Elspeth Abigail Irving
Born 7.37am 15th July 2009
The Canberra Hospital

My apologies for not blogging earlier! I'm sure you'll understand I've been a tad busy. Thanks to Andrew for leaving the comment on my last post :)

The story of the birth:
I began having contractions on Saturday morning (the 11th), seeming fairly regular, and I thought that was it... but they faded, and stopped. Then started again on Sunday morning. Then slowed... then sped up... the long and short of it is, I had a rather uncomfortable few days! I called Delivery Suite at the hospital a couple of times and they told me to stay home, stay home as long as I felt comfortable, so I did... until mid-Tuesday, when the contractions seemed closer together, longer lasting, and more consistent. I was examined and determined to be 3cm dilated - in other words, in active labour. I could have told 'em that!

I won't go into huge detail, largely because I'm a bit hazy about it all myself! But little Elspeth wouldn't stay facing the right way. She was what they call "face to pubes", which is exactly what it sounds like - she was facing up instead of down. They tried to turn her, but she just kept turning back. I have a stubborn child. So, instead of the nice calm quiet birth I'd planned, I was carted to theatre, given an epidural, and had the poor child yanked out with forceps! (But only after attempts to vacuum her out failed.)

We came home from hospital on Friday afternoon, and all things considered I think we're doing rather well. Elspeth is an awesome feeder, she's almost back up to her birth weight already, and she also sleeps pretty well most of the time - sometimes for up to four hours at a time! She was rather jaundiced, but that's passing now - a midwife called around this morning to do a final check on her, and gave the all-clear that no more tests should be necessary and we're officially "discharged" from the hospital midwifery service. She was also pretty bruised and scratched from the suction thing and the forceps, but that's also healing up nicely and all you can really see now is a small circular mark on her head and one black eye.

We have created a beautiful daughter; Aidan and I are both very happy and very much in love with her!