Birth Story - Eli Harrison.

When Jydan was about to turn 6 months I sent out a Breastfeeding Guest Post Call Out to celebrate and spent a couple of weeks sharing people breastfeeding posts until Jydan turned 6 months.

Jydan is about to ONE!

Until Jydan turns thirteen months I want to share birth stories, to celebrate his birthday!

Email me at harleymcocks@gmail.com if you want to guest post :)

You can read Jydan's birth story here:

Birth Story -Baby Jydan


A few weeks back Jamee guest blogged about her daughters DDH Journey. If you missed it, you should definitely take a look.
Now Jamee is back, with a birth story about her first son! (and her second son to follow).

Here's Jamee's birth story about Eli Harrison:

I’d lost my mucous plug the morning before I went spontaneously into labour.

The morning (2am) I went into labour I knew it was labour straight away. It was definitely not Braxton hicks. A tight burning sensation would start in my lower back and spread rapidly over my belly.

I walked around for a little bit to see if these pains would indeed prove to be Braxton hicks after all. I thought several times about waking Nic up but thought better of it. Why not let him sleep, what use would he be right now but to be stressing me out.

I racked my brain, trawling my memory for all the advice I’d been given during my pregnancy.

Hot bath,

 at this point the contractions Id been getting were starting to get painful so I ran a hot bath and (with great difficulty considering my significant girth) sat in it. Until I was bored and the bath went cold.

I had a cup of coffee.

I walked up and down the hallway.

Another piece of advice Id been given was not to go to the hospital until I could not control the noises escaping my mouth or my waters broke. This is what I was aiming for, I was adamant to remain soley in control for as long as I could manage.

I’d begun writing and timing my contractions, I had another bath and then I woke Nic at 7 because the contractions were 4 minutes apart by that point and strong enough to drop me to my knees if I wasn’t supported by the wonderfully pain dulling hot water of my bath.

At first Nic didn’t believe I was in actual labour he says. It wasn’t until I dropped to the ground when the next wave of contractions snuck round from my back that he believed me.

I remember us discussing whether or not to go to the hospital yet and thinking “if this is labour, which I know it is, its painful but really quite manageable.. I can do this!”

At about 7:30 we threw the bag I’d packed weeks ago in readiness of this moment in the back of the car and buckled in.

Lordy lordy,  contractions are not fun when you’re in the passenger seat of a car. Your body is unable to contort to its more comforting positions. You’re sitting upright and its downright painful and stressing. At least, living in Katherine the drive was very short.

I dropped to my knees in the carpark attacked by yet another contraction and visions of a carpark birth flooded my mind. Not to worry though I still had a long time to go!

Approaching the counter at the maternity ward in Katherine hospital NT Nic and I must have looked so calm, almost blasé about the whole thing because again I was not believed that I was in labour.

Then creeping through my back and BAM! all around my stomach came another crippling contraction and the midwives believed me and sent me straight to a birthing suite.

Daunting things, those birthing suites, so grey and formal, full of medical equipment which for someone like myself who has never even broken a bone is almost scary, however I had my pain to distract me! They checked my dilation and I was pretty proud that I’d gone to 4 centimetres dilation at home on my own without even waking Nic!

I asked the midwives to hit me with whatever they had drug-wise! I was not ashamed to ask for drugs and to be assisted in my pain. I received a shot of pethidine (which I maintain to this day did absolutely nothing for me) and sucked down the gas like there was no tomorrow. I dreaded needing to pee it meant I had to leave my lovely gas!

I’ve heard so many other birth stories and seen pictures, people walking around, using birth balls and being really quite active but I found myself flipping into the “doggy” position on the bed and yelling out my frustration in that position. Entirely glamorous of course!

The contractions got worse and worse and Nic says I would cry and wince during a contraction and then laugh and joke between them. All I can remember is when that pain started in my back my mind would scream “NO! NO! NO! NO!” as it knew it was only a matter of nano seconds before the horrendous contracting in my belly.

Nic being male kept sneaking sucks of my gas, the cheeky bugger, and apparently I ripped into him for that.

A mate of mine at this point had turned up at the hospital to see if she could come in and support me all I remember doing is swearing my nut off and screaming “tell them to fuck off I’m not having a  fucking picnic”

As you can guess she left.. oops

Before we had left home we rang the lovely Jackie Harper who was my chosen support person aside from Nic and as she had to drive down from Darwin she turned up at this point after dropping her son, Jordy off at a babysitters.

Having a female presence there helped me , calmed me and her support was very invaluable thank you Jackie!

I laboured on for what didn’t seem that long to me but must have been a few hours, Jackie left to check on Jordy and suddenly in walked this doddery old man I had never seen before.

The foul language turned back on

“Who the fuck is this old man?”

Turns out this was doctor Scattini the doctor in charge of giving me my epidural.

When  I got my epidural my memory is only filled with managing contractions enough to stay still curled up on my side, petrified of ending up a quadriplegic if the needle hit a rogue nerve.

Nic said DR Scattini’s hands shook something fierce, but, as soon as he picked up the scalpel to make the incision for the canular his hand ceased shaking and as steady as a rock he cut my back. He dropped the scalpel and began shaking again. He inserted the needle into my spine through the canular and gave me a whole dose of whatever the numbing medication is in the epi.

At first, having not been able to attend any antenatal classes I was petrified to move in the bed while the epidural took its 20 minutes to kick in. I was so afraid of some huge needle sticking into my back. There wasn’t though, the midwife informed me the needle was removed there was just the plastic tubing in my back and that i was free to move as much as i was capable with my legs about to lose function.

As I now couldn’t feel my lower body aside from the niggly pain of the occasional whopper of a contraction , my belly all strapped and monitored up Nic fell asleep in the recliner next to my bed and I was able to rest finally still sucking down gas on the occasional time I did feel a contraction.

Nic went home to get some food and I was given my second dose of epidural after my dilation was checked and I really still had a long way to go and the machine was still measuring contractions quite large.

Nic fell asleep at home and my lovely neighbour who has very, very quick births told Nic off and made him come back to the hospital where he walked in to a very agitated me with growing discomfort as my second shot of epidural had pretty much worn off.

I loved the epidural it was like paradise between the pain, it allowed me to lay down and rest and forget about the pain, unfortunately I was then unable to work up tolerance to the build up of intensity in my contractions.

Once the epidural had worn off the midwives asked me if I would like to try the birthing stool, a ridiculously potty like contraption on which I swore profusely as I sat on it with Nic sitting behind me to lean on.

A nightmare. I hated it I felt restricted and in immense amounts of pain. I can remember asking why they wanted to kill me, asking why I couldn’t have more epidural and try again tomorrow.

Whilst on the birthing stool the midwives broke my waters for me which Nic said was “disgusting” as it all erupted over the floor.

I can’t remember having an urge to push.

I got another half shot of epidural and was warned that after that it would be push time and to prepare myself.

Suddenly the monitor attached to my bump measuring Eli’s heart rate and my contractions started going ridiculous. From 20 to 130 to 40 to 160 to 20 again. Eli was starting to distress and because of the intervention of the epidural my contractions had slowed and labour was not progressing. I freaked out and they turned the monitor away from me. My mind was racing.. Was my baby ok?

I can vaguely remember midwifes talking amongst themselves and talking to Nic. And then them hooking a different bag onto the one that had been keeping me hydrated. I knew this was the same kind of thing that helped bring on labour. I knew this would make my labour pains even more intense but my lovely caring husband Nic decided to FIB and tell me it was just more of what had been there before.

Nonetheless he lied. And I found out shortly!

Push time was foul, painful and I thought I would die. Poor Nic kept trying to give me cordial and wipe my forehead and in return get sworn at only for me to swear at him again when he backed off asking him where my cordial and face washer was?

He couldn’t win!

I can’t remember too much from this part.

Nic said at this point I was blacking in and out of consciousness. I remember him trying to take the gas off me and I growled at him like a dog with the mouthpiece firmly held between my teeth.. No one was going to take those drugs off me and end up alive!

I was screaming, and Jackie, who had been through this before explained that I should stop screaming and use the last of my energy on pushing, I remember her putting her hand over my mouth to quieten me and I remember threatening to bite it off.

I had the mirror in front of me and this was my only sanity. I could actually see that my pain was getting me somewhere.

Another doctor came in at this point (iIhave been told since by midwives this was for “maternal exhaustion” and the fact that Eli was in distress) the doctor told me he was going to ventouse (suction) Eli out. And that if this didn’t work in time we were looking at a c section delivery as Eli needed to be out right NOW.

I think at this point this is why I tore so bad. When the doctor had (in my memory) stuck both hands in me and I felt like a cow he did some pumps on his little vetouse and I knew at this instant that even though i wasn’t having a contraction that if i didn’t push RIGHT NOW i wouldn’t be able to push any more ..and pop out came Elis head!

 Nic said the tearing happening down there sounded like tearing fat off meat! I’m so glad I can’t remember that!

In my memory Elis head is as large as an adults head. It was grey and scary but still so cute at the same time.

Then all of a sudden I was on my own. Nic said when Eli came out his chord was wrapped around his neck and from being in distress for such a lengthy period he was refusing to breathe.

Nic stepped back and let the doctors cut the chord and, blocking Eli from my view, they took him to a workstation and put an adult sized oxygen mask over his entire face.

suddenly my energy levels snapped back.

Why couldn’t I see my boy? What was wrong with him? Why wouldn’t they tell me anything?

I then heard a gurgle ,not the cry like you hear in the movies.

And I had my very own tiny little miracle sitting on my chest.

Suddenly there was no pain.

I gazed at his little face and cried.

I’m pretty sure this is when I got the needle in my leg to pass the afterbirth and they tugged it out, and made preparations to put my stitches in.

But all I could think about was my little Boy. It was 5:19 and after 15 hours of the worse pain I had felt in my life I was sitting blissfully with my own little baby boy, all 7 lbs 13oz of him, and such a long little bubba he was a little skinny spidery thing. The spitting image of his daddy.

No one has ever given me such a precious gift.