Birth of our second child

At about 36 weeks pregnant I was ready for the baby to come out. At each checkup, I prayed that I would have high blood pressure or something that they could induce the baby. I was sick of waiting, I had heaps of fluid retention, something I never had with my first, but it was always the same, everything is fine, go home. I was still in la la land about having another baby, I was really looking forward to going to the hospital (not actually having the baby!) but being able to lie down and have a rest for a few days, have someone else cook my meals and look after me for a change!

At 38 weeks, I asked a friend of mine who practices chinese medicine to do some acupuncture on me to help get things moving. Unfortunately, the only thing moving was the fluid, she couldnt believe that there was fluid leaking from my feet where she took the needles out. I think I had put on about 20kg and figured I was going to need some serious help to get back into shape once I had this baby.

In the end I had to wait the full 40 weeks; our daughter was born exactly on her due date. Thankfully, I had a great birth (as far as births go...), I won't go into the gory details, but we were over the moon. A son and now a daughter, awesome, she was just beautiful. We didn't find out the sex of either of our children. I needed some sort of surprise and it didnt matter to me either way.

Both of my children were born in a public hospital, so I was in a shared room, even though I had asked for a private one. I guess thats the chance you take, it was a twin room. Our daughter was born around 3am, so it was early morning when we got to our room, so not much chance of sleep. I had forgotten how noisy hospitals were and I had been delusional about having a rest with a newborn. My daughter took to breastfeeding quite well, so this was a great relief, I figured that at least she was feeding well, that was a start as my milk had come in really early (compared to the first time around). Unfortunately, she didnt settle well and just when I had gotten her to sleep in the crib, most times the other baby would start crying and wake her up, so it became a bit of a no win situation. I either ended up pacing the hallway with my daughter or having her in my bed with me, which was just awkward and I got no rest this way. I also found the midwives to be not that helpful this time around. I don't know whether it was because this was my second child or they didnt have the time. By the second day, I had had enough. I wanted to go home and more importantly, I wanted to get my daughter to a chiropractor ASAP. I was sick of pacing the hallways all night and not getting any help. On the second night, I had a janitor come up to me and offer to take my daughter to try and calm her as I had been trying for over an hour, with no effect, even though they are not allowed to do this. I was desperate and really didnt care at the time, who took my daughter. I was tired and wanted to go to sleep. In the end I found a midwife in the office and asked if I could check myself out, I think it was 5am and she arranged the paperwork so I could go home first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, no-one helped me with my daughter, I was literally on my own. I figured I might as well go home and get some help from my parents who were staying with us.

I checked out of hospital on that morning (day 3) and got an appointment for my daughter with my chiropractor that afternoon, she was just 2 days old.