Without a doubt the very best day of my life.

The day that everything changed, the day we had waited and hoped for for such a long time, the day we finally got to meet our son and become mom and dad.

For nine months I enjoyed being pregnant. I was never so proud of my body. I liked it SO much. It was exactly as I had always imagined it. All this time I carried you everywhere, safe in my belly. Until it was April 17. A regular check at the midwife’s office ended in an extra check at the hospital. I had a lot of headaches, saw nothing but stars, and my blood pressure was way too high. So whether it was still that safe in my belly for the baby? That was the question for a moment.

Now I got a medical indication

Indeed, pre-eclampsia, or preeclampsia, was suspected. Once in the hospital, my blood pressure remained higher than normal, my blood levels were not good and I had protein in my urine. Any symptoms suggestive of pre-eclampsia. Still, we were sent home because the CTG was otherwise good and they wanted to drag it out as long as possible. In fact, I was only 36.5 weeks pregnant at that time. However, it became medical and from now on I had the check-ups at the hospital instead of at the midwife. Something we were 100% behind ourselves, because anything for the safety of me and the baby.

After several more hospital visits, lots of ctg’s and a very high blood pressure further, the alarm was raised on May 3. By now I was 39.3 weeks pregnant, so no reason to stretch. The gynecologist (a different one from the one we had seen the weeks before) noticed that I was tired and anxious. He said we were not going to take any more risks and that it was time to go get the baby, because it was no longer safe in my belly. We felt heard and especially relieved. Immediately, action was taken and the gynecologist said, “We’re going to give birth to you, because it’s pretty much over.

It’s time to go meet our baby.

“What do you guys think about that? We didn’t hesitate for a moment and knew right away; it’s enough, it’s time to meet our baby. Immediately the gynecologist called the delivery rooms to see if there was room to do some extra checks and to see if the dilation had started. If not, they would place another balloon immediately that afternoon to create dilation.

Fortunately, it was not very busy at that time and we were allowed to go up immediately. All checks were done AND they measured blood pressure again. It was still way too high, so nice that action was taken. Time to go check if there would be some dilation yet. The midwife’s response: “We’re not going to insert a balloon. You’re already 3cm dilated so you can go home, just the two of you, then we’ll see you back tomorrow at 7 a.m. and we’ll break your water to induce labor.

We were SO happy! Finally it was going to happen. We went to meet our son. For the very last time, we drove home from the hospital with an empty backseat.

You understand that we hardly slept a wink that night. I was glad when the alarm went off and then we could finally go. Once we arrived at the hospital, we were quickly enough taken to a room, introduced to the team that would accompany us, and I was installed on the CTG.

At 9 o’clock they broke my waters and we waited to see if the contractions would start on their own. After an hour, the nurse came to check on how things were going. I was still coloring in my adult coloring book (yes really 🤪). Nothing at all was happening in there yet, so they soon realized that contractions needed to be induced. Immediately an IV was injected and the contractions were started. About 1.5 hours or 2 hours later something finally started to rumble inside. Still, it took a long time before regular contractions came, I was also still coloring, so reason enough to increase the inducers. My body responded quickly to that and I finally had regular contractions. Time to put my markers away. 😂

The regular contractions quickly turned into a labor storm.

I kept this up for an hour and figured I wanted to switch from the bed to the ball to try to see if that went better. Once sitting on that ball, it only got more intense. I didn’t get any more time to catch my breath. At that point I wanted only 1 thing and that was pain relief. I was puffing away contractions all at once and didn’t even have time to mention an epidural. Dennis saw that it was no longer going, that I was completely spent and told the midwife it was time for an epidural – haleluja! You really do give birth together -. ‘I’m going to call downstairs to see if there’s room Nancy,’ I heard somewhere vaguely in the background. One hour!

I would have to hold on for another hour before we could go down. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Fortunately, 1 of the midwives said, “We’re not going to wait anymore, we’re going to check your dilation and get you ready to go down. A whopping 5 cm was on the counter. Soon after, we went down for the epidural. Once it was in, peace immediately returned to my whole body, but I also immediately felt a lot of pressure. By now it was 5 p.m. and we were back in the room. Because I felt so much pressure, she checked my dilation again right after the epidural.

‘TEN INCHES! Yessssss I thought, finally it’s here! But the doctor said she wanted to let the baby descend quietly first, since I didn’t feel any pain (nor pressure) anyway. Super nice in hindsight, because once everyone was gone from our room Dennis and I fell asleep like a log. We slept for over an hour when the midwife came in and woke me up saying, “are you waking up? You have say another important task to accomplish.’ 😂

Everything was made ready to bring our son into the world. Once in the scaffolding, I still felt nothing (super nice, but not so convenient when you don’t know when to push). The pain medication was turned down a bit so I felt some pressure again. Between pressing, we seriously “sat around” chatting with each other. Guessing names and all, but they didn’t succeed 🤓.

After pushing for a while, sometimes Jin’s heartbeat dropped off and they could no longer take a good reading. At first I turned from my back to my side to see if that would change, but unfortunately it did not. They decided to put a “sticker” on his head. We saw that there was no other way and agreed. Fortunately, they could immediately find the heartbeat again and after an hour of pushing, the moment arrived that we had been dreaming about all these years. I touched him myself, his warm little body, so beautiful, perfect and so loved. Our sweet little Jin, finally with us. 🩵

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