CAT, JACK & LEO
It has been a while since I gave birth and I promise to all those new Mammas out there that the brilliant memories stay and the horrible bits fade away – phew
I have a tale of two births – one pretty rough the other, thankfully, wonderful.
Birth one – I allowed a student midwife to look after me, in hindsight, she should have had a bit more monitoring!
It was all a bit of a surprise, my waters broke on a Sunday - almost 4 weeks early eeek, no bag packed – I’d said to my much more ‘on it’ NCT chums, oh I‘ve got plenty of time to get all that ready – we were rushing around like loons trying to find everything as I leaked water around the house!
Went into hospital, out again (big mistake, apparently they should not have let me out as there’s a risk of infection) and at that time, just had a few niggley pains.
Pain then kicked in strong the next day. I was booked in and as requested on my birth-plan, given gas & air. No-one was really watching me so I had way too much gas and not much air, so kind of went a bit looney!
I lost those couple of days really and then all of a sudden it was time for the big push, probably for around an hour. I remember clearly thinking I just can’t do this anymore and then the next moment, I’d given birth.
The moment of seeing Jack was utterly wonderful even though I’d had pretty much no sleep for 48 or so hours.
He was 8lbs 6, almost a month early, so he was going to be a whopper and even though thankfully he popped up early, I still had third-degree tears which was fun!
The day midwives after the birth were lovely but I am sorry to say, as I think midwives are truly wonderful humans generally, the night-time ones were witches, they made the whole thing stressful and scary.
Jack was put in a light box with goggles on which he kept pushing off and I was terrified he would be blinded as no-one told me you could just switch the light off and calmly replace the goggles, I didn’t sleep the whole night watching him.
The doctors were worried about infection (referring to not keeping me in when my waters had originally broken) as my new baby was very jaundiced.
But the end result was my Jack (now nearly 11) – and I would go through the whole bonkers thing again to get him – ain’t Mother Nature weird?!
My birth-plan was to have a water-birth, nothing like that happened but I did have a natural birth as they say – though once you’ve given birth, we all know that it doesn’t matter how they come out, you are no less of an incredible creature if you have a caesarean or forceps or whatever – just as long as they come out safe and well!
Birth two – ladies, I thank the universe for birth two as it means I have a very positive birth story to tell loads of my gorgeous customers who invariably talk to me about their worlds- and especially those who are fearful of the 2nd time as their first was traumatic!
So, waters popped so loudly it made me laugh as I couldn’t believe it came from within me! I, 2nd time around, listened to the NCT hypno-birth so I was already trying to imagine that I had a soft, velvet vulva!
I stayed away from hospital as long as I could, my toddler helped with the tens machine!
My Mum and Dad turned up to look after number one and I proceeded to gush more water out IN FRONT OF MY DAD!
On the way to hospital when I was having contractions 4 mins apart, my husband started to copy the mooing I was doing to get through the pain, I nearly battered him!
Got to the hospital, kept stopping every few minutes to lean and moo – got to the labour ward when the tens machine started giving me little electric shocks, which was fun!
Met my midwife who immediately made me feel like I was making too much fuss and that I had hours to go, I kept saying that it felt quite imminent but I really wanted to stay on my feet so gravity could help me – she reluctantly agreed but said she wanted to do a quick check – put her (excuse the graphic detail!) fingers up, shouted ‘everyone, baby is here now’ and out my Leo came!
From start to finish a few hours and I felt euphoric, hadn’t used anything and this time around didn’t look like I’d been in a horror film (only 2nd degree tear whoop!) and no burst-blood vessels in my eyes – which was the height of attractiveness I achieved in my first birth – the whites of my eyes were totally blood red surrounding my blue iris – and no-one told me, I practically shrieked when I saw myself in the mirror for the first time!).
2nd time I had no birth plan other than to imagine that I was an all-powerful Amazonian woman who was bloody well going to have a good birth – I swear positive, mental attitude really helped me.