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Dumped when pregnant and facing motherhood alone, follow mum-to-be Farah Ishaq's bumpy journey to motherhood. On 30th December V arrived!
She's here! As of 8.45 this morning, I have a beautiful, perfect, tiny new baby daughter.
When the blood splattered against the high green shield over my stomach, I knew it was done. My baby was out. What felt like the longest pause to hear her cry - and then she did. What a beautiful sound, the tiny gasp of the newborn cry. She's here, she's here, she's here!The last 24 hours have certainly been a rollercoaster of emotions, not that I expected anything less. From being admitted to the induction ward at 9am, through to the emergency c-section, the experience was scary, exhilarating and painful. It's least it's done now!
Baby V may have missed out on a New Year's eve or 1.1.11 birthday (we'd spent the waiting time debating when she might arrive) but obviously too impatient to wait for a normal delivery, she now shares her birthday with Patti Smith, two Monkees (Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones), Rudyard Kipling and Tiger Woods.
The gel induction had failed after the first dose and a CTG scan at 3am on the 'high risk' labour ward brought up the word we least wanted to hear: 'Pathological.'
Baby V was suddenly in distress and her heart rate was fluctuating. Almost in too much pain to panic, the whole experience is already a blur. I remember being warned that baby V would most likely be whisked straight off to the special care baby unit because of her 4lb estimated premature weight.
Nobody really explains what a caesarean might entail - maybe because we'd be totally put off. The worst part was when I had to walk into theatre and sit upright on the operating table as they jabbed countless needles into my back as the contractions ripped through my stomach.
There was no time for a proper epidural and the fear in my veins meant I couldn't even answer the anaesthetist's questions for shaking. I literally cried as they tested out if the local anaesthetic had worked, selfishly thinking 'what if I can FEEL them cut me open?' I vowed then and there never ever to go through anything like this again.
It was almost an hour until I had V balanced onto my arm (drips in both arms made holding her tricky). She was sublimely and heart-stoppingly beautiful - a perfectly formed but tiny 5lbs with a full head of her dad's spiky brown hair. She's not much bigger than my hand.
A body in shock from her sudden arrival onto planet Earth, but a heart already filled with deep love for the fragile tiny person I have made.