The Arrival

Shortly after midnight on Sunday 15 February, the silence was broken with a conversation that went vaguely like this:
Me: “Honeee…there’s something happening!”
Anthony: “What’s happening?…”
Me: “I’m leaking!”
Anthony: “Um, you’re not…is it your bladder?”
Me: “Don’t think so…”
Anthony rushed to retrieve some towels, then questioned,
“Is it a leak in the waterbed?”
Me: “There’s a lot of it and it’s only comin’ from one place!”

Two hours ago I was at a dinner party eating frozen cheesecake. In seven weeks, I was due to have a baby. And in eleven hours my baby shower was kicking off. What do they say about best laid plans?

Anthony threw my semi-packed suitcase into the car as I wedged our Egyptian bath sheets between my legs and waddled to the phone to call the labour ward - we were instructed to come without delay. Not too concerned at this point, I considered that the amniotic waterfall wasn’t my water breaking…it was another moist and most inconvenient pregnancy phenomenon. I squelched into the passenger seat which Anthony had thoughtfully waterproofed with the car sun shade and off we drove. Chuckling to myself, I couldn’t wait to relay the anticipated ‘false alarm’ diagnosis to my baby shower guests in a few hours. The smile dropped off my face quick smart as my abdomen began to pinch at five minute intervals…Yep, my contractions had started…

We pulled up to the hospital and Anthony retrieved a wheelchair for his seeping wife - nothing like your insides pouring out over a public amenity! A nervy looking nurse escorted us to a waiting bed in the labor ward, exclaiming it must be the night for it; babies were popping out left, right and centre. I felt partially glamorous (well, apart from the leaking business), somewhat enveloped in drama and quite frankly, like another slice of frozen cheesecake. Caught up in the excitement and after flinging my painstakingly collected pee sample across the room, I resigned myself to just lying still and coming to terms with the fact that we would soon be meeting our daughter.

“I haven’t prepared myself emotionally,” said Anthony kneeling bedside.
“Start,” I replied.

When offered the option of continuing a laboured birth, my firm and instant reply was “Nooo!” The fleeting twinge of guilt about getting my obstetrician out of bed was eased by my rationalisation that a caesarian delivery was part of our mutually agreed birth plan and, to this end, I’d had no mental or physical preparation for labour.

After a brief introduction to my team of medics, I was ‘prepped for surgery’. My insulin pump was removed and I was counseled on procedures. My pulsing uterus required the anesthetist, obviously accustomed to such dramatics, to dispense his blurb between my vastly increasing contractions. Anthony returned dressed in his scrubs and my best friend wrenched from an (unfinished) Valentines date made it by the skin of her teeth to join the blue-hatted congregation around me. One startling fact about childbirth is that it requires a lot of people to be in the same room with you. You’re the opposite of watertight, and vulnerable in ways you never knew existed, while thirteen plus maternity staff potter and chat as if it’s another day at the office! As a diversion I wonder if Madonna insisted her medics sign a confidentiality agreement. Then I realise, what could they tell us that we didn’t already know?

Showtime! As an integral part of my initial birth plan to ease distress on myself and bubs, I’d researched the c-section as much as the internet and pre-birthing videos would reveal. I’d also grilled friends who’d ‘gone under the knife’, with hope of becoming more au fait with what to expect. Surprisingly, the operation did progress as anticipated and became the first stage of my positive birth experience. I know you’re just dying to ask What does having a caesarian actually feel like? Close your eyes and imagine the sensation of someone eating steak with a serrated knife from your abdomen and then using your tummy as a handbag in which they are searching for an elusive piece of gum! A surreal experience to say the least, Skyla Jean was extracted glistening and bleating from my ‘handbag’ in five quick minutes and presto, I was a mum. Every molecule of every cell in my body changed that instant. I existed with more purpose than ever before. I existed for her.

Family received an unexpected early morning call about their new status (“Surprise! You’re a grandma!”) and with little time to recover from the shock, grandma’s first assignment was notifying the baby shower guests, that, well, the baby shower’s cancelled…Vanessa’s had the baby!

As congratulations poured in, my tears poured out. My new little baby girl was having trouble breathing and needed specialist medical attention. She had arrived seven weeks early and weighed a tiny five pounds. My unpacked bags were heaved back into the car and we were both transferred to another facility. Gratefully, our four day stay at the higher care centre was successful and Skyla was well enough to return to our hospital of choice. As much as I was ecstatic about the news, there was still much ground to cover before she could come home.

While my baby daughter rose to challenges of breathing, feeding and jaundice, I had my own obstacles to overcome. Thankfully and surprisingly, my diabetes was one aspect I didn’t have to worry about. Aside from coping with the odd pig-out on hospital apple crumble and ice cream, the insulin pump kept my BSL’s within healthy range. I felt ‘in control’, and this, as many a person who just happens to have diabetes will tell you, is like gold. One thing I had no power over was the fact that my daughter would be staying in hospital, without me, for at least four to six weeks. Discharge day was not as hard as the first night without her. Pulling up in the driveway with a somewhat flatter stomach and distinctly missing a baby, was a feeling I could only express by more crying. It wasn’t the last time I’d feel a void over the weeks to come.

For the next six weeks I got up with the birds, and probably ate like them come to think of it, to travel across town to spend the day in the hospital nursery, sitting with, staring at and feeding Skyla. The feeding adventure was fraught with its own struggle as my milk supply refused to establish for reasons unknown. Diabetes was offered as loose reasoning, but more realistically, the distress from our separation and stressors from traveling each day were more likely offenders. I surrendered to the obvious: I wasn’t Superwoman and my body was going to do what it wanted. Moving on from my expectation to breastfeed was a heart wrenching but crucial acceptance – I needed emotional energy and my baby girl needed me.

Days blurred into weeks and her progress was phenomenal! She was soon able to breathe air and was free from beeping monitors and those tubes every premmie parent talks about. I became the unofficial welcome party for the continual influx of first time nursery mums. Conversations about labour, our babies’ bodily functions and the Bold and the Beautiful rolled off my tongue and rang in my ears. I actually knew what was happening in the Bold and the Beautiful? Scary. Skyla became a mini-celebrity and had a few of the little boy babies twisted around her finger, never mind the midwives!

I became familiar with waves of anxiety, exhaustion and frustration. I speculated that my Endocrine system held a meeting each morning before sunrise to instruct the ‘feeling of the day’ to flood forth and fire at will. The caffeine consumed in numerous Diet Cokes did nothing to help the situation except actually keep my eyes open so I could see the bloodshot blighters! My lesson on cause and effect would have to wait, I had cot blankets to fluff up; my baby was coming home!

Her paediatrician gave the all clear, so after formula making and swaddling lessons and a night in the new parent green room, her booties were packed and she was ready to go. The sunlight spilled onto her brand new dress and the breeze caught her wispy hair for the first time. I turned and looked up at the window of the room where I’d stayed six weeks earlier. Pangs of indefinable emotion made me want to both cry and laugh. I was a parent. A mum. A young woman who just happened to have diabetes. I felt victorious! Now if only I could remember where I parked the car…