I just want to say that I think my mum is truly amazing. I’m 28 years old with one baby, an amzing husband plus loads of friends and family very close by to help out and I am financially relatively comfortable. Despite all this I am still finding this whole mum thing pretty overwhelming. On the other hand when I was born my mother was 21 and lived alone far from my father and family and had to survive on next to no money at all. And hardest of all there were two babies. I truly don’t know how she did it. She’s incredible.

This is going to be a long one, it was a long labour but more importantly it was filled with lots of learnings for me that I am going to try and reflect on here.

It began at 12.45am on Friday, 3 September. Gemma had been praying all year that Nina would wait for her arrival and it seemed those prayers paid off as she had arrived the day before. Although perhaps it was one of those “be careful what you pray for” moments as I think it was pretty heavy going for her. The first contractions were coming pretty irregularly about 20 minutes apart and not that strong so we tried to sleep in between. I was also trying not to get too excited in case it didn’t amount to anything. At about 4.30am though they were getting stronger and coming more regularly so we went and got mum and Gemma up. I continued to labour at home until about 8am when they were coming between five and ten minutes and we went to the hospital.

I was going pretty well when we arrived at the hospital. The contractions were painful but I was feeling positive and we were managing them well with massages from Martin. The midwife did an examination after we’d been there for about an hour and said I was three cms dilated. I would have liked to be a little more but she thought it was all fine. So we continued for a few more hours. I walked around, had a bath, lay on a fit ball etc. Basically I was able to do exactly what I needed to get through the contractions. The midwife was so supportive and Martin and the family were amazing supports. I had, had no drugs at all and was still feeling positve despite the contractions getting stronger and more frequent. It was exactly what I wanted and had been raving about for the months before. An active, non-medicalised, woman focused birth.

At about 2pm a doctor came in and wanted to know where things were at. So they checked again and discovered I was still only 3cm dilated. This was fairly disappointing but nobody was freaking out yet. 2 hours later though when it was still the same it was decided that I should have some syntocin (not sure about spelling) to really get the contractions going as nothing was happening naturally. This was a bit disappointing for me but we were all getting tired and I was pretty hungry and not moving was getting frustrating. These artificially induced contractions were intense. I laboured with them for a few hours but then it became impossible for me. I was getting very distressed and screaming out in pain. Martin and the family stayed with me and continued to be incredibly encouraiging but that was helping less and less. The midwife offered me an epidural or some morphine, she thought I was beyond the point of gas being helpful. Still hoping to avoid an epidural I accepted the morphine. Gemma thought this bit was hillarious as it made me a little bit dopey and I started saying some fairly ridiculous things which I have a limited memory of. Although it calmed me down and I was screaming a little less, it didn’t help the pain though and by about 11 (I think although time was now fairly lost to me) I got an epidural.

I was pretty devastated. I was now hooked up to about 10 machines pumping in pain relief and monitoring the baby and me. I couldn’t move anywhere. My hope for a non-medicalied birth was gone. The epidural was amazing though. I could no longer feel a thing so was able to calm down. Although another check revealed I was still only 3cm dilated. We began to discuss a ceasarean. I still wanted to avoid this though and the Dr expressed some hope that now I had an epidural they could really up the syntocin and this may get things moving. I opted for this option so they upped the syntocin one last time to give it everything we could. Thankfully I couldn’t feel a thing and I was even able to get a little sleep through it as was Martin and the family. We were all exhausted as you can imagine. I hadn’t eaten anything either apart from an apple, muesli bar and a few pieces of chocolate.

At 1am they woke me for a last check. Still only 3cm dilated. Again a caesarean was raised and this time no one saw much hope that it could be avoided. I asked them to give me some time to decide so they left us to decide. I asked, as Quakers do, if we could sit in silence for a bit and see if we could get some guidance from God. I wanted to pray for a miracle but instead felt a strong sense of God saying, “Emily this is not the time for miracles, this is the time for trust in defeat. Trust, that even though it has all gone wrong and everything you didn’t want to happen has happened, all will be well. Trust that I am here.” So when they came back I told them I would have a caesaeran.

They prepared me for that, which meant more machines, needles etc and wheeled me up to the operating theatre. There were about 10 people there including a delightful African nurse who called herself big nanna. They cut me open and at 2.28am on Saturday, 4 September, our precious Nina was born. They had to check her over first but she was in Martin’s arms a few minutes later. I had to wait about half an hour though as they stitched me up. I couldn’t hold her due to the operation but they lay her next to me in bed and I just cried with joy. I was more tired, hungry, thirsty than I had ever been in my life, as well as still reeling from the disappointment of it all but the midwife said to me, “look at you, you can’t stop smiling.” And I couldn’t. At 4am they wheeled me back down to my room in maternity. Mum and Gemma left and we were all, after 27 hours, able to get a little bit of sleep. Although it wasn’t long before I had to feed her etc.

Over the following days I reflected on the event. I had always been afraid of birth as mine was a fairy torturous event for my mother and I thought I would take as many drugs as I could to ease what ever pain but as mentioned I had become really inspired over the months of my pregnancy by “active birth”. The idea that birth was a non-medicalised, woman focused event. I had also, as I prepared myself physically and emotionally for it, heard God say to me over and over “Emily, do not fear”. What did all this mean in the light of what happened. Was it all just crap? Had I got it all wrong? I don’t think so. Birth is a natural, beautiful thing but sometimes it goes wrong. In the past or in places like Africa women die. I was blessed enough to have kind and talented people around me to help out. While I hope other women don’t have to use it I shouldn’t despise the intervention but be grateful for it. And I did not need to be afraid. When God calls people away from fear and to courage it doesn’t mean that everything is going to work out exactly how they wanted it to. It doesn’t mean they will be spared all heartache and pain. This certainly wasn’t the case for Mary or many others who heard this call throughout the scriptures. What it means is that God will be there. There is a bigger picture that even though we do not understand it we can trust. This I suppose is the mystery of our faith.

So I am grateful to God. I am grateful for all the midwives and dr’s who helped me. I am grateful for the time I did labour even though it was painful and I had a caesarean in the end. I am grateful for my amazing husband, mother and sister who stayed with me throughout it all even though it was also incredibly hard for them to watch me writhe and scream in pain. And mostly I am grateful for Nina, my beautiful, beautiful girl.

Although it is probably the time of my life when I have more to blog about than ever, if the last couple of days are any indication, this blog may be fairly neglected in the next few weeks at least as I settle into my new life of feeding, changing nappies etc etc. Who would have thought that a baby could take up so much time?

I will say though that I am completely and totally and overwhelming in love with my baby girl. As you all know her name is Nina Luz. Luz means light in Spanish and she is the light of my world, I don’t even care about how corny that is. Keith told me once that when you have a child you discover a love that you have never known and he is not wrong. It is also a love that is completely indescribable so probably no point in even trying.

Many of you will probably know also that the labour didn’t go at all according to all my hopes for it and one day I will write that story. 26 hours worth though so too long for now but I wanted to say thank you to all who prayed for us through out it all. And God was there reminding me that we can trust him even when it all goes wrong. That he is good. Good in the things of our lives that are good and good in the things of our lives that are not good.

We are two days overdue and still nothing. I am exhausted I have to say. Sleeping is pretty impossible at the moment, I am so uncomfortable. When I wake up in the morning everything aches so much from the struggle. I feel like I have gone ten rounds in a boxing match. I also have so much mucous in my nose and head that it is very hard to breathe. I have started snoring, sometimes I even wake myself up.

I guess though if this journey is teaching me anything it’s to wait patiently in trust and hope. I am trying to do this better.

I’m due to have a baby tomorrow. I really, really hope it comes. I am so over being pregnant and so excited to meet my child.

As said a few posts ago I have been pretty much ignoring the election as it caused me a little too much despair. However, even I could not ignore the result. A hung parliament is very interesting. Not to mention I couldn’t have imagined a better result – the swing towards the Greens was large enough that their issues can no longer be ignored and both the major parties have to hear if nothing else that Australians are not that happy with either of them. I am still of course worried that the Liberals will be able to form with the independents and Tony Abbott will become prime minister but I think more than that I was worried about the political process itself and that the Australian people had become completely unconcerned with anything but themselves and their money and were happy to put up with this fear mongering etc etc. I am heartened that perhaps there are more Australians than I imagined that aren’t.

Last week here was very cold. Still had the heaters going at night and getting out of my warm bed every morning was always such an effort. Then the winds came. You probably couldn’t call them a hurricane or anything but they were pretty full on. Enough to blow the table off our balcony. I can’t stand these winds I have to say but John told me that these winds come every year to chase away the cold. For his people they mark the beginning of spring, which does make more sense than just some some random day. And chase away the cold they did. Last night I even had to put the fan on. It’s kind of strange to go from heater to fan within a week. Then today we’ve had the most lovely sun showers. The sun is warm and making a beautiful soft light through the fluffy clouds and rain. It’s very beautiful.

Despite a photo on facebook that confused a lot of people into thinking I had a baby, I haven’t. It was just a little joke made by Martin. We did get a few laughs out of it I have to say but I think it did get a little out of hand. We even got a call from Sweden which I felt very bad about.

Even though there is no baby we are now definitely ready for one. I think I have mentioned this before but a friend of ours who had a baby three months ago is moving to the US tomorrow. Her husband is American so they are going to live there for awhile. As they were not able to move all their things from here to there we were lucky enough to get a lot of their baby stuff. Bath, crib and so many clothes which we picked up today. Others have also sent us a number of clothes, toys and books and yesterday my grandparents sent us a pram which they picked up from a jumble sale. They spent hours washing it and fixing it up for us and it is very cute. We also managed to pick up a change table from someone at my work and some drawers at one of the second hand shops. This means the only things we have had to buy new and thus spend much money on are the car seat and the cloth nappies. I feel so blessed. We have everything we need plus more for her arrival, without having to have spent hardly anything at all. And the even better thing is almost all of it is second hand.

I have had so much fun today finally being able to embrace all those nesting feelings and set up the nursery. It is so cute. Now all that needs to happen is the birth…..

Just over two weeks to go until my due date although I am seriously hoping it will be before that, I am struggling a lot. I am so uncomfortable all the time and tired and I am going to the toilet what feels like every ten minutes. Especially bad on these freezing cold nights. My back aches and my hands and feet are all swollen and are often tingly. It’s called carpal tunnel syndrome apparently, it’s common enough and no harm to baby or me but fairly unpleasant. I am so looking forward to not being pregnant. I am also so looking forward to meeting the baby and feeding her and holding her and all those things. The waiting is killing me. We saw the midwife yesterday and all is good. Heartbeat is nice and strong and baby is positioned well for birth. Just needs to happen now. Please.

The other thing I am so over is the election. I usually keep myself pretty informed politically and often find it quite interesting but at the moment I have pretty much just shut off. I find it all so depressing. The way they all just attack and attack and attack, it feels like watching the ancient Roman Gladiators and the media feeds off it like vultures. Not to mention I get really down about the fact that on most of the issues that are really important to me the two major parties do not differ overly. I feel like perhaps Labor tried but we still live in a very fearful, materialistic and not very compassionate Australia and they are now bowing down to the very worst in us rather than encouraging the best. The Greens are still trying I guess and there are some great candidates in the party but as a whole I am not convinced they are fully ready to lead the country, not that, that’s a possibility anyway, and they can behave as equally aggressive and bitter. Sometimes I wonder if a benevolent dictatorship really is the way to go and I start to despair about bringing a child into such a world. So I guess I am becoming another fairly uninformed Australian and perhaps I will not use my vote as wisely as I could but for the benefit of my spirit and my soul and the desire to be positive about the world I will be raising my child in, I have tuned out.

It was a busy weekend and I have taken a few days to recover from it I must say. I get very tired pretty easily these days. I am trying to rest up but I am also pretty uncomfortable so sleeping isn’t that easy either. It is almost impossible to find a comfortable position.

Anyway the weekend was great none the less. I have mentioned in a few posts of late the racism that exists in this town and that is true but there are also lots of people trying to do different things about it and on the weekend we participated in a few events. Firstly, we attended a forum put on by the Islamic community in Alice Springs at the mosque. It was titled, “getting to know each other” and there were a few speakers who spoke a bit about Islam and culture etc etc but also just a lot of chatting and “getting to know each other”. The community provided wonderful hospitality and food and we felt very welcomed by them. It was also very informative for me and I learned a lot. I was also really pleased at the diversity of the town who showed up and participated.

We also attended an event in honour of it being 51 years since Albert Namatjira’s death at the cultural centre. There were paintings to look at, choirs singing, people telling their stories as well as we got a sneak preview of a few scenes from the Belvoir play Namitjira that will begin in Sydney in September. If you can you should go and see it. I think it will be excellent. Archie Roach was also there and played some songs. However, the nicest things about it again was the diversity of the community that attended. So often it feels like events in Alice are attended by either white fellas or black fellas. Not this though, there were people there from the entire community. It had a really lovely feel to it.