Dear Matthew, Toby and.... JOSIE!!!
Welcome to the Keene Kids club, Josie! I am gobsmacked that you are here, a beautiful little girl to complete our family. I'm going to post your birth story that I shared to my birthing community below, but first I just wanted you to know how much we all love you and your brothers and are over the moon that you are here safe and sound (it was quite an epic adventure to get you here!). I can't describe how happy I am and how I feel so complete with you joining us. You are just magical. I can't wait to get to know you bubba. Here's how you to came to us (71 hours from start to finish!):
'Three years after my second baby, I’m pregnant with a baby I’ve grown during a global pandemic, while homeschooling my oldest, looking after my toddler, working from home for the equivalent of three day’s a week, studying my Masters and trying to keep the kids quiet all day while my lawyer-husband works from our bedroom in our tiny house. The actual pregnancy is the last thing on my mind and I enter a state of semi-denial as I just don’t want to think about adding to the chaos that is 2020, even though I'm also excited and happy to be having bub number three. I have the same wonderful private midwife who tells me that that’s fine, my body will make and birth this baby despite me not wanting to think about it because evolution has allowed this to happen! 40 weeks rolls around and I’m convinced this baby is a 42 weeker (further evidence of my denial!) so am shocked to go into prelabour in the evening of my due date. I experience a long prelabour again (it ended up being around 66 hours in total, with about 5 in active labour) and have a cry to my midwife that I think history is repeating itself. She tells me nothing is written yet, to stop thinking and just let my body do what it needs to do. I agree and overnight my tightenings keep coming in waves about every 8 minutes. I would wake up to one, stand up and walk around to get through it, then fall straight back asleep until the next one started eight minutes later. It was exhausting but I just let my body do it’s thing and by the time the morning came my tightenings were getting even closer together. I was meant to have an appointment at the hospital that morning but given my situation this was cancelled and my midwife visited me at home. She said I was 3-4cm, baby was not in distress, to keep doing what I was doing at home until I couldn’t anymore and then she’d meet us at the hospital. Our older boys were at school and my parents’ house so my husband and I worked as a team to get through the contractions, which were coming every 2-3 minutes at this point. He distracted me by talking about boy names for our team green baby as we still hadn’t decided on one yet (but had had a girl name picked out for months) and by about 1pm I asked to get in the shower as I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. In the shower he helped me breath through the contractions by counting them for me and kept insisting we go to hospital. I knew I needed to wait at home as long as possible as I’d be on the clock as soon as I rocked up to hospital so stalled as long as I could. By 1:30pm I agreed we should go, and I’m so glad I didn’t wait any longer! We called our midwife to say we were heading in and asked her to meet us there. During the ride the contractions upped themselves again and I was screaming and groaning through them (my lovely husband was getting worried about a birth on the side of the freeway at this point!). Made it to hospital, got a birth suite sorted and again just attempted to get through each contraction. I refused continuous fetal monitoring and a cannula being inserted. My midwife said I was about 6-7cm at this point. I started using the gas heavily as I was struggling with the pain. The screaming upped and my body just took over. It felt like I could barely get a rest between contractions and sitting down was not an option during them so my husband spent most of his time pulling me up to standing and me clenching his hands (he told me later that at one point I had both his hands and he was sure I was about to break his thumb but knew he shouldn’t say anything). Eventually I couldn’t stand any longer and collapsed on the bed, attempting to still use the gas (it did nothing at this point though) and just screaming through each contraction. I begged for my midwife to make it stop, that I was over it and wanted it all done now, but she ignored my pleas (like I had told her to) and just encouraged me to keep going, as did my husband. My waters broke (which was a huge relief as I hated feeling that pressure) and they were meconium-stained but bub was still ok so I just kept going. By about 9.5cm I felt the urge to push. From memory I still had a little lip on my cervix so my midwife just asked me to do what I needed to do, but didn’t encourage me to push. I couldn’t help it and just bared down. The lip eventually shifted and my midwife and husband then started really encouraging me to push. I knew I couldn’t push for too long given my scar (the hospital had said an hour’s pushing was the maximum they’d prefer given the pressure the scar would be under for any additional length of time) and so I gave it everything I had. I was lying flat on my back which I knew wasn’t ideal but it’s the only position I could manage. The best news was hearing my midwife say she could see the baby’s head and my husband looked and was in awe. This motivated me to keep going and with every push I attempted to maintain the push through lots of quick breaths without stopping the baring down. The baby’s head eventually came out and I could hear my husband say he couldn’t believe it, to keep going etc, so I did a few more strong pushes and out baby slid just after 6pm, after a total of only 20 minutes of pushing! Bub was put straight onto my chest for skin to skin and covered in a blanket for warmth. I could not believe what had just happened and just cuddled bub for a little while, on a complete high! Eventually I decided to check the gender and went into complete shock that our team green baby was actually team pink (I had been expecting a third boy). My husband said my face was hilarious at this point when I said ‘oh my god she’s got a vagina’ and he couldn’t believe it either so checked himself! This was our last baby and we felt doubly lucky to get a VBA2C and the opposite gender to our older kids. We had delayed cord clamping, hours of skin on skin and baby-led breastfeeding.
Half an hour after my daughters birth my midwife asked me to start the physiological stage three however I didn’t want to deal with any more pain so she gave me the injection and helped the placenta out. We looked over it and it all looked great. Unfortunately at this point my midwife needed to check me for tearing and said I had some and that she’s need a second opinion to see what needs to be done. The hospital luckily had an experienced surgeon who assessed me and said I had a third degree tear and she recommended surgery otherwise I had a 50% chance of suffering incontinence of my bowels. This was hard to hear as I didn’t want to leave my new baby, but I knew I had to get the surgery done ASAP. So I fed bub for two hours straight, handed her to daddy then went to surgery. I insisted on a spinal tap to make sure I could get back to bub as quickly as possible. Surgery went well and luckily bub just slept the whole time with her dad (it had been a big day for her too!). Recovery has still been so much better than recovery after my Caesarians.'
Josie, you were named after your fraternal great grandmother (your Nanna's mum, Josephine) and your middle name, Ruth, is Ma Ma's middle name. You were born at 40+3, weighing 3.78kg and 54cm long. You are perfect, baby girl. We are so very glad you're here!!
Also - see my favourite photo below of Matt meeting you in the car (we weren't allowed visitors in the hospital due to the pandemic). It is gorgeous, you are so happy Matt! Tobes you'll be able to see that you're in the background sound asleep- you didn't meet your baby sister until around midnight that night when you woke up in bed with us next to you!
Love you all, my three beautiful Keene Kids!
Mum xxx
