Evie...

...you are my Sunshine, and I love you!

I had always wanted a baby at 30…you know those life plans! I’m not sure if it stemmed from social pressures or the fact, I had always known what I wanted and what life I wanted! I wanted to be married at 28, buy a house before 30 and have a baby at 30! The marriage side hasn’t happened but we did buy a house when I was 28 or 29, and then I fell pregnant at 30. ‘I fell pregnant, such a weird sentence. My Nan would say ‘we caught with NAME’ haha!

We had decided to have a baby as I thought ‘my clock was ticking', but as soon as we started, I panicked and decided I wasn’t ready and changed my mind. But by then it was too late, I was already pregnant! I was shocked it had happened instantly, but also realised it was obviously meant to be as I know the struggles it can sometimes take to conceive.

I was convinced Evie was a boy until I was about 8 months pregnant and I’d seen a dad in Mothercare with his daughter, and I thought she’s beautiful, I wouldn’t mind a girl, and at that moment I felt a weird flutter in my stomach, or was it all in my head, I’m not sure!

Throughout my pregnancy I was scared I wouldn’t like the baby, what if the baby didn’t like me, what if I didn’t like motherhood and I’d be trapped and I couldn’t send it back, I have a phobia of being trapped! I also thought what if my bump got too big and I felt like I couldn’t breathe and again, feeling trapped! My bump with Evie was really big and would often get asked if I was having twins, or comments like ‘wow’, ‘ouch,’ or ‘Rah’! And then on the flip side, I also loved being pregnant, it was like having a little secret and it was just me and the baby!

I first felt contractions at about 10pm the night before Evie arrived, and I knew something was happening because I couldn’t sleep, and I can sleep through anything. With Evie, my contractions started every 5 minutes, and very quickly were lasting up to a minute. But the midwife was treating me like a typical first-timer, thought it would be hours, if not days before the baby came. I went into hospital at I think around 6:30am and refused to get into the lift to the first or second floor, so I sort of walked up the stairs, again I didn’t want to get trapped in the lift haha! I was at 3cm dilated, but by this time I was having back-to-back contractions, with a 30-second break after 3 contractions in a row. The midwife wanted to send me home, but I begged to stay, I told her ‘I’d be good and stay quiet in the corner, she wouldn’t even know I was there!’ She gave me a cheeky sweep and very quickly I progressed.

I don’t like being sick, in fact, I bloody well hate it, and I’d already been sick after the nurse gave me cocodomal, so I refused the gas and air. Instead, I asked for the epidural! I had to wait until 9:30am to get the epidural, and made Jon hold me down so I didn’t move, and end up paralysed, like all these horror stories you hear. After that, the grinch (me) had disappeared, I was calm and loving life chatting away to the midwife! All of a sudden, mum walked in and asked to stay, she literally gate-crashed my birth! I told her she could only stay if she didn’t stress me out, haha she’s a bit of a flapper!

A monitor had been put on me, and Evie’s heart rate had begun to drop, so they popped my waters and attached a monitoring clip to her head instead. With the waters being popped, I’d assumed I’d see this massive wave of water spraying the midwives, and Jon, I think it may have trickled out!

Quite soon after, I felt pressure and told them I felt like I needed to push, mum said to push LOL, but I waited for the midwives to tell me what to do! They were shocked to see I was actually crowning. And so, I began to push.

All of a sudden, the clip had come off of Evie’s head and I was told I needed to get this baby out quick, or forceps and some other tool was going to have to be used! When mum tells the story she tells it as if she pushed Evie out lol, but she said, ‘Right Dan, you need to push, you do not want to be cut’ so I did, I pushed Evie out in just over a minute. I love a good poo, so I just imagined I was pushing a gooden out! I actually don’t remember if she even cried, I think she may have let out a small whine, but she was fine!

She was placed on me and I just cried! I still thought she was a boy and my mum said ‘gosh hasn’t he got loads of hair’ even though she didn’t! to my mum she did! The midwives said erm you want to check the sex! Evie was a girl and I literally couldn’t believe she was mine! I felt that instant love! But the blood was just yuk, I was like do you want her to clean her and they said nope, keep her with you! Evie fed straight away. What was also special, her placenta was heart-shaped, which is apparently very rare.

After the umbilical cord had been cut, they told me it was slightly/ loosely knotted, so if she had pulled too tight at any point in my stomach, it could have stopped the oxygen flow to her. That stayed with me for a long while after, it was something that would just pop into my mind from time to time, thinking, what if?

Evie was and is a dream, she was born at 11:26am weighing 8lbs and I was literally obsessed!

The next few days breastfeeding and the hormones were emotional. I had never felt love like it and I was scared to let her be out of my sight! For the first 10 months, there was a lot of time where it was just me and Evie, and I would try to take her to places to meet other mums, but I’m really quite shy, something I have most definitely gotten better with. But as much as I loved being Evie’s mum, I felt lonely at times. Jon worked long hours, and most of my friends that had had kids, had made their friendships with other mums and were busy, or back to work, so I didn’t see them as often as I thought I would. I realise now, something stemmed back from being a kid, I didn’t like empty days where nothing was planned, I always felt we needed a plan, something to do; even before having Evie, I kept myself busy, even my chilled days were planned, I didn’t do spontaneous chilled days. And this was all new territory for me…as much as I loved it, there were a few dark and lonely days…but this chat is for another blog post…this one is about Evie!

SO…when Evie was 10 months old, I went back to work 3 days a week, and as much as I missed her, I needed to be back to work, and the days it was me and her, I just loved!

Evie, I love you, you brought out a side of me that had been hidden! Or in all honesty, was probably lost! You literally are my sunshine, alongside Isla! X