Dad of 3 - Maia's birth

This is not one more tech post, this is not about work. This is the experience I had with the birth of my third child. Well, at the end all experiences you have, in and out of the office, will lead you to the person you are, in and out of the office.

The day started as a usual Saturday. I woke up early and took Anita to her swimming lesson, we had a great time cuddling in the pool and in the shower. Once we got home, I promised Lucas a very special time with daddy, so we packed up and drove 2 hours to Bigriggen where we were supposed to camp, but a few days before Alyne told me she wasn't comfortable for us to sleep over so far away when it was so close to Maia's due date, so we planned to stay for the day and drive back, which was great.

In the meantime, Alyne was having a great day with Anita and her mom, she also had a really good massage. Towards the end of a very calm day, Alyne started having some headaches and blurry vision with sparkles, so she called me while we were on our way back and told me that she wanted to go to the hospital to check when I was back. As soon as I got home, I put Lucas to bed and we went to the hospital, knowing that everything would be fine and we would be back to have a nice sleep. Well, it didn't quite happen this way.

We arrived in the hospital at about 10pm and Alyne was admitted. They've checked her blood pressure and saw it was a bit higher than normal and recommended her to stay a bit longer for them to monitor her. While we were waiting, we heard a few midwives talking about a woman getting into labour at the time and Alyne wished out and loud that she wanted to be on her shoes - be careful with what you wish for. Her blood pressure was still high and they asked to have some blood and urine tests done. Alyne was getting quite anxious and I tried calming her down saying there was nothing to be worried about.

They came back at about 3am with the results and diagnosed Alyne with pre-eclampsia, obviously I googled it to know more about it. It can be very risky when early in the pregnancy which wasn't our case. At 39 weeks though, what that meant for us was that Alyne would need to be induced as keeping the pregnancy going with pre-eclampsia would be risky for Alyne and the baby, so their recommendation was to induce straight away. No coming back home to sleep then.

We were really not expecting to go through labour at that point, so I had to go back home to gather our stuff and Maia's bag. A bit over 5am, they came with the induction gel (Prostin), applied it into Alyne and said they would come back in 3 hours to check on her. A few very light contractions happened before they were back and they said if Alyne didn't have regular contractions in the next 3 hours they would need to apply another dose of the gel.

At 11am, we were moved to a room in the maternity to wait until we got into labour. At noon, Alyne wasn't still having regular contractions, so they came back to apply the second dose of the gel and said they would check on her again at 6pm.

We had lunch and waited and went for walk around the maternity, the contractions were getting longer, stronger and closer to one another. They called the midwife, Megan, who was going to assist us. Around 4pm, Megan arrived and took us to the birth suite, it took several contractions until we got there, but we did. Once we got there, I think Alyne got more relaxed and comfortable because the screams came more naturally :P.

The birth suite was very nice and cosy, and a lot of room to walk around, with a bathroom, pilates ball, bean bag and a big bath which, unfortunately, Alyne couldn't use because she was induced.

The labour started officially and, with that, a few not so nice things. Alyne had to put some tubes with a big needle (she hates needles) in her wrist in case she had to have some medication which was very uncomfortable and she had also to have some bands around her belly to monitor the bub's heart rate the whole time. Once she had these done, she could move around as she wished.

Megan suggested Alyne to get into the shower to ease a bit of the pain and she went for it, but even though the water was quite hot, once and while there was a breeze coming from somewhere which was making Alyne chill, so time to hop off. Another midwife came to check on Alyne and also said that if the baby wasn't born until 5pm, she would come back to talk about the next stage of the induction.

5pm the contractions were very strong and very painful and it seemed that Maia was ready to born so Megan told the other midwife she didn't need to come and check. After several pushes and a lot of pain, Maia still wasn't out and Megan recommended to break the waters with some sort of hook as the seal was a bit too thick and she did it. While I was expecting a lot of water to come out, only a bit of blood came, so I thought something might be wrong.

The heart rate monitor started falling off and at this point Megan really needed to monitor the baby's heart the whole time, so the options were to keep pressing the monitor against the belly or attach a sort of clip on the baby's head which for me it was super weird, but that's what she did and Alyne could get rid of the strap around her belly, on the other hand though she had a cord coming off from her inside.

Not long after, the baby's heart rate started falling down to a concerning level which made my heart stop and at the same time Alyne was in so much pain that somehow I had to put myself together to support her. Megan said she would need more help in the room, so she called for it and an obstetrician and another midwife came in. The obstetrician came in rushing like a super hero, she went straight to Alyne to check on her, put her hand inside her, did some stuff and told Alyne in a very serious tone that the baby needed to come out in the next contraction.

The next contraction came and Alyne pushed and screamed like never before (and I've seen her screaming quite hard). I saw Maia's head coming out and I knew it was all about to finish, but when she came out, her body looked so lifeless. I was so scared, it felt like an hour went past from when she came out to when Megan put her in Alyne's arms, even though it was probably only a few seconds. She finally cried and I couldn't be strong anymore, I cried like I never cried before with such a relief that Alyne and Maia were well and healthy, and even now the thought of what could have happened makes my eyes water.

Maia was born at 18:11 on the 22nd of July, a Sunday, with 2.86kg and 49cm on the 39th week of pregnancy.