The Five Little Ducks Blog

As Baby J’s due date approached, I found myself checking off all the commitments that I had put into the diary over the past weeks and months when I had wondered whether I would really be able to attend any of them. Play group Christmas party? Check. Thank you event? Check. Sunday school helper? Check. Aldi shop? Check. Mr E’s Christmas concert? Check.

Meanwhile, I was constantly met with “you still here?” and Daddy Duck’s colleagues greeted him with “no baby yet?”

The day after my due date, a registrar at the hospital booked me in for an induction (with my history of big babies and dramatic labours, the hospital staff were not keen to allow me to go far past 40 weeks). The registrar performed a sweep of the membranes with the hope of softening the cervix. I was told to anticipate some light bleeding and discomfort.

I felt period pain like cramps as soon as I left the hospital to go home in the late afternoon. My mother and I decided that we should have take-away at her house. The children were happily playing in Grandma’s backyard with Aunty N and cousin I (visiting from the country) so I chose to drive to the local Charcoal Chicken shop to buy our dinner. Through all this time, my cramps continued, especially whenever I stood.

Mr E and Miss R stayed at Grandma’s house to have a sleep over in the tent. Once Miss A and Miss L were asleep in their beds at home, Daddy Duck noticed that my pains were getting stronger. “Do you want me to stay home tomorrow?” he asked. “No, it’s fine.” I responded. “I don’t think I am actually in labour.”

He began timing the pains and noticed that they were fifteen minutes apart. I remained in denial about being in labour all evening, adamant that I could go to bed, have a good night’s sleep and perhaps commence labour the next day.

Close to 1 am, Daddy Duck awoke and began timing my pains again. He told me that they were seven minutes apart and he decided to ask my mother to come over and mind the girls so that we could go to the hospital. “It’s too soon!” I argued, but called Birthing Unit to inform them that we were on our way.

My parents arrived some time later fully dressed. “You didn’t have to get dressed,” I told my mum. “I went to bed like this,” she said. As Daddy Duck and I prepared to get into the car to leave, my father stopped us to ask about whether my mother knew how to locate cereal and bowls for the girls’ breakfast. “I’ll figure it out,” Mum responded, a little exasperated. I interjected, “Dad, I am in pain and I really have to go to the hospital now.”

With no traffic on the road, our journey was quick and parking was ample. As a nurse was pushing me in a wheelchair through the quiet hospital corridors from the Emergency Department to Birthing Unit, I felt foolish. ‘All this fuss for Braxton Hix,’ I thought to myself. When the midwife saw how close together my contractions were, she decided to move me straight to a birthing suite. She performed an internal examination and told me that my cervix was three centimetres dilated. I lay on the bed on my side unable to move; the contractions so close together that there was barely any reprieve. After the second offer of pain relief, I accepted the gas. Breathing deeply, I soon passed into another world. I concentrated all my effort on sucking the gas in dep and blowing it out hard, all the while counting, counting. Internally, I was sobbing, desperate for it to be over. Occasionally I heard a loud groan, then realised that it was me. At some stage I was faintly aware of Daddy Duck removing my glasses, watch and rings. I heard him say that my waters had broken and very soon after the strong urge to push took over. One hour had passed since I had entered the delivery suite when a screaming, vernix covered baby boy was placed on my chest. The gas was taken away and my head began to clear. The cord was cut and the placenta pulled out; and while the intense labour pains had ended, afterbirth pains continued as I breastfed Baby J and an Oxytocin drip ensured that I would not haemorrhage again. Baby J weighed 3.6 kilograms and he was 50 centimetres long. My smallest baby.

So much is foggy in my mind. Eventually I told Daddy Duck to go home and get some sleep. I cannot remember if Baby J slept in my arms or in the hospital bassinet. I tried to sleep. Nurses came into the room so infrequently that I thought to myself that I could die there and nobody would notice until it was too late. Finally I was moved to the maternity ward around 10am and I looked forward to having Daddy Duck bring all the children to visit. Unfortunately, visiting hours were only between 3-8pm so I had to go out to the waiting room to see my husband, mother and children. Mr E and Miss R were the most excited to see their new brother; Miss A and Miss L seemed more pleased to see me. Every time that Daddy Duck visited me, he was more overwhelmed and to be quite frank; looked hungover.

My hospital stay was at times lonely with such limited visiting hours but I took to resting like it was a competitive sport. I was completely aware of how little rest I would get upon returning home, so I thoroughly enjoyed (as much as I could ‘enjoy’ anything while in pain) reading and napping in between feeding Baby J. A kind midwife (or a sweet angel from Heaven in disguise) read my file and saw that I had lots of young children at home, so she took Baby J in between his feeds on the first night. On the second night I was in it alone. A midwife asked how I was after midnight and I blearily responded that I hadn’t slept yet and I was tired. “Welcome to motherhood” she stated nonchalantly. When I did fall asleep I had a nightmare about a police officer taking Baby J away from me and saying that Community Services were going to take all of my children into foster care. How I howled in my dream, trying to explain that the children needed to stay with me. Clearly I did not get enough sleep that night because at breakfast time come morning I accidentally poured a packet of sugar all over my scrambled eggs.

The thought of going home made me anxious. “No rush!” I emphasised on the day I was to be discharged. I imagined how busy I would be, a baby crying and needing to be fed, the cleaning I would have to do, the fights that would need to be broken up, all the stress… but I did miss my husband and family. As I took a shower, rested some more and ate lunch, I felt as if my energy and capability were returning, and I knew I was going to be OK. A friend from church (the same friend who had organised some ladies to clean my house that morning) minded the children so that Daddy Duck could collect me and Baby J without our circus act in tow.

That night we decorated our Christmas tree as a family while I alternated between feeding and rocking Baby J. The children ate corn chips, buttered bread and milk for dinner. Healthy, I know. I spent a few sleepless hours trying to settle Baby J into his bassinet during the first night before I surrendered to co-sleeping and have happily shared my bed with him every night since. I wake up fairly refreshed most mornings and am quickly surrounded by all the children, vying for a prized position next to Mum or wanting a cuddle of the baby as I sit up to breastfeed.

Baby J seems to be settling into a nice rhythm of feeding and sleeping during the day. He is dearly loved and cherished by all of his siblings (at times, loved a little too dearly, and I have to take him off the breast just to allow the children their turns at a cuddle). The trickiest moments seem to be in the transition times in the mornings and evenings when I need to get him back to sleep and there are four other children needing to get dressed or be fed or have their teeth brushed (they are not particularly patient).

So far, our transition to life with five children appears to be going fairly well. It is tiring and I am aware of how I truly am ‘on call’ twenty-four hours a day. There is a lot more that I would like to say about life with five children under the age of five, but you shall have to wait for the next chapter (Don’t hold your breath though, I am a little strapped for writing time…).