One of my best friends has JUST given birth to a beautiful baby girl. I mean literally JUST. All I know at this stage is that she's had the baby, I don't even know her name or weight yet. The baby was delivered via caesarean and I'll admit it- I'm a tad jealous. I wish I'd had a caesarean. I'm still a bit traumatized by Max's birth. I'm not traumatized in a Vietnam War style screaming in my sleep, whilst drowning in sweat kinda way. But I'm still traumatized, albeit on a somewhat milder level. Now, we mummies LOVE a gruesome birth story. I read heaps of them after Max's birth, trying to find one that was worse than mine. I only found one (and quite frankly, it was comparable) I haven't wanted to relive my experience by writing about it but now I'm thinking it might be cathartic. I warn you now- it ain't pretty but I'll try my best to limit the graphic descriptions. So.....it is my pleasure to bring to you *drum roll* *snare drum*...."The Lion King meets Alien vs Predator" (aka. The story of Max's birth).
It was around 0132am when my waters broke. And boy did they break! It made Niagra Falls look puny & I swear that I saw the 'maid on the mist' chug past. It woke me from my sleep. I thought I was having one of those dreams where you're on the toilet, then you wake up and you're doing a wee. I ran to the bathroom, Rob knew instantly what had happened, because I NEVER run. I certainly never run at 132am either. I thought that if I sat on the loo long enough, the gush would slow to a trickle- it didn't. Rob bought my bathers to me, somehow thinking that it would help- cute. When I hobbled out to the car, I found that the one thing that Rob remembered from childbirth Ed was "amniotic fluid destroys car seats". He made me sit on a big stack of towels.
On the way to the hospital, I felt a quiet sense of calm. It was finally happening. The 'when is it going to happen?' was over. I tried to stay clear headed and focussed.
Try hobbling into an Emergency Department with your thighs squished together, so that you don't leak buckets of fluid everywhere. I felt like a princess. The delightfully aging and bitter
night nurse in ED gave me a stack of pillow cases, "stick these in your pants". Nice.
I thought that all birthing rooms were pretty similar, until I spoke with other mums afterwards. Ours was horrid. It was so white, sterile and clinical. There was nothing 'homely' or relaxing about it. It was something out of a 1950's horror movie, or at least that's how it felt at the time.
The next thing that happened, pissed me off, more then anything else. A doctor was checking how dilated my cervix was (joyous). Afterwards, she casually told me that I was 2cm dilated AND she'd stuck an electrode to Max's head to monitor his heartbeat. From that point on, I was confined to the bed. I wasn't annoyed that she'd done it. I was annoyed that she'd done it without telling me. I would've loved a few minutes of walking around time to go to the toilet. The bed was small, hard and ridiculously uncomfortable.
The Syntocinon (labour inducing) drip started shortly after 4am. My sister, the midwife sent me a text message saying that I could have an epidural before the infusion started. I considered waiting a little while but the big giant sook inside me opted for the epidural straight away.
By 7am, I could feel the contractions starting. A new nurse came on duty and while she was lovely, she was a 'graduate nurse' (ie very junior). At this stage, I was attached to far more machines than I'd imagined- 6 of them in total. My tailbone was already hurting from the hideous bed.
By 9am, the contractions were getting stronger and more painful. Yep, more painful, despite the epidural. Since the nurse didn't seemed concerned, I figured it was normal to still have some pain. When the nurse in charge came to relieve the grad nurse for morning tea, she was shocked to see how much pain I was in. She called the anesthetist back to review me.
And that is Part 1 of the story, stay tuned for the next installment. Coming soon.....
* Disclaimer: For the purpose of this story, I'm only talking about birth stories where both Mum and bubs come out alive and well. Suffice to say, nothing could be worse than mum or bubs dying in childbirth. It's a tragedy I cant even comprehend.
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