What I am about to say is what has spurred many of my friends to encourage me to speak at teen-pregnancy prevention presentations in schools, I have no idea why! It’s a little bit self-indulgent, I hope you don’t mind.
I had a very difficult pregnancy. Within a few weeks there was some bleeding which had to be checked out at the early pregnancy unit. They convinced me that the pregnancy wasn’t viable and I had either already miscarried or had an ectopic pregnancy. When neither of those turned out to be the case, I was then told I had a bicornuate uterus and if my pregnancy did survive full term, there was a good chance I would have to have a caesarean, this thought filled me with joy. The main reason of never wanting children was never wanting to push one out. This was one hurdle it appeared I had managed to dodge and the first bit of good news I had heard in weeks.
Now, if you ever see a pregnant woman who looks like she is having fun, she is either just fat or a bloody liar! There is absolutely nothing nice about being pregnant, you are sick, constantly. At about 6 months pregnant I had gone to visit my grandma on the bus with my dad. On the way back, I felt a bit…peaky, we had just pulled in to my last stop when the vomit monster decided it was a good time to make an appearance. The poor bus driver only just managed to get the doors open in time for me to projectile vomit off the bus and all over the shoes of two unsuspecting people waiting in the queue.
By the end of my pregnancy I was on crutches because my pelvis moved independently of the rest of me, I had my arm in a splint for Carpel Tunnel syndrome and my ankles and wrists were so swollen they looked like elephant legs. To top it off, I had received the all clear from the consultant and yes, I could have a ‘natural’ birth, none of that caesarean business. I was gutted when they told me. I had done absolutely no research in the art of birthing a child, my only knowledge of childbirth at this point was the episode of Only Fools and Horses where Raquel gives birth to Damien, and I never watched all of that because I was too embarrassed in front of my mum. I was very much going into this blind. On the plus side, I knew I was having a boy, so the panic of having a girl and her ending up just like me was over and I could look forward to doing boy things with my little Oscar. On the down side, Oscar’s dad was busy playing family with his new, old family so there was absolutely no chance of him being around for the birth, I wasn’t about to do it alone, so my mum tagged along…yay!
Oscar was due on 20th May. Oscar was evicted on 2nd June. Those two weeks were pretty unbearable if I’m honest. It was a hot summer, the SPD was difficult to cope with, the Carpel Tunnel was equally as difficult, the wrist splint wouldn’t fit in the arm holes of the crutches which meant I had to choose between pelvis pain and wrist pain. I was so swollen, things I didn’t even know I had were swollen, and swelling isn’t like being fat, fat wobbles and moves, being swollen is like a very overblown balloon at the point just before it bursts. It hurts and it is uncomfortable.
A week after my due date I was given the ‘stretch and sweep’, which is apparently a painless, if a little uncomfortable procedure to encourage the child to get out! This is a statement that only becomes true when you replace ‘painless’ with ‘Ow you bastard!’ and ‘little uncomfortable’ with ‘f*** me, your hands are bloody huge!’ but don’t be afraid ladies, whatever pain and discomfort you feel at this point, it is NOTHING compared to the actual labour.
My induction was booked for 1st June. Following the sweep of death I had been having pretty nasty contractions for almost a week, there was one false alarm where my back waters had burst but not the forewaters which is apparently a thing that means the midwife can send you home at 3 in the morning, when you have absolutely no way of getting there, but eventually 1st June arrived and off I went to the hospital to have the rest of my waters broken and my baby evicted. We arrived at the maternity ward at about 8:30am and I was led off to my temporary bed. I was examined, now I’ll pause here for a second while I explain what ‘being examined’ actually means in pregnant lady terms. Basically, you lay back, legs akimbo, either up in the air on stirrups, or, in my case, the old fashioned, ‘ankles together and drop your knees’ position, while a lady (going with the majority and not being sexist) you have never met before proceeds to pop her fingers inside you and then score you out of 10. My exam was pretty unsuccessful, and after a week of contracting, my cervix was a measly 3. They broke my waters, put me on a drip, and after a bloody long time, an anaesthetist stuck his head in to see if I wanted an epidural, it was just like that, as if he were the refreshment trolley man on the train. I obviously said, “Yes!” and it was at this point my mum suggested I didn’t have the epidural because I had done so well. What is that? How is the outcome any different? I could either continue in agony (it does really hurt, there aren’t enough words for how much it hurts), and pop a baby out of my tunnel of love, or I can have an epidural from the man who I may or may not have named my son after, and do exactly the same thing but in a lot less pain. I ignored my mum, not for the first time, and went along with the epidural. Another 8 bloody hours passed by and out popped the shrivelled, purple, used-tea-bag looking thing that I would instantly love with all my heart. They threw him at me and he started chewing on my boob, it was just like that. Mum cut the chord, and then the real fun started.
Initially, the midwife thought that the placenta had come out very shortly after Oscar did, but that actually turned out to be a sack of blood that weighed almost half as much as he did. There was a little concern around that, but not as much as there was around the whereabouts of the placenta. They gave the chord a couple of tugs but it was not shifting. Apparently, in this situation, time is of the essence, so they gave me an injection that was meant to release the placenta. My body clearly had other ideas, because if anything it made it hold on to it even more securely. The midwife gave another couple of tugs on the chord and I shit you not, my body was pulled down the bed. I don’t remember much of what happened next, other than being wheeled into a very shiny room, looking up at the anaesthetist’s eyes and being told to stay awake. Above me I could see spaceship lights that were mirrored. I could see inside my vagina! I could also see a surgeon with a glove on her that went up to her shoulder, like vets do when they’re about to rummage around a cow’s arsehole. Nothing about this was going to be good. Before I had chance to think about it, the surgeon had disappeared inside my womb, I could see her hand moving around inside me, it was the weirdest sensation I had ever encountered and not one I would ever like to repeat.
Once my insides had had a nice spring clean, I was stitched up and taken back to Oscar, where I could finally get some sleep. Then he cried, and I never slept again.