What the Henkel, Padawan?

This concludes the baby preparation portion of our blog!

We were very surprised to have our little girl arrive a month earlier than expected. Adrienne Shand was born at 10:46am on May 23rd. My water broke shortly after 11pm on the 22nd when I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed. I called my sister to find out if what I was experiencing was just poor bladder control or the real deal. It kept happening about every 2 minutes, so Erik rushed around getting a bag ready and drove me to the hospital. The strange thing was, I wasn’t in pain at all. No pain, no contractions. Come to find out later, that the extreme back pain that I had been experiencing during the week was actually an indication of premature labour. Everyone (including my midwife) just thought it was regular back pain since I’ve had a bad back since junior high. Once there, they told us that they would not release me and the baby would have to be born within 48 hours no matter what. They hooked me up to some monitors and an antibiotic IV, just because there was an increased risk of infection for the baby. No one ever told me why I went into premature labour, just telling me that she was ready to come out.

The staff of Danderyds sjukhus was amazing! Everyone made a point of speaking English to me and were all super supportive. We were suppose to have a doula with us during the birth, but because everything happened so fast, we had to do it without her. I’m actually happy that we didn’t have a doula since it gave Erik and I some down time to process what was happening. I was able to give birth naturally with some help of massage, a birthing ball, changing positions often and some beloved laughing gas. The pain was not at all what I expected. I thought that I was going to need the epidural, morphine, etc. (whatever they were offering, I was open to taking as long as I needed it) but no one mentioned further pain meds and I kept waiting for the next level of pain but the only part of labour that I thought was unbearable was the pressure during the pushing part (which is way too late for additional medication!)

People kept warning me that I could have the baby as early as 2 weeks early, and I took their advice seriously by moving my maternity leave/vacation earlier but I was not at all ready for what happened.
We spent her first 6 days in the hospital since she had some high jaundice levels. She was born at 2575 grams (5 pounds 7 ounces) and was able to reach her birth weight after just 10 days. It’s normal for babies to lose about 10% of their birth weight during the first few days after birth. Now, three and a half weeks later, she has reached 3155 grams (6 pounds 15 ounces).

We are blessed that she is here and are glad that she didn’t need any extra support that preemies usually need before they are released from the hospital. She’s adorable and so much a part of the family already. Her personality is already starting to shine through. I love motherhood so far!