Baby Leon born

I am very happy to announce the birth of my beautiful son Leon Sean. He was born on the 29th of July. It took me a while to write the blog but we were both catching up with some needed sleep.

Anyway, lets start from the beginning…

My contractions started at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning. And as with the other contractions I was not quite sure if "this is it". They were quite mild but quite regular from the very start – coming nearly every 10 minutes. As per the hospitals suggestion we waited until the contractions were closer, approximately every 5 minutes and at around 12 o’clock we headed towards the hospital. The contractions were so bearable at that stage that I managed to have a nice bath, fix my hair and put make up. I was thinking to myself – this is actually not so bad; either I am the lucky one or this can not be the labor.

By the time we reached the hospital the pains started getting stronger and stronger. They told me to go to see the midwife for examination and after that procedure I was told to go back home because my cervix has not dilated yet. I could not believe it. I thought to myself: “If this is not the Labor, what is the Labor like?”. I literally could not move from the pain. My contractions were so strong and intense by this stage that I did not see myself going home at all. The midwife had noticed that it was getting worse and worse and told me to go to a special unit and wait there for an hour to see if my labor progressed. After half an hour my water broke though and the fun began.

My husband and I were brought to a special delivery room and a midwife came to examine me once again. Before I continue I would like to mention that I came to the hospital with the idea of giving a natural birth but it was soon forgotten after I was told my cervix was dilated only 1 cm. I begged for epidural. The pain was so strong its hard to describe. I can only say it really reminded me of my very strong period pains but multiplied by 50. I finally got the epidural after half an hour and waited and waited for the effects to begin…. but no relief was coming. It felt like ages and the only comfort I found were my thoughts telling me that it soon would be over, the epidural should start working very ,very soon. Unfortunately, after an hour nothing seemed to work and I was told I needed a “top up”. So they sent for a doctor which they could not find and by the time he arrived and gave me the top up the midwife told me to “push, push”, because I was already dilated 10 cm. I could not believe it! I was really expecting my labor to last for at least 6 hour; my one was only 2.5.

Despite the pain it was an amazing experience. I never forget the time when they put little Leon on my chest. I fell in love straight away. I looked at him and he was “Perfect”. It is amazing that we humans are programmed to forget the trauma of the birth straight away. All the pain seemed to vanish seconds after they handed me over my son.

We stayed in the hospital for an extra day because Leon lost 13% of the body weight. I think they allow only 10% before they can discharge you from the hospital. I was very upset and worried sick. I found it very hard to breast feed and never thought it was such a difficult task. I presumed that with such a natural instinct all you need to do is to put the baby to your breast, but it was not the case at all. Leon could not attach himself to the nipple and so we ended toping up with the bottle for a few days.

Exhausted and tired we came back home from hospital and it took me 2 weeks to recover. People were calling by all the time and the adrenaline kept me gong for few days but after a week I found it hard to do anything. So there is my excuse for not writing anything for 2 weeks.

Anyway, there is a photo of my beautiful son. I am so proud :)