My mum always used to tell me that nothing good ever happens after 2am. If only she told me that things would be really distorted, weird and probably not make sense after 6am, then I might of made more of an effort to tuck myself into bed around 3.

It was Monday morning, mid Summer and maybe 8am. Pretty sure the rest of the world was watching Kochie on Sunrise while sipping their morning coffee, but I looked down at my dirty feet and then at the remnants of last nights make up in some hotel’s mirror.

With toilet paper and hotel soap I tried to wipe the black from my eyes, in an effort to look like I hadn’t fallen off the back of a truck. And then checked my braces for any embarrassing bits of pizza which was consumed somewhere between the club and the gutter.

Walking back into the small hotel room I was greeted with everyone yelling excitedly about going for a swim. Oh Great, lets go outside in sweltering heat, in last nights going out clothes, no sunglasses, or shoes, let alone swimming attire.

The guys jumped into the spa fully clothed and I followed suit without even thinking. My dress stuck to me, my forehead sweating and trying not to fall asleep or pass out we sat in the spa. Within a few minutes concerned hotel staff came to let us know that we would need to exit the spa area, and it hit me that I had no spare clothes, no towel and no idea how I was getting home. It was going to be the Surfside Buslines ride of shame.

Somehow I missed the memo, probably lost while planning my trek home, but burgers and beers arrive to eat in the spa. A little while later there were whole burgers floating around with us and I knew I had food stuck in my braces. The horror! Anyone who has had braces would know that you must keep trusty tooth picks with you at all times….! Did I have one in my water logged pocket? 

The two gentlemen taking a dip with me picked up on my mid morning paranoia and offered to help me get food out of my braces with their cigarette stained fingers. Politely, not wanting to offend their very nice gesture I agreed and automatically had both of Death From Above 1979 (MSTRKRFT) fingers in my mouth picking burger out of my braces.

Shit officially got weird! Sometimes Mum’s do know best!

Watching TV and enjoying a pack of salt n vinegar chips with 7 week old Hunter Rose sitting on my lap, it’s a girls night in. 

Content, I finish the whole pack of chips and look down to find that Hunters gorgeous brown hair is full of salt n vinegar crumbs… oops!

She looks up at me non the wiser in her chippie wig and I pause for a second and wonder if I eat them out of her hair or brush them away. 

I have hit a real crossroads with my writing and this blog. 

Not wanting to go down the road of purely writing about parenthood, I mean come on, vomiting stories are so much more exciting to read when it’s about me spewing off a balcony in front of 20 people I had just met, rather than something my 6 week old daughter left on my shoulder after burping time. 

This is going to sound so ridiculous to a lot of you, but I am in fact a very private person. What I status update on Facebook, upload to instagram, or write in my blog is generally well thought through and shows you glimpses of my life that I want you to see. Every so often I self medicate with a dose of ‘blog-therapy’, where I spill the beans on my deepest secrets which has the same affect as doing a marathon 4hour stint with a Psychiatrist. 

For the past 10 years I have been labeled many things: “Sluzbag”, “Party Girl”, “Paris Hilton” (famous for nothing, however not for being rich haha), “Club-whore”, “Alco”… it honestly goes on and on. Sure I might of been all of those things, but as someone who stupidly wishes to impress the masses instead for my intelligence and quick wit, I worked out that I needed to keep ‘What happened on tour’ to myself. 

And so begins my new blog series that I will be starting here called “REMEMBER THE TIME…”. This is Carly Electric circa 2001 - 2011, no tour bus left unwritten about, no hangover dismissed or hazy memory left in the black hole that is my brain.

Growing up is a funny thing, it’s only now that I can look back at my past and have a laugh. Enjoy. 

Carly xo

WARNING: There will be name dropping*. 

*Due to the fact that I attract lawyers faster than OJ, sometimes I will have to change the names that I am dropping. Sorry.

Barely being able to stand in the shower I noticed that there was blood everywhere, looking up at the ceiling I prayed to some spiritual being above that my lovely lady bits were okay. Taking a deep breath I looked down at the carnage that used to be my vagina and gasped in horror at the road kill. I wondered if Sasha Grey’s vagina looked the same after being banged by a few dozen big black men and realized I was probably right on the money.

The last few weeks of pregnancy are an emotional rollercoaster, being a week overdue my patience was running thin, I could barely move, couldn’t sleep; reflux was at an all time high and was sweating constantly. And then it happened, 5:45am on Wednesday morning I awkwardly climbed back into bed after the 5^th toilet visit that night, and felt a dull ‘pop’, fluid trickled over my thigh and I ran as fast as I could for the toilet laughing giddy with excitement, while calling out for Cory along the way. We were going to have a baby - FINALLY! We danced around our room, hugged and kissed then eventually got back into bed to wait for whatever happened next.

Within half an hour I had my first contraction; it was just like a wave of period pain which lasted about a minute and they continued sporadically all morning, roughly 5 to 7 minutes apart. Cory and I tried to keep ourselves occupied, with ‘best of’ episodes of How I Met Your Mother (The Playbook episode… Legen – wait for it – Dary!), and nervous excited chatter. I called the hospital at 9am to let them know that I would be seeing them soon and they told me to come in so they could monitor me… um, no thanks! Last thing I wanted was to be in hospital for who knows how long, so I told them I would be at home for as long as humanly possible.

At 11:30am I was in active labour with my contractions getting more frequent (4 minutes apart) and much stronger, so it was time to put my Hypnobirthing skills into play… With my relaxation cd’s playing, and Cory reading Hypno scripts, I would greet each surge of a contraction with deep breathing and visualisation. After a minute the contraction would be over and I could continue snacking, laughing, smiling and bouncing on my ball.

It all happened so fast but by the time it was 12:30pm my contractions were 90 seconds to 2 minutes apart and I was starting to worry that maybe I wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time. Cory and I got settled into our birth suite at Tweed Heads Hospital and I continued to bounce on the exercise ball like I was in a Jane Fonda workout VHS. My midwife Sally, confirmed that we were still Hypnobirthing and that we would be left alone to progress naturally like stated in our birthing plan.

At 4:30pm an Obstetrician came in to tell me that they were worried that I wasn’t actually in active labour because I was so happy, relaxed and calm, and not to be surprised if my cervix wasn’t dilated just yet. My jaw dropped open in shock… was I really not even close to giving birth just yet?! So the Obstetrician asked to feel my cervix and to her total amazement I was 6cm dilated with only 4cm to go! Suddenly I could see the finish line and knew I was close… so very close!

I jumped into a warm bath and lost myself in the contractions, I was in a dream like state, with every thought to my baby and breathing. Cory was the most amazing person to have by my side, his calming tones and helping me relax to the max was imperative to our birthing success. Sally came in and checked Hunter’s heartbeat every 10 minutes just to see that she was happy and healthy, as a rise or decrease in bubba’s vital signs would mean they would strongly suggest emergency caesarean. With each surge and my deep, slow, heavy Hypnobirthing breaths I was keeping my baby totally calm and relaxed, it was so incredible to hear her heartbeat every few minutes as it completely reassured me that I was doing the best I could for her.

Suddenly I felt this intense pressure in my bum and I jumped out of the bath like a bat out of hell and landed on the toilet, oh god I didn’t want to be one of those poo preggo ladies where it goes everywhere (sorry boys… well known pregnancy fact. Poo happens. Deal with it.) However once my contraction came on (they were now every 20 seconds apart but would last 90 seconds or more) I realized it was the feeling of Hunter ready to come out! Yippee!

Once again my midwife didn’t think I was completely dilated and ready to go as I was still happy and calm, with no screaming, swearing or any other ridiculous Hollywood stereotypes. She felt for my cervix at 5:30pm and with a big surprised smile announced ‘I can feel her head! You have no cervix left and are ready to go!’

Holy shit I was about to have a baby, I held Cory’s hand and we just looked at each other.

I’m not going to lie, but right at that stage I was scared, I have no idea where that fear came from but it took me about 20 minutes to shake it off and continue what I had started. In those 20 minutes not a lot happened and I realized I had to get back to concentrating on Hypnobirthing and breathing correctly to get her out. Listening to my body and Cory’s relaxation prompts, I stuck to my plan of ZERO PUSHING, and instead I ‘breathed’ our baby out. With each surge I bared down with my breath, let out a long moan and could feel her slowly moving on out. It felt like intense pressure in your bum, like you could rip in half at any moment, plus a burning sensation like your vagina and ass had just ingested some hot chillies… BAM! Finally her head was out and I could feel her wriggling around. I slumped back into the bed, my job was done… the rest was a walk in a park! It was an exhausting, emotional and at times excruciating hour long final stage of labour.

With the next contraction she would be out of me, and I couldn’t wait! Cory grabbed under her arms and when the next surge happened he lifted her out, all I could see was his face and the complete joy and shock of what he was doing. Slippery and covered in goop, Cory clumsily flung her onto my waiting chest. She didn’t cry or scream but just looked up at me as if to say ‘Yo mum and dad, I’m here!’ She was born at 6:37pm after 7 hours of labour.

My body instantly went into shock, I went a pale shade of green, was shaking all over and could barely talk or function normally. All I could see in the room was Hunter Rose and her daddy. Everyone fussed around us with the mess and the goop, we were oblivious to everything!

She was so beautiful, with a full head of hair, her tiny pouty lips and rosy round cheeks made us fall head over heels for her. I had done it. It was over!

Cory cut the cord and the midwife who was attending to my placenta, congratulated me on not tearing my all important nether regions. Pretty sure Cory and I high fived! I expressed out loud that I wasn’t sure if I had Hypnobirthed correctly, as the last hour was not what I expected at all. A few of the midwives looked at my like I was nuts and said how proud they were of my birth, that usually a ‘natural’ first birth would go for 20 hours or more, with screaming and carrying on (one new mum mentioned that she was jealous that I wasn’t heard in all the other birthing rooms) and they would usually end in tearing, epidurals, gas and in a lot of cases emergency c-sections.

I couldn’t walk, and if I did it was like Dirty Harry in some Western flick. But I was on my baby-moon (like a honey moon but different), nothing mattered and I only had eyes for my bub! The next day I was discharged from Hospital as I didn’t like the fact that Cory could only visit between certain hours, bit hard to bond as a family when he’s not allowed to be there.

Definitely wanting to make this clear, I did not get lucky with my birth or fluke it, this was a solid 6 months of education, practicing, Hypno and knowledge. Hypnobirthing made the first 6 hours of labour a fantastic, exciting and joyful experience, and obviously made the last hour bearable even though it was more full on and intense than what I expected. Next pregnancy will be a breeze as I’ll be a Hypno pro and will know exactly what is going on! I recommend it to everyone who is thinking of going down the natural birth path.

Staring down at my train wreck of a vagina, I wondered if it would ever be the same again. What on earth had I done to it? If this was an easy and calm birth, I would hate to see what the other end of the scale would be like… I sighed and wondered how many months my vagina would take to get back to its normal lovely self.

It took 5 days.

PS- Women are AMAZING, and now I can do ANYTHING!

How far along? 40 weeks  

Weight Gain/Loss: 20kgs

Maternity Clothes? Dresses and MC Hammer pants are on high rotation.

Stretch-marks? They are getting much better and not really getting any new ones, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Sleep: Found that if I go to bed at around 9:30 - 10pm then I sleep solid till about 4am which is a huge sleep for me… really happy with all the sleep I am getting at the moment.

Movements: She must be so uncomfortable with such little room to move!! She tries to stretch out and it feels like she is going to burst through my skin. Also her hiccups are twice a day and pretty intense. Makes my whole stomach shake and jolt for sometimes up to 10 minutes.

Food Cravings: dont have them anymore… can feel that im already losing weight and chins haha Just not as hungry as before which is great. Starting to feel more normal in that sense.

Belly Button: Still an innie! yay.

Weekly Wisdom: Enjoy the little things, like time alone right now… eating what I want, laying in bed at weird hours, alone time with cory <3
Also mentally prepared for labour and birthing of the oven kid…. calm and relaxed :)

I’m one of those gals who loves sex.
Love it…! Can’t help it, was born this way.
And yet NOTHING mentally prepared me for the demise of my sex life with pregnancy.

Oh dear reader, get out your tissues and be prepared to shed a tear for my woeful predicament, while being mildly grossed out and fascinated all at the same time.

I have read all the pregnancy ‘how to’ books, I’ve read all the blogs, and yet NOWHERE do the experts tell you just what to realistically expect with your sex life, being 20kgs heavier and your boobs constantly slapping you in the face. I could have done with some warning.

At the moment I don’t even know what sex is, all I remember is that it’s what got us in this predicament in the first place. It’s not that I don’t feel like it, I do, even more than usual as most days my hormones rocket sky high. I’m like a dog on heat, but one that has no legs so can’t move or even attempt to get lucky.

Frustrated much?

Sex is now just like a fond old friend that has gone on vacation, and we can’t help but discuss it like she’ll return soon and peace to the world will be restored.

“Can’t wait for sex to come back in a few weeks…”
“Yeah same, I miss it and think about the fun olden days.”

If only I had known that sex would leave us and go on holidays then I would have seen her off with more of a bang, or a going away party or something equally as fun.

I didn’t realise how much of an impact not being able to see my vagina would have on me, as now it’s just some distant memory. Hello? Are you really still there? But somehow along the way it went from being ‘pleasure-fun-time-happy-place’ to the ‘birthing canal’. Yawn.

Ignoring the stretch marks, cellulite, the size of my humongous ass and 3 chins, I try my hardest to be sexy, seductive and alluring in my bonds cotton tails (the only underwear that now seems to fit). After about 3 minutes of weirdly unbalanced, awkward and at times sad foreplay I complain that I need a break to get my breath back or near projectile vomit with reflux. 

No position seems to work and hit up Google for some trusty answers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqa6xluhstA
Pregnancy Kama Sutra. Oh dear god… these are seriously our options for a good time? Ugh.

Just like a pregnant friend said, “it’s like a game of twister” one where you try so hard to put your knee to your chin or in the air, or arm reaching over down there – only to find that things don’t move like that anymore and your center of gravity pulls you off the side of the bed, much to the laughter of the other participant.

And so I long for the future, where I can get back up on that bike and not so awkwardly try again.