Lucy Rose

Born 25/9/2003

Mum - Anne,

Dad - Mark

Big Brother – Ned (14/8/2001)

There was something very reassuring about knowing exactly what was going to happen, and when it was going to happen. I had discussed the birth with my obstetrician, and he had recommended I have another c-section.

Ned was born after days of home labour with a midwife, pain and frustration, a transfer to hospital an epidural and a c-section. I was so tired by the time I reached the hospital that I wanted someone else to do it all, conk me over the head and hand me the baby, which is pretty much what happened really. I had been terrified by the idea of surgery, but when it all happened I was very calm. Baby Ned was in great shape, feeding was a breeze, and I recovered quickly and got home in 4 days.

Mark and I and the two grandmothers arrived at the hospital for my early morning appointment. I’d had a great night’s sleep and joked with Mark in the waiting room about how much fresher we were both feeling than with the last birth. We waited for ages, filled in the usual forms and were eventually ushered to a nice room on the Maternity Ward. I got into the robe and took off my toenail polish with the acetone a nurse fetched for me. Everyone flapped around fetching coffees and muffins and newspapers while I unpacked my huge bag of baby and mummy stuff.

I was looking forward to a few days of sleep and rest, with someone else doing all the cooking and cleaning. I was particularly looking forward to changing a tiny co-operative babies nappies, instead of wrestling a 14kg toddler to the ground while hugely pregnant.

Days before I had been to the hospital to give a blood sample and talk to the anaesthetist about the procedure. After loads of paperwork, and endless visits to the doctor, I was so ready to see my baby.

I was fitted with a canula in my right hand, and popped onto a trolley bed, it was suddenly time. Everybody at RPA was very friendly, and I did not feel nervous at all. Mark was ushered out of the theatre ante room while I had my spinal anaesthetic, they rolled me onto my side, washed my back and shot a local anaesthetic in first, then warned me to remain perfectly still while the big needle went in. This bit was a bit scary, I was glad Mark was not there to see me looking so apprehensive. I could hear and smell another operation going on while I waited, and I lifted my head up to read the surgery list. Someone was getting warts burned off, and that was what I could smell. How revolting!

I was nervous as I entered the operating theatre. I could still move my feet, and I could still feel them a bit, I was really worried that they would start cutting me when I could still feel it. Before they put the covering sheet up, I could see my abdomen’s reflection in the large overhead light. I could not help watching as they shaved my body and washed it down with iodine. You feel a bit like a bit of meat on that slab, its cold and nobody talks to you much. Dr Sutherland arrived and greeted me, so I knew things must be about to begin.

Mark had returned and was wearing the surgical gown and silly hat like all the other people in the room. I had forgotten that you actually CAN feel the operation in some ways, it is rather frightening though there is no pain, you feel tugging and pulling, they push down on you and talk in low quick voices.

To ease the tension I said to Mark in a dramatic tone “Just look what I go through to bear your child darling… I wouldn’t do this for anyone else you know. ”

When baby came out, they brought her around the curtain and showed us that we had a little girl. She was screaming with a sound of absolute outrage, and Mark took a short video of her, pale and soft and a bit bloody, screaming on a pile of cotton blankets. I smiled at her and said “hello Rose”. I changed my mind the next day and called her Lucy.

I had no idea until I knew Lucy was a girl that I had longed to have a little girl. I felt so lucky. There is this whole new layer of parenting that you discover when you have a second child. Most people have two or one (or none!) kids these days, so there is often a real longing to have one of each sex. People even ask how you did it!

The pediatrics team checked Lucy over quickly and wrapped her up and handed her to Mark. We were able to admire her and get a couple of photos while they stitched me up. The stitching seemed to take a long time, Dr Sutherland removed the old scar and did a nice job putting it all back together.

Lucy looked so cute, I fell in love in a heartbeat. She looked a lot like Ned, but with a thatch of dark hair. Feelings of nostalgia for his first few days washed over me.

I was taken to recovery for a short while, before being returned to my room to wait for Lucy and Mark and the happy grandmothers. Except for the joy of falling in love with a baby again, the rest of the day is blurry, I had been given morphine, and there were phone calls and visits and breastfeeds, but it is all rather fuzzy.

This second time of having a new baby has been so different. Lucy is an avid deep sleeper, she is quite happy to amuse herself for long periods of time. She sleeps beside me, and wriggles up next to me, grunting and thrashing her arms when she wants me. She’s growing plump and round on my milk, and seems happy and content. Her dad is also madly in love, and Ned can’t keep his hands off her.

The biggest difference this time is in me, I spend less time fretting and worrying, I enjoy her more, and that ghastly period of adjusting your thinking from being self-centred to being child-centred is missing, because I have been in that mode for years now.

I was home from hospital in four days, and settled into the baby life again, though this time I have my active little boy as well, and he is very happy to help mum out when she has too much milk!!