reality bites
Baby
birth was
hard
labour By Jade Glen FROM Justin Bieber’s Baby to the delivery of her second child, Sharon Falconer’s Labour Day long weekend was bookended by babies. Impressively, Sharon was at a sold-out Etihad Stadium dancing along to Bieber’s hits at 39 weeks and five days pregnant, in the heat of late summer.
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Sharon even filmed herself singing along to Bieber’s early classic, Baby.
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“We were down the front and I recorded myself singing Baby at the concert. Everyone thought it was hilarious,” Sharon said. “I booked when I knew I was pregnant - I knew if I couldn’t go I could definitely sell them. I was thinking she either needs to come two weeks early, or she needs to stay in until after the concert!” Thankfully Sharon’s baby stayed put long enough for her to enjoy the concert, the second time she had seen Bieber. It was that Sunday night that she started getting the feeling that it would be the last night of a family of three Sharon and David already have a son, Jackson, five. “I felt like it was going to happen it was a full moon as well. When I had my son I also went in to labour on a full moon and I remember the midwife saying it was always busy when it was a full moon.
Living in Woori Yallock, Sharon wanted to inform her hospital, the William Angliss, early and factor in the 50-minute drive in to her decision on when to leave home. “I was outside on the back deck and my husband heard me on the phone (to the hospital). I was trying to be really quiet, because I wanted him to rest, but he heard me speaking to the lady on the phone and he said what’s going on, it’s happening isn’t it. “I said yes and he said well there’s no way I’m going back to sleep now.” Sharon laboured at home while trying to ensure her son had his clothes, lunch and bag packed ready for Prep the next day. “My dad was on standby because he is retired and lives five minutes down the road. I called him around lunchtime and said we are heading down to hospital. “It was really emotional saying goodbye to Jackson for the last time before we became a family of four. “By the time my dad got there I was like we are going straight away - I had to stop and breathe through those contractions. “I was trying to labour at home for as much as I could, but it had got to that overwhelming feeling where you have to stop and shut the world out for those 10 seconds.”
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“I looked up (the time of the full moon) and it was 1.50am, and I think I started my first slight contraction around 2am.”
Thankfully the couple encountered little traffic on their way to hospital, and they were soon up on the maternity ward for monitoring.
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That Monday was Labour Day and, rather fittingly, Sharon was in labour.
“I didn’t have an internal straight away, they were just sussing out the contractions and monitoring me that way, and by the time I settled in my contractions had slowed down a bit.
“I tried to go back to sleep and thought I’d get some rest. I think I made it to maybe 5am and woke up again 28 SPRING 2017
and thought, I’m not going back to sleep. I was just hanging around trying to be quiet.”
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