Giving birth and all that jazz

No one ever said giving birth was a walk in the park I know this, but some people do it like 5 times don’t they, and their still alive! So I honestly was a bit cocky about the whole labor situation.. I naively thought ok I’ve had a few tattoos.. had my ears pierced twice how different can it be, pain is pain and after all that’s really want women’s bodies were made for isn’t it.. 

I considered hypnobirthing, home birth, all the different kinds of birth you can have.. I ended up having some low platelet problems and having no other option but to have a high risk labor ward birth.. bosh tosh!! Not the calm, smelly candle, head massaging kind of birth I was hoping for. 

Now that was decided for me I thought what the heck let’s just have all the drugs! So I wrote my birth plan out listing all the drugs I’d like! Being a first time mum I actually thought they would read my birth plan.. they don’t. So being all ready for all the drugs, thinking ahh well I’ve had tattoo’s I was ready and eager for the big day.

1 membrane sweep, 3 internal investigations, 2 days of contractions later and I was eating my words. Hands up to all the women that have twins and stuff cripes!!! Never in my life have I experienced the feelings I was having, exhilarating feelings as well of course but (pregnant women about to give birth please don’t read this bit) the most throbbing, agonising experience I have ever had in my life! I thought I was dying! I thought I had died! I actually thought the world had ended!

Any how, on the 18^th of June at 9am I was 4cm dilated.. by 11am I was 10! Fast work or what!! I ended up not receiving the benefits of any lovely drugs apart from gas and air which I believe I actually became addicted to! I had a failed epidural and I was shattered! Like being on the raz for 11 nights, hung over, walked a million miles in heels tired! I was told I had to push so that is what I did.

I really truly pushed! Out shot the catheter that had been inserted when they tried to give me an epidural, I was making noises I didn’t know I could generate! The gas and air was making me windy which was very comical while I was high.. but that stuff quickly wares off and reality hits within about 3 seconds. I pushed for an hour and a half, I kept hearing “there’s the head” then “it’s gone back up again” it was ghastly!

If you’ve ever watched any of the Saw films, that is how it felt! I was on the bed.. being tortured, blood everywhere, legs up in stirrups, that hour and a half felt like a life time. So after all that pushing I began to beg.. I didn’t give a toss how they got my daughter out as long as they got her out some how, in came the doctors and out came the vacuum, I had no idea this was happening.. but my husband tells me that it was like a big plunger being stuck to our babies head and they were pulling her.. almost like a tug of war, that kind of feet apart and pull action!!

Vacuum came off her head, so out came the scissors, I was snipped down there! So they did that and then pulled her out.. ouch. But then the most beautiful little messy person was put on my chest! Tons of black hair stuck to her hair, she was absolutely miniscule and flawless.

They proceeded to stitch me back up which took ages as they did it wrong and had to re do me.. that was another oh my god am I actually dieing moment! Next thing I knew I had midwives grabbing my nipples and pushing (almost head butting) by babied head against my boob. That didn’t work so they sent me on my way to recover and passed me over to the postnatal ward guys.

I was so so horrified at the experience I had just had I couldn’t actually sleep at all that night as I kept getting flash backs. I just starred at my baby all night I was in awe of her, she was so calm and looked just like my mother. I remember thinking that every minute of the pain was worthwhile and I’d do a million times over to get the same result! bleurgh sickly sweet I know but I would.

The morning after I was ready to get out of there.. like if I could have walked without my feet being a meter apart from each other.. so much so that I took up the whole corridor, I would have escaped! I went to the toilet because they said I had to, and looked down at myself in disbelief.. I don’t know if my post-partum swelling was any worse than anyone else’s but blow me sideways I did not expect it to be that much (don’t worry pregnant people it does go down).

Things were a bit tricky for a few weeks after, a couple of my stitches burst, I had to take a pillow everywhere I went and I remember swearing that I would never ever have fall pregnant again. 

I’m now 3 months postpartum and feeling glorious, I still remember the pain.. but I’m still alive and I had a natural delivery! How cool is that to say! I will have another baby, I maybe even two more! (not three though) but in a weird way it’s actually quite addictive! Like tattoo’s! It hurts but the adrenaline and the reward at the end is awesome. Obviously my daughter is much more awesome than a tattoo though. 

Haemorrhoids are now the only things remaining that remind me of the whole labor thing, their annoying and you don’t get much of a reward at the end like you do a baby or a tattoo. But I’d say that’s a small price to pay for being able to be a mummy :)