Chapter two: the beginning...
It was 1am onWednesday, the 21st of March 2012 when I felt a twinge. I got up togo to the loo and told my husband I thought I could be in labour. I keptgetting these strange feelings in my stomach, like a pain. They would come andgo at different times. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. If this is what labourwas, it was going to be easy. How wrong I was!
Hendrik insisted Icalled the Midwife. I got on the phone and the midwife told me not to worry.She said that it sounded like I still had a fair way to go. She explained thatcontractions generally get worse with time, and that they would gradually worktheir way into my back. She also told me that they would be more regular andcloser together.
By 5am I thought theyhad gotten worse and closer so I rang the midwife again. Because I had rang asecond time, and I sounded like I had absolutely no idea what I was talkingabout, she asked me to come in at 9am for an assessment.
We got up, hadshowers, ate breakfast and were down at the hospital by nine. I was in mypyjamas still. We had put the bag in the car for my hospital stay.
A nice midwife calledJess came and took me to a consultation room. Hendrik happily told her that Ihad a sister called Jess also. She hooked me up to a machine to monitor thebaby’s heartbeat and my contractions. She made me press a button whenever I hada contraction.
After two hours hookedup to this machine, Jess feeling my stomach, she then said that she wanted todo an internal. An in-WHAT? I explained that I was totally not okay with this,but really, it had to be done. I think I may have cried.
I was already 3cm ofthe way to a baby! I was excited, because this meant I was in pain for a goodreason.
Then Jess said, “okay,you can go home now”. Go home? Am I not having a baby today? She then explainedI needed to go home, because if I stayed there they may start inducing me orsomething. So home we went.
I woke up severaltimes throughout the night when the contractions seemed to be getting into myback. I called the midwifes a few times and they told me several things, that Ishould have a warm shower. So I had a 2 hour shower (or so it seemed). Istarted using a TENS machine, which is like electric pulses that go down yourback to confuse the pain. At first it worked, but in the end it just felt likeit was burning a hole in my back.
That night I calledthe midwife again and she told me to use a warm pack on my back and have apanadol. I had bought a warm pack for labour off eBay – one of those liquidones that ‘frost up’ when you press the little button inside and they heat up.I should have tested it a few weeks before, because it didn’t work!
The pain got so badthat I began to scream every time I got a contraction. Hendrik ‘breathed’ withme, but eventually I felt like I couldn’t do all that stupid breathing theytalk about. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even pee. Something felt so wrong.
By Friday morning (sotwo days later), Hendrik told me to stop calling the midwives and being bubbly.He told me to seriously call them and tell them that I am in so much pain. Idid. A contraction came on while I was on the phone and so they then insisted Icome in.
It was raining veryheavily. Hendrik dropped me at the entrance of the hospital and I went in.Suddenly everything became overwhelming and I began to cry. I sat on a littlechair and cried while Hendrik parked the car in the ridiculously expensivecarpark. A pregnant lady came and asked if I was okay (remembering that Ididn’t even look pregnant. Just fat). I explained the events of the last 48hours as this stranger comforted me. She said that she would be doing the samething in the next few weeks.
Hendrik arrived and wewent upstairs where midwife Jess met us and took us straight into theconsultation room. She did another one of those horrible examinations, and saidthat I was now 6-7cm.
She immediately gave me a room, Hendrik got my bags, andI settled in.
I had wanted a waterbirth from the beginning. Every time I had called the midwife I reminded themof this. Jess came in and sadly broke the news to me that I couldn’t have awater birth as there was nobody on that day who was trained to do one. My heartshattered. It was going to be my way to get through labour. I didn’t know how Iwas going to now.
Not long after that,the head-midwife came in and asked a favour. There was a student doctor whoneeded to witness a birth. I said sure, thinking the more the merrier. How Iregretted it when he walked in, was actually rather good looking and muchyounger than I was. I didn’t want that nice young man staring where the sundoesn’t shine!
(to be continued... stay tuned)
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