This story comes from Sharon, a fellow blogger, mother and a friend of mine. Sharon struggled with infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss for over 7 years, which included 2 surgeries, countless timed and medicated cycles, numerous IUI’s (Inter Uterine Insemination’s) 4 fresh IVF’s (Invitro Fertilization),one Frozen Embryo Transfer & 7 first trimester miscarriages. She finally became a mother after her and Walter decided to pursue adoption. They were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Ava-Grace, just 3 short weeks after starting the adoption process. This is their birth story.
Sunday, 13th December 2009, started out like any other, well almost. I’d woken up early and was sitting in my Dad’s study, about to start writing a blog posting about our meeting with our birth mum that had happened on Saturday evening. The meeting had been amazing. I LOVE our birth mum, she’ smart, intelligent, funny, loving, strong and very very very brave. Both Walter and I were feeling a million times better and a million times more confident after meeting her. I’d just dialled into my parents connection when my cell phone rang, it was 05h50 and it was our social worker and this is what she said:
“I told you I know my job! *Irene is in labour, contractions are 10 minutes apart. Take your time but get to the hospital as soon as you can.”
I went racing down the passage, flung open the bedroom door and yelled at Walter to get his ass out of bed. He did what all men with a woman in labour do, he got this wild look in his eyes and started to panic. We did not take our time, we rushed out of the house and got to the hospital an hour after our social workers call. Our social worker was waiting for us and she informed us that our birth mom was only 1cm dilated and it was still going to be a while, that we should leave, go have some breakfast and she’d call us to come back when the time came.
Just after 9am she sent me a message to say we should come quickly. We’d been wondering around the shopping mall trying to find the perfect gift for our birth mom. We’d eventually settled on a Pandora bracelet and charms and had carefully selected the charms that signified the miracle unfolding in front of us. We also liked the memory beads as it made it possible for us to add goodies to the bracelet with each defining moment in Ava’s life.
Just as we arrived back at the hospital, our social worker called me to come into the birth room. I was totally overwhelmed by the pain our brave birth mom was in. She was in full active labour and there were almost no breaks in between contractions. All I could do was cry each time she was gripped by another painful contraction. This brave woman gave birth without any pain medication. Between the social worker and I we took turns in holding her hand as she writhed from the contractions. Each time I was holding her hand, when the pain became unbearable, she’d bite me on my thumb and stare into my eyes, after the birth, she told me she was doing that to send me a message, to tell me how she was doing this for us, for our Ava. About 10 minutes after I was called into the birthing room she started shouting she needed to push. The social worker quickly went to call some nurses to assist in the delivery. That’s when things got really interesting. I started to panic and had an overwhelming sense that I wanted to vomit, I ended up having to put myself in the corner and give myself a little pep talk and tell myself to get a grip! The nurses went to call Walter as our birth mom wanted him to witness our child’s birth too but he most past out just standing at the door listening to the moans of our birth mother. He refused to come in and said he’d rather stand at the door and wait for the baby’s birth and I’m glad he did.
 |
| Sharon and Ava today - a gorgeous pair |
For starters, there was no dignity in the situation for our wonderful birth mom and despite her assurances that he could be there, I’m not sure either of them would have been comfortable. Secondly, Walter is fairly squeamish, he couldn’t even assist me with an IVF injection, so I reckon he would have passed out at some point during the birth.
This is where is got interesting and things started to happen really fast. There were two nurses in the room, each one supporting our BM’s legs and feet to help her brace for pushing. The nurses were wonderfully talking her through each push, explaining when she had to push and when not to push to avoid tearing. After only a couple of pushes, they were calling me to stand at the base of the bed and see the baby’s head start to emerge. It was amazing to see, all I could see what this tuft of very dark straight hair. Our BM was a trooper and in a matter of minutes the rest of the baby’s body simply slipped out. I was SO in awe of what I’d witnessed that I didn’t hear the nurses say it’s a girl. I only realized it was a girl when our birth mom took my hand and said to me: ” Look Sharon, it’s your daughter”. I start crying every time I think about that beautiful gesture. I will love this woman forever because of what she’s given us. That was when the nurse handed me a set of clippers and I cut Ava’s umbilical cord!
Within seconds Ava had been cleaned off and handed to me to take her outside to show Walter. I could barely see her I was crying so much. And when Walter saw her, he too was completely overcome with emotion and the two of us had a good sob. She was then whisked off to the nursery to get weighted etc. She weighted 2.9kg’s, was 49cm in length and had a 34cm head circumference. Her Agpar scores were 9 & 10 . The nurses dressed her and brought her back to me and by this time our amazing birth mom was showered and dressed and sitting with me. Walter went to buy her some KFC because all she was craving was a coke and some junk food. We had a great chat and spent a little more time getting to know each other.
 |
| Walter, Sharon and little baby Ava |
And just like that, our 7+ year journey of heartache and family creation ended with the birth of our beautiful daughter.
Sharon has since adopted another gorgeous little girl, Hannah. Ava is loving being a big sister and I'm so happy for this beautiful family. Read more about their adventures on her blog.
 |
| Ava today, completely in love with being a big sister |
 |
| Hannah (baby) and Ava today. How incredibly beautiful are they? |
To help another couple to become a family, you can become an egg donor. A relatively easy and rewarding process - read more about it here.
I'm completely overwhelmed by the enormous support on this series, and there are loads more coming. I'd like to hear from my readers. If you would like to share your birth story on Raising Men, then please mail me typingaugust at gmail . com.
No comments:
Post a Comment