought I could just saunter back in!
Miss Morgan is the apple of our eyes and doing fabulously well. We have been told by the nurses that any subsequent labours should be even shorter than the first one so we should be prepared early.
Andrew, Leonie and Morgan Brien