The amazing birth of our second son

During my second pregnancy we hoped and really thought we were having a girl. When the 20 week ultrasound came around we decided not to find out the sex as we had found out with our first son and really wanted the delivery room surprise. We were so sure we would have a girl though and couldn’t wait for the “it’s a girl” announcement at birth. During my whole pregnancy I hardly bought anything for the baby thinking I could just do a big shopping spree of pink when our little girl was born. I would look at girl clothes online and pick out what I would buy, but never bothered to look at the boy things at all.

About a week before the birth I went to the hospital for monitoring due to lack of movement I was feeling, when the midwife put the CTG on we could see everything was fine but it was at that point I suddenly felt strongly that the baby was a boy.

I ended up going into labour in the early hours of Monday morning after only 2 hours sleep I woke with a strong contraction and knew immediately this was it. YAY! As I continued to lay there I had another few contractions which were approx. 5 minutes apart and decided I should get out of bed and go down stairs as it would be more comfortable if I was up. I woke my husband and told him what was going on and asked him to bring my bags downstairs for when it got more serious and for him to go back to bed. By the time I stood up and walked down stairs contractions were coming every 3 minutes and very intense so I decided to have a shower. While I was in the shower contractions continued to come fast and strong so we decided to call the babysitter for my older son so she could come over soon. When she arrived 1 hour from when it all started we were ready to go to the hospital. The 20 minute drive in the middle of the night was hell and all I could think was that I hoped I was progressing a lot quicker than I had in my last labour because it sure felt like it!

When we got up to the birth suites the midwife examined me and happily announced that I was 10cm already. Hooray! 40 minutes of pushing later and our 4.36 kg baby boy was born. I can happily say that his birth has been the most amazing moment of my life and I did not experience any disappointment at all when he arrived. We were just so excited and couldn’t wait for DS1 to meet him.

What a beautiful story, thanks for sharing!

What a beautiful birth story, Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing your story!

Awesome:) Thank you for sharing! I love your siggy too:) I believe the same thing :HH:

Thanks for reading, it was after DS2's birth that I decided to become a midwife and I will finally be qualified in Nov of this year.

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Originally Posted by *ruby*

Thanks for reading, it was after DS2's birth that I decided to become a midwife and I will finally be qualified in Nov of this year.

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AWESOME:) I'm following the same path...I'm hoping that after child #4 comes along that I can start going to school as well. How is the midwife situation in Aus? Can you practice out of the hospital? Do you have many restrictions?

Yes I could work outside the hospital but won't until I have more experience so more of a later down the track thing when my kids are older. I am hoping to work in a low intervention birth centre type unit next year but will just have to wait and see where I get excepted! The home birth rates in Aus are very low and a bit up in the air at the moment due to lack of insurance. Many independent midwives have been put in a position of having to work without insurance so the government bought in a short term insurance policy last year so we are hopeful this will be continued. I have heard Canada is quite similar to Aus when it comes to maternity care?

I would say very similar to health care in general. Not so much when it comes to maternity. I would say you have WAY more birth centers, and more midwives working in the hospital setting. We have a lot more midwives working outside the hospital(hardly any birth centers) and homebirths seem to be catching on here:)
BC has the highest rate of HB's in all of Canada...I believe it's 10% see a midwife...and of those women close to 50% have homebirths. It's getting very popular in Alberta as well. We've just been told that there will be a direct entry program starting this Fall for Midwifery...I'm very excited. Out of 10 women that would like Midwifery care in our province only 1 will get in....we have a major shortage here. Doula's are very popular but do not fill the "hole" of a MW. Anyway, do you know about all the crap that Lisa Barrett is going through? What are your thoughts?(if you know...)

Over here I would say close to 50% of women have midwifery care for their pregnancies with the rest seeing private OB's or OB's through the public system (high risk pregnancies only usually).

I don't know much about Lisa Barrett unfortunately but after a quick google search it sounds like I should! Unfortunately with the amount of study and placement in the course as well as having 2 young kids it doesn't leave much time to keep up to date with these things. I have exams next week though and after a break that I usually use to catch up on other things besides what I need to know for uni!