The Birth of Eva

Hi, my name is Richard and my lovely girlfriend, Sophie (Where there is love, there is Eva) volunteered me to write my version of our birth story for Nats guest posts this week. I wasn’t sure how successful I would be at recapping our story but here it is and I hope you enjoy it!

On the morning of July 13th 2010, around 4am, Sophie repeatedly getting up to go to the toilet as this had been happening the past few months. I didn’t think any of it. After the second or third time of getting up she told me she thought her water may have broken. Though we had been to parenting classes, I was still expecting something similar to Niagara Falls, though this wasn’t the case.

After a quick call to the midwives at the hospital, they told us to come in and see what was going on. The journey was not as smooth as the well prepared bags waiting in the boot of your car, it was more ‘oh shit we haven’t finished packing.’ Even though Soph was only 3 days shy of her due date. So after running around like a headless chicken trying to think of what we needed we had our bags packed and on the way to the hospital. On the way Sophie was still not sure if she was actually in labour because she only had pains coming every now and they weren’t that painful. I really was expecting me to be driving like a race car driver, running of red lights and speeding on the way but to my disappointment, it wasn’t quite like that.

After arriving, we were told Sophie’s water, had infact, broken. She was then admitted and we told our parents to make their way over, as we were not going anywhere and it was BABY TIME. From then on, Sophie’s contractions got more intense and she really did not like anyone talking. If you were to talk, whisper infact, you were shot a death stare. When our obstetrician arrived, Sophie asked how far along she was and when she was allowed to have an epidural and was told ‘2cm’ and "Whenever you want, as long as your contractions are strong and regular”. It turned out, Soph was more than happy to talk to him and requested an epidural. Luckily the anaesthesiologist arrived shortly afterwards and Soph was back to her normal state.

Things were fairly uneventful from then and till tea time. Sophie had a slight temperature and her blood pressure was a little low but they just kept monitoring her. Around the same time, Eva’s heart rate was up around 200 bpm which scared the crap out of everyone. Ten minutes past and her heart rate dropped back to normal. Sophie’s sister was kind enough to get me some dinner (noodle box to be precise) whilst using the toilet as seat as our room had too many people, not enough chairs. At this time our obstetrician came into the room to check Sophie. He told us she was 10cm and was ready to push. So the noodle box had to wait but don’t worry, it was just as good when I had it as left overs! The machine that was attached to Sophie’s heart rate, starting beeping as Sophie’s heart rate was now the one that was high as she was probably feeling scared, excited and nervous.

I felt mainly excited but nervous about how much pain Sophie was going to endure. Everyone was asked to leave the room other than Sophie’s mum and I, we had the cameras ready for all of the excitement. Sophie started pushing while Sophie’s mum and I took in turns of hold her hand, encouraging her and also taking some happy snaps. The labour was going to plan but I could see Sophie was tired after a long day, but the encouragement from both of us and the obstetrician allowed Sophie to just push that little bit harder. It is the scariest thing I have ever witnessed someone you love and care so much about being put through so much pain for something that will bring us so much love. I think that Sophie knew the harder she pushed the sooner the Eva was going to come.

With the final “push Sophie” from all three of us it came to the business end of the deal, the obstetrician had to use the suction cup at the very end because the exhaustion had brought Sophie to tears. Finally our beautiful Eva had come into the world weighing 8 pounds 7oz, my initial thoughts when she was laying on Sophie’s chest were different to what I expected. I didn’t cry but I knew how perfect she was and how much more fulfilling our lives will be from here.