The small guy is here!

Yes, the day finally arrived and our little boy was safely born yesterday (17 July) at 8.35am. He weighs in at 3.420kg (about 7 and a half pounds) and is a very long 53cm. 

The boys holding hands!

As an overall summary of the c-section, it was remarkably unstressful and painless. I had been nervous as hell about the whole thing in advance, especially the epidural, but actually that stress was misplaced. 

I was taken into the theatre at 8am and the epidural took a few minutes to administer. The general anaesthetic before they insert the epidural was barely even a prick of the skin (it’s much more painful to have the central line put into your hand). It took a few minutes for the epidural to take the full effect and the only bad moment was that my blood pressure dropped dramatically at this point and I felt very nauseous, did some dramatic retching into a dish and had a bit of a cry. I was given something else to balance me out and felt fabulous after that. 

The actual c-section surgery was very quick – maybe 10 mins long – and totally painless. I had two surgeons working on me and they were pulling and yanking and leaning on my chest to get the baby out which was strange but did not hurt. 

Hubby was fascinated by all of the surgery so spent most of the time watching that rather than sitting with me. Watching his face was a good distraction – he is not at all squeamish so he loved seeing the whole process unfold. 

Before long our little guy was pulled out and I immediately felt substantially lighter and able to breathe fully again!! No big surprise after we learned how long he is! He let out some beautiful big wails straight away so I knew he had strong lungs. The doctor gave me a little peek at his face before the paediatrician took him for a few mins to check him over. 

He was still crying when she brought him to me and so she rested his forehead against mine – would you believe even that small amount of skin-to-skin contact was enough to soothe him. 

At this point, I also got a good look at him and I realised actually he doesn’t look like a replica of my husband as we thought the scans showed but actually he looks just like me as a newborn!! That was quite a surprise!!

After a few minutes of being sewn up I was taken to the recovery room where I was reunited with the baby, our son, for some proper skin-to-skin. The midwives helped me to get him to latch on and within less than 30 seconds he was feeding. It was incredible! In fact it turns out he is a real booby-lover as I’ve had almost no problem getting him to latch on since. 

I felt pretty good for the rest of the day yesterday which was certainly assisted by some light epidural top-ups and so much adrenaline coursing through my veins!!  We had some immediate family come as visitors yesterday (everyone has now seen my boobs) and now today there are other people popping by which is nice. 

This morning I was finally disconnected from the catheter and the central line which meant I could have a shower. It was a magnificent shower as I felt so gross but I found myself very overwhelmed by dizziness and nausea and barely made it back to bed before vomiting quite heavily. I think I’m a sensitive soul when it comes to vomiting in general so they gave me some anti-nausea meds and I’ve felt great ever since. 

It’s been quite a big developmental leap to parenthood but it’s great so far. I’ve even gone from being a nappy/diaper-changing novice to changing two today – one of them quite a messy meconium poo one. 

My belly has gone down significantly which is great. I do wonder what the scales will say too! I still have some bloating and baby belly flab (of course) but I am hopeful at least some of this will shift in the next few weeks. 

So 30 hours into motherhood and I’m hooked!! Seeing how much this little guy is bonded to me already and my heart is melted. 💙

*In the interests of retaining anonymity on the blog, anyone who wants a better photo of the baby is welcome to comment below and I’ll email you some pics directly.