Welcome to the world Oscar Flynn!

At about 3am on Saturday June the 18^th, one day before Oscar’s due date, I woke up in some pain and feeling really nauseous. A couple of hours later we called Wollongong Hospital and were told to come in to be looked at. With all the Braxton Hicks and other random pains I’d become used to it was not as easy as you’d think to tell when it was the real deal. We arrived at the hospital around 6am and were put on a monitor which showed that I was having contractions. Not long after the midwife ran me a hot bath to soak in until things progressed further. Several hours passed sitting in the bath, with the contractions not progressing very much. By midday I was feeling pretty anxious and this was not helped by the blood-curdling screams of the woman in the room next door who was delivering without pain relief. I was moved to a quieter room where I was again hooked up to the monitors. The contractions still weren’t really progressing and eventually, due to a combination of factors, it was decided that a caesarean would be necessary.

Tim and I were both absolutely exhausted so we did our best to get a few winks of sleep until 6pm when they started prepping me for the surgery. I had already been given the epidural earlier, and despite my fear of big needles, in the scheme of things it was actually relatively painless and provided complete pain relief. At around 6.15pm I was wheeled in to the operating room with Tim. There was a large screen in front of us so neither of us could actually see the surgery. Tim was instructed to stay firmly on my side of the screen – a policy they implemented after several partners had passed out on the operating room floor!

The surgery began and while I couldn’t feel any pain, I could feel some odd poking and prodding as they pressed on my abdomen and moved my muscles out of the way. Within five minutes, at 6.20pm, we were relieved to hear a loud cry as Oscar was pulled out (something we don’t enjoy hearing as much now!). What a shock it must have been for him, after nine months in the warmth and darkness to be pulled out under bright lights in a chilled operating theatre! 

Oscar Flynn Reis-Vyse, born 6.20pm, 18th June 2011

He was held up for us to look at before being taken away and assessed (he was given an APGAR score of 9, and then 10 five minutes later). Still crying, he was brought over to us for a quick cuddle before he and Tim were taken to the nurses’ station to be cleaned up, weighed and measured. He weighed in at 3.185kg (just over 7 pounds) and 50cm in length.

It took about 20 minutes to stitch me up before I was wheeled to recovery and checked on and off for the following hour. All had gone well so I was then taken to the maternity ward for more cuddles. We were both exhausted but so excited that finally our little Oscar was here!

A few hours old

Oscar and I stayed in hospital for 3 days and had lots of lovely visitors. Tim was there to help each day for as many hours as they would let him stay. Being in a shared room, it was hard to catch up on that much needed sleep, but all in all it wasn't too bad and gave me ample time to take loads of pictures of our gorgeous boy!

Our precious Oscar

Tim enjoying those first cuddles

Cuddles with a a very tired mummy

On Tuesday we were able to bring him home. We dressed him in his warmest suit (the smallest size - 00000), strapped him into his car seat (which looked comically oversized with this tiny thing in it) and off we went into the sunset!

Dressed and ready to go home

Strapped into his capsule and ready to roll