Rewind a little...(part 5 - a baby born in silence)

But after putting our little girl on my tummy at 31 minutes past midnight (yes it was now my birthday), she was silent. She stayed silent as they transferred her over to the baby resuscitare. There was further silence as four of them worked on her. The clock ticked by. I lay there holding hubbys hand and there was an overwhelming silence in the room. We couldnt see much but knew that 15 minutes had already passed.

I was eerily calm as we both looked at the clock and then the people gathered round the resucitare and then the clock again. Then the panic set in. All my fears came back all at once that this was just another ordeal we were putting ourselves through that would end in failure and no baby. It all felt so surreal and I rembered sitting at home that monday morning crying for hours that this was all a surreal dream and now I really seemed to be in the middle of that dream which was actually a nightmare. The feeling was awful, and the tears started coming. Just writing about it still makes me cry.  The midwife kept saying she will be fine but no one else was actually telling us anything.

They started to wheel me out and I think at this point hubby got up to see what was going on as this non-communication between the doctors and us was killing us. Up until then, he hadnt left my side. The next thing I knew I saw him holding our baby all wrapped up and brought her over for a brief cuddle. Geesh, what mix of emotions. What a beautiful sight to see my husband holding our daughter after all these years of trying to get here,  but how unreal did it seem? How scared was I that this was all being taken away from us? I gave a her a quick kiss and they wheeled us both away to separate places: me back to the room on the labour ward and baby to the special care unit.

And there were were. Me, hubby, an otherwise empty room on the labour ward, and no baby. Not how I ever ever imagined it to happen.  The time went by, some midwives or doctors came in and out. We didnt really know what to say to each other. It was all very strange.

At 3am a nurse came in to tell us that the special care baby unit (SCBU) said we could finally go and see her. Finally we could go and spend some time withour baby.

And so here she is, Phoebe Louise, born on my birthday weighing 8lb 6oz. She kept us waiting until 41weeks and 6 days to arrive. She had inhaled thick merconium and was initially quite poorly needing oxygen and to be drip fed.  It was heart breaking to see her on all the monitors and not be able to hold her, cuddle her, comfort her or feed her. But she was here, and safe, and we fell in love.