The beginning....

Christie was born via an emergency c-section at 3.09am - yes you read it right it was 3 in the morning when she decided to finally grace us with her presence! She came out with a cone head which looking back on now is really freaky, but I didn't know that at the time because I was enjoying myself way too much in recovery on all sorts of wonderful drugs! And this was how I found out that I was allergic to Morphine!! and all things ending in "eine" from then on...... so apart from having Christie another good thing did come out of it!

My pregnancy was completely uneventful, being a first pregnancy I was totally naive to everything and let's face it, I was only 22 at the time. I had one pregnancy book, which was a UK book - I remember it told me it would be "useful" and "practical" to have running water installed in my nursery.... wtf? Anyway that book is a bit dog-eared now as I have used it and referred to it many times over (always skipping the chapter on installing water and "what to wear" when you are expecting...)

I had to be induced at 10 days past my due date. I think my original due date was the 4th May? give me a break it was nearly 14 years ago LOL I went in to the hospital (a swishy fancy private one - this was when I could actually afford private health insurance!) and had gel inserted at 7am, 12noon, and then they decided that it was working as I felt like I needed to do a great big poo! Little did I know that these were contractions - hey I didn't know what one felt like!? All I do really remember is not wanting to get out of the spa, and David (my ex-husband) lying on the bed reading a magazine (this is how he came about the name Christie, as Christie Brinkley was on the front of one of them!) I personally couldn't give a shit about names at that point in time.... anyway as Christie was literally trying to squeeze her head out of my butt (she was posterior) it was quite painful. My OB tried to turn her, but just broke my waters instead, and then I had the wonderful urge to push, but I wasn't dilated enough so they had to rush me up to theatre after giving me an epidural to stop me pushing. So then she was born! I still remember seeing her for the first time..... she actually weed on herself when she was born and then after she was wrapped up they handed her to me. I was shaking too much to actually hold her but my Mum was there and she was just over the moon!

Anyway, everyone else got to go back to my room and party while I stayed and got stitched up and had reaction to the morphine.... fun fun fun. I eventually got wheeled back to my room at about 6am - at this point the party was over and there was Christie just lying in her little clear plastic tub. I remember trying to sleep - I was facing her and I just couldn't believe that I had "made" this little thing - she was just amazing (and huge!!!)

And I have never recovered from losing a whole night's sleep since......