well, he is here! baby alexander james kendall arrived in a rush this afternoon, at 1:47pm, weighing 3550g (7lb, 8oz). he is the sweetest little babe and i am obsessed already! he has dark blue eyes and a little tuft of red hair at the back of his head... another redhead to add to our little clan! he looks very similar to madeline as a baby - and is basically a carbon copy of his daddy!
i was induced yet again, when i reached 41weeks+3days (the longest they allow you to go overdue here in wa) at midland hospital. the midwife broke my water at 12 noon and we waited. an hour passed and towards the end i was having small contractions (which i could feel), but nothing really huge enough to show well on the machine that measures them, so the midwife said she assumed the dr would ask them to start the drip which triggers them. thankfully when she arrived at the end of the hour to check in, she said she'd asked her superior and i was given permission to go another hour and see where i was at once that was over.
well... that was when the action began. i started to feel really unwell and went into the bathroom, cried for a bit to doug and then came back to the bed. then boom, it all happened at once. huge contractions began... i was fully dilated and had to start pushing. i know now, my full labour period was a very brief 17 minutes, which left all the midwives in complete shock... and my baby in the special care nursery! :(
my poor student midwife ash couldn't do anything more than watch as midwives ran about... no one expected it to happen so quickly, so much so in fact that the midwife (sam) who was looking after me had gone to have her lunch break while nothing was happening, left me with another midwife (georgia) and walked in just in time to catch the baby. my entire labour and delivery happened within that half hour period. nuts!
baby had a brief feed a while after he was born, then doug had a very short hold but his breathing began to speed up and he was taken off to the nursery to be assessed. i was feeling positive, but eventually hours later had a little cry when it was all apparent that i would not only not be taking him home the following day, but that i wouldn't even be taking him to my room. it's looking to be a long few days ahead.
this pic we snapped prior to being moved to special care is so dear to me, baby alex looks exactly like his daddy as a baby. so so cute!
being assessed in special care by the lovely midwives. they were all so amazing and reassuring. i'm so grateful we were in a good place to be cared for so well.
