I have been itching to put fingers to keyboard to tell the humble beginnings of our young Jude while it's all still fresh. I hope that in future we can look back at each birthday and say "Well, at 4.17 this morning, you were born..." with some level of certainty in what actually transpired leading up to his birth. Also, people are still saying to me that it was so unfortunate that Ruth had a c-section (cos we wanted natural!), and I was like "what you talkin bout willis?" Ruth had a totally natural birth! So, I give you "The First Epistle of Jude According to Trav".
Chapter 1.
1 It all began in the early hours of a summery Tuesday morning in Perth, in the "new West Perth" suburb known as "Maddington" or "The Maddeaux" (pronounced "Maddo"). The date was the 19th January, one day after my bet that Jude would be born (I lost a lot of money on that, Jude..). It was so hot that night that we were sleeping under the air con on the couch in the living room but it was playing up a bit and turning off in the middle of the night causing Ruth no small discomfort. I had probably played some fifa 10 or modern warfare 2 for a couple of minutes before bed to sooth me into sweet game filled sleep and I believe we had both fallen asleep around midnight.
2 Jude was, by this stage, overdue by 5 days (14/01/2010 was the expected date) and Ruth was heavily pregnant and getting uncomfortable. It's a weird feeling when the due date passes because you have this date that you're expecting a baby to be there by... and it's not there... and every day that passes is another day you're wondering why this "expected date" was getting further into the past without a baby - what are we doing wrong!? Perhaps like when it's your birthday and you're expecting all these presents on the day, but nothing comes! Then they come days later and were wondering if you had been naughty? PS mum I still remember the time that you went to josh's school camp in Rotto and noone remembered it was my birthday and I got up, had breaky alone, rode to school and came home without such much as a "happy birthday" on my birthday :) I forgive you, Josh was your favourite, but it's anyone's game these days and I think I have the upper hand ;) Where was I, ooh also the family birth centre (FBC) has a policy that they will only take natural births there from 3 weeks before and 2 weeks after the expected date otherwise they send you on to King Edwards so we were desperately trying to make sure it would happen, although there was very little we could do!
3 At around 2.30am on the 19th, a slightly excited but distressed wife woke me up saying it had started! She had had some contractions and super travio husband mode kicked in and I quickly downloaded a stopwatch app for my phone (making sure it had at least a 4.5 star rating, there were a couple with good stars, but bad comments that I steered clear of obviously) and started timing the contractions using the "lap" function of the stopwatch (ingenious you say? elementary my dear readers...). We called up the FBC straight away and got Naomi who told us to just monitor them for a while and see if they were building. At the start, we were clocking them around 7 minutes apart, then 6, then 5 but they kinda petered out ("Peter, just Peter.." only a select few would have heard my "Peter" rendition of MJs "Beat it" and understand that) so we called up the FBC again and they told Ruth to try to get some rest and see how it goes on the morrow. We were pretty disappointed because the contractions had gotten to the stage where we could have nearly come in to the FBC, but then had just fizzled. We took their advice though and tried to get some sleep but it was pretty hard.
4. I remember waking early the next morning excited that it would all be oooon but Ruth was only having sparse contractions, nothing in the 5 minute apart zone, so we were bitterly disappointed. We had no petrol (well, gas) so I quickly ducked out to the gasso just in case, refilled, picked up some twisties and salt & vinegar chips and some iced teas on request, then grabbed a maccas breakfast for us both and headed back. I called in sick to work saying I was looking after Ruth, nothing more and stayed with Ruth all day but the contractions were few and far between. We hadn't told a soul at this stage that Ruth was starting labour as I didn't want to put any pressure on her, having the chinese whispers combined with the fully operational church grapevine (is "chinavine" offensive? do I have to call it a Grass Tree Vine?) calling us congratulating us on birth of our new baby elephant before we even knew. And no, it was a regular baby boy if you are confused at this point! Mum had even used her spidey senses and messaged asking how Ruth was going, but we coyly replied that we were still just waiting. I get the feeling that there are emotional things that effect childbirth so I was trying to give it the best chance even though we were screaming to tell people it was starting!
5. Night fell on the 19th January and by 8pm, the contractions had started taking hold again. We were later told this was the real start of her labour. I helped Ruth get through the early ones by breathing with her and keeping absolutely still (they can smell fear). She later had a spa bath which kept her relaxed and was quiet enough for me to have a few rounds of 20 minute a side fifa 10 which I never win on professional. I look back on the early contractions with fondness as it only gets much worse from there :) They seem like playful tickles by the end of it, but you find the strength to get through it all! We kept in close contact with the FBC and by 11.30, they told us to come in for a checkup to see how things were going. I was excited but I thought it probably wasn't the night and was just trying to keep a lid on it just in case we had to go home. We had prayed that the labour would be quick and that everything would go alright.
6. The drive in to the FBC in Subiaco was really exciting. I tried not to get too anxious or excited driving, but I was probably doing 10 over most of the way on albany highway and ran a few (safe) red lights although this is totally denyable in a court of law as I am currently under duress and under the age of 18. I think we dropped off two videos on the way in :) Fan Boys, terrible 1/2 star and Simedawg Millionaire 4 1/2 stars. We may have gotten flashed by a speed trap just where that ferris wheel is but it looked more like the flash of a camera trying to capture Jude moments before he was born. In any case, we're not paying for the photos, thankyou!
7. We were so happy when we reached the FBC to find that Naomi was on shift that night! She was one of the midwives we had during our first visits and we actually secretly wanted her to deliver the baby. Don't get me wrong, everyone at the FBC are great but there are people you just click with and are really comfortable with, and she was one of them. At this stage it was about 12am on the 20th Jan and Ruth was about 4cm (yes, tall...). Ruth was comfy in the shower which is where we ended up having our little boy. So after an 8 hour labour or so, our boy Jude was born at 4.17am. Naomi was excellent, so calm, helpful, friendly and professional. She was kind of my strength which is why I can't praise them enough, and I was Ruth's strength.
8. Ruth ended up needing some repairs which made it necessary for us to be moved to King Edwards instead, which is unfortunate, but ended up being a bit of a blessing as Ruth was able to stay for a couple more nights and I was able to get some rest and blogging done ;) I feel privilidged to have had the opportunity to have Jude for at least 2 afters while Ruth was in theatre, that was very special.
Hope you enjoyed the read and I'll be putting more pictures up when I have them. I've got a video of us putting Jude into his carseat and taking him home today (well, yesterday) which was really special. Josh will have something of when we arrived at home with him so stay posted. Really enjoying this time with our little boy! :)
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