I will write Freya’s birth story someday. But right now… I can’t. Parts of her birth were beautiful, and wonderful, and make me so proud. Other parts were emotional and difficult, and ultimately very traumatic.
The days after were incredibly hard. If I’m being honest, every day still is. Freya is a lovely baby, but my body has done a huge job bringing her into this world and I underestimated just how weak I would be after what happened.
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Here she finally is, our wonderful baby Sunshine…
We have named her Freya <3
She was born at 42+1 weeks on November 18th, 11:58am, weighing 4056grams/9lbs, measuring 54cm.
All three of us are doing well, but we’re absolutely exhausted! I will definitely write up our birth story, but for now we are just holding her a lot and getting used to our life as a family of three.
Xxx
I quite fancied having a Halloween baby. I imagined her as a new-born pink little thing lying inside a pumpkin for pictures. And oh, the skeleton onesies, the baby zombie costumes! The fabulous birthday parties we could throw her later on, both Jo and I also dressing up, the fake blood and spiders and weird treats. We could invite her whole class and make the flat into a haunted house!
So I tried my hardest to relax on the day and even used my special birth-inducing Lush bath bomb, but Halloween came and went.
Fine, I thought, November 1st is a holiday in Belgium, that would be fun too, she’d always be off school for her birthday. Or the 3rd, she’d be a due date baby. Or hey, the 5th is Guy Fawkes Night in the UK, bonfires and candied apples and fireworks plus rebellion, I bet she’d love that! I went to a special yoga class the night before, ate a whole pineapple, and bounced on my yoga ball trying to get things going. But… nothing happened. No baby.
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With only two days to go until my due date, I figure it’s time to start looking back at these last months and write down my goodbye to pregnancy.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we had our frozen embryo transfer in London and baby Sunshine decided to stick around to become ours. The first trimester stretched out for endless weeks of sickness and it was by far the worst bit of my pregnancy, I was so relieved to make it to twelve weeks and stumble into the second one! I felt so much better then and I thought that would be the best time before it all became too difficult again, but honestly, these last months have been great too. Other than some stressing about getting everything ready for baby I have loved my third trimester.
With passing milestones like viability and thirty-two weeks it has been so good knowing that baby is strong and healthy and okay in there. I really enjoy feeling her move too. It’s probably one of the reasons why I haven’t gone into labour just yet despite having some signs for almost two weeks now, because part of me is holding on to this. It’s a bittersweet feeling knowing the end is coming, that soon she will be her own whole person. I wish I could both have her be born and keep her inside too!
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I am ten days away from my due date and I am in Ghent, standing upright in the turning bit of the tram. I’m holding on to the rails for dear life as the floor shifts beneath me.
There is a middle-aged couple sitting down on the seats next to me, happily chatting. A group of students are behind me in seats, laughing together. There are other commuters, busy on their phones. I am carrying heavy shopping bags that are digging into my shoulders, my back aches, and balancing is a serious challenge with the belly.
The tram stops, and a single seat opens. I move towards it, but I’m not fast enough and it’s taken by someone else. The tram goes on, and so does my white-knuckled grip on the rail. I have been having practice contractions for days, and one rolls over me, making me breathe shallowly. Sweat prickles on the back of my neck. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.
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