Life was just beginning, I just got a big loan out for a hot new car, me and Graham had plans to visit America and then get a house together, I was feeling great about myself and was aiming for a career as a promo girl... This was the start of 2010. It was gonna be a good year! I really didn't have a clue how different it was going to be....
I found out I was pregnant on Monday the 25th of January 2010. It explained why I had been so ill and missed my auditions for the promo work I wanted!! The hardest thing I had to do was call Graham and tell him. You see, Blake was not expected, we'd spoke about having children in a few years but had lots we wanted to do first, however life doesn't always go to plan, and good things happen when you least expect it!
It didn't take me very long to come round to the idea of being a mummy, after all that is what we are here for right?! It took Graham that little while longer, it was a tough couple of months but then I heard some body ask him if he was excited and to my utter shock, he said yes a little bit! He had finally come round to the idea of being a daddy and was looking forwards to it! He was absolutely amazing through pregnancy, he coped with me fidgeting and moaning and waking him up in the night, he rubbed cream into my belly most night and helped me as I got bigger and lost a little bit of my independence.
We got the first scan through, why do them first few weeks seem to drag so much?? On the 15th of March 2010 it was confirmed there was only 1 baby, all seemed well and I was exactly 13 weeks gone, making my due date the 20th September 2010.
The next scan date came through for 19 and a half weeks. I was so incredibly anxious, I really wanted the baby to be a boy, for Graham. This was hard enough for him and I really felt if he had a boy to look forwards to the next few months would be that bit easier!! We went for the scan, this time my mum came along too. The midwife pointed out something on the screen and told us it was a boy, we took her word for it as none of us could see what on earth she was going on about!
At 31 weeks pregnant I had prepared to walk the race for life for cancer research. On the day of the race I woke up with sickness and diarrhea. I tried to ignore it, forced myself out of bed drank pint after pint of water, but I wasn't going any where! I was gutted, felt like a complete failure!! I went back to Graham's house to sleep and woke up in agony. I thought I'd slept funny, or maybe the baby was lying funny, i managed to get comfy and go back to sleep. Again I woke up feeling worse, I continued this right the way through to the next morning until I called the hospital and they told me to come in. They suspected something was wrong with my appendix but couldn't seem to figure out what. I had to stay the night. I was getting worked up and stressed, this was my last week at work. I had to be there! As the week went on I got put onto a different ward so they could observe me and my bump closer. I was taking pain killers as often as I could to ease this pain. What ever it was, my little baby wasn't helping things by kicking me in the exact place where the pain was!!!
They couldn't send me for an x-ray as it would have put my baby at risk and they couldn't seem to find it on a normal scan, eventually, on the Thursday, I went into one of them giant loud tunnels for an MRI scan. THE scariest thing ever, I really did fear for my babies life and that was the hardest and worst feeling in the world! They found the problem straight away! It was an abscess the size of my fist growing on my appendix. By Thursday evening I had gone down to have the abscess drained and within a couple of hours I was feeling so much better, all I wanted to do was go home, and go to work for my final day on the Friday! I had no chance they weren't letting me go any where! I ended up staying over the weekend, I missed my last week at work, 2 friends birthday parties and graham had to view a house by himself. Finally on the Monday afternoon they let me go!!!
The next few weeks were hectic, we found a house, bought stuff to fill the house and moved in. We spent the first night together in our own little house on the 3rd August 2010. It was lovely having our own place, we had wanted to get one later in the year but thought we'd get alot more time alone than we did, we had 6 weeks til the baby was due. The longest, most boring 6 weeks in my life!!! I had my 21st birthday, I never thought I'd spend my 21st being 38 weeks pregnant!!
On my due date 20/09/10 I got this funny feeling in my back at 5.17pm. I checked the time but didn't say anything. I got it again at 5.23pm. It didn't hurt, just felt weird. It came back every 7-8 mins. After a couple of hours I was pretty sure this was the start of something so told Graham to go to bed and get an early night. I spoke to the midwives and they said I was in slow labour! At about midnight they had got quite regular, every 3 minutes so I woke Graham up and we headed over to Nottingham Queens Medical Centre Hospital. Only to find my mum and dad had followed us, this was not at all what I wanted, it made me feel nervous and uncomfortable and then my contractions went all over the place. I was examined and I was 2cm dilated, they said i could stay but i wanted to go home and get some sleep. I didn't really sleep, just drifted in and out. Eventually around 530-6am ish I got out of bed as my contractions were becoming intense, still irregular timings but holy crap they hurt!!
I manged til about 8am without Graham and then he had to get up, I'd had enough and wanted pain relief. Despite me saying in my birth plan I didn't want any I had completely changed my mind at this point! We got to hospital around 1030am!! My contractions were close, i managed a few steps before collapsing onto the hospital car park floor! They examined me and I was 8cm dilated. Time to run my bath... I wanted a water birth. It seemed to take forever. By this point I had had one toot on the gas and air and then chickened out and decided to do it alone!! I suddenly felt the need to go for a wee. Once I sat on the toilet I changed my mind, I wanted to be sick... Just as I bent over to throw up - my waters burst!!! By now there was no dignity left. There i was on all fours with my head down the loo, completely naked, now covered in blood and gunk!!! Not a pretty site, i really wanted to get in the water!!
The midwife checked my babies heart beat and it had dropped - that was it, no water birth for me, it was on the bed and a case of pushing!!! Graham was amazing, I had expected him to have passed out or done a runner on me by this point, but he was holding my hands, wiping my face, telling me how well I was doing and that he loved me, just occasionally looking down and telling me he could see his head!!!
At 11.25am I took one last push and Blake seemed to fly out. He was all floppy and I just remember taking one look and saying 'oh no' i closed my eyes and within that split second i heard him cry and oh what a beautiful cry it was, i looked up at Graham and he was crying and that set me off. It really was the most magical moment. Very surreal. Everything seemed like a fairy tale. Blake was handed to me. He was beautiful (yet all new borns are ugly) but to me he was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen and we had created him... Wow!!
Graham popped out the room to tell our parents who were waiting outside, apparently he just bawled his eyes out. How cute! It never really sank in that I was now a mummy. It still hasn't now. I look at him every day and I'm amazed at how beautiful he is and that hes ours!!!
You really don't know what love is until you become a parent.
xxxxxxx Blake xxxxxxx
