Lauren's sudden arrival

From Lauren's sudden arrival

The weekend of 14/15 March 2009 was a busy one. 

Nicola still had a week left at work and had been preparing for a client presentation on Monday morning. We were also still running around organising things in preparation for the arrival of the baby. The due date was four weeks off and we were starting to run out of time to do things so Nic had gone looking for a mattress protector in case her waters broke while we were in bed. And we were also in need of a hot water bottle to help her manage the contractions when they finally kicked in.

On Sunday we had gone up to Collaroy to visit Jon and Amy and we had a relaxing lunch with them in Deewhy. Sophie dropped in on Sunday evening for a quick visit and then we had a call from Pauline around 9pm to say thanks for the flowers we had bought for her birthday. All the while we were talking about how we still had a few weeks before the baby arrived. Nicola even joked with Sophie by pointing at "Beanie" (our adopted name for the bump) and telling him/her that he/she wasn't too arrive for at least another two weeks.

Clearly though, "Beanie" had inherited the stubborn ways of his/her parents and was not about to be told what to do and shortly after climbing into bed at 10pm Nicola's waters broke. This caught us a bit by surprise but we thought we still had at least 24 hours to go before anything happened. So we called the hospital to tell them things had started. The midwife we spoke to said she'd like us to come in because Nicola was technically premature. When we asked if we should bring a bag she said to throw a few things in but not to worry too much because she'd most likely just send us home. Yeah right.

So we packed a few things into a suitcase and then Nicola's contractions started. They kicked straight in at 30 seconds and there were about five minutes between them initially. But as we packed, they started to get closer and closer together.

Meanwhile I was obviously the picture of calm and bundled Nicola into the car and started the trip to hospital. On the way the contractions got worse and it crossed my mind that we might be having the baby in the car. If that happened it would spoil my plans for not going anywhere near the "business end" of the birth...more speed was needed.

We got to the hospital pretty quickly and I pulled up outside. We parked in the 5-minute zone and left everything in the car while I took Nicola up to the delivery ward. After all, I could just come and move it after she was in the hands of the staff. But when we got to the ward (after several rest stops slowed our progress) we were told that Nicola was "ready to push". This was at 11.30pm...just over an hour after the contractions started. What happened to the 12 hour labour? There was no time for moving the car, getting the camera, remembering what I'd been taught in ante-natal class or, most importantly, for an epidural!

For 42 minutes I watched Nicola go through what can only be described as the most agonising pain known to man. Despite my best efforts to avoid the "business end" the midwife was determined to show me my baby's head as it came out. Fortunately though, Nicola had a tight grip on my hand and my arm just doesn't stretch that far.

At 12.12am on the 16th our little girl was born - 49cm long and weighing 2.66kg. That just capped off a day of surprises, four weeks early, a two hour labour, and a girl - we were convinced it was a boy. We didn't even have a name for her...we thought we'd have loads more time to decide on one!

The midwife left us in the room for a while to recover and we called the parents to tell them they were now grandparents. We also sent a text off to all our friends to tell them the good news...and Daddy was so excited he completely forgot to tell people that he had a daughter. So a second text followed shortly after. Then I went to move the car and collect the camera before we were all shuffled along to the post-natal ward where my girls settled in for the night. 

I left them about 3am to head home and with some strict instructions from Nicola to send her presentation to the team at work so they were ready to go at 9.30am.

Pictures and some video of the first few hours of Lauren's life are available here