Welcome to the World Hartley! {Part 1}

Flashback to the 30th July 2017, I was up late working the night before and decided to go to bed not long after 12:30am. Before I could get to sleep, my phone rang and it was Marcia telling me her waters had broken. By 1:05am, I'd arrived at Marcia's to find her and Paul packed up and ready to make the 3 hour trip to Dunedin. It was a freezing cold night, with an average of -5 degrees and there were glistening roads the whole way. I decided to travel with them just in case things happened a bit too quickly but we got to Dunedin Hospital with plenty of time to spare.

Marcia was hooked up to the monitors and hour after hour, she surprised nurses and midwives because her 'contractions' were going off the chart and she couldn't feel anything but a tightening feeling. Superhuman? Possibly!?

Minutes turned into hours and the contractions seemed to slow down and eventually stop. Things weren't progressing as quickly as everyone thought so Marcia was hooked up to an Oxytocin drip to get her labour going...

....but still, not much was happening. A quick scan to see the position of baby showed that he was facing down the right way but not engaged so all they could do was wait.

Soon after the ultrasound, a doctor discovered that the forewaters were still there and that was stopping baby from coming down. Like a balloon being popped, they were broken and it was all go from then!

When the pain became intense and the gas was organised, Paul tried lightening the mood with a little humour (having a few...or more puffs of the gas) adding a Snapchat filter made it even more entertaining! It wasn't long before the laughter and smiles on Marcia's face turned into expressions of pain - a good sign that baby Hartley would soon be born!