Birth Is A Theme Park

Epidural Epiphany

I did not feel the needle the anaesthetist drove through my back. I didn’t feel it the second time either (when she missed the spot the first time) because the labour pain was too great.

Minutes later though, as a tingling wave washed over my belly to my toes, the pain had stopped. I felt nothing. Blissful, nothing.

While the drugs took hold my husband took the advice of the midwives and went to get a sandwich, snagging a pat on the back and few calming words, “Your wife will have returned to her normal mental state when you get back,” they said.

The next part was easy. Laid up in the bed, monitors dripping from my limbs, I watching the probe streaming from between my legs to the baby’s head move up and down as the wave of contractions continued.

Momentary Bliss

Lemonade in hand, I took a moment of solitude before my world changed forever, but my bliss didn’t last long, my baby’s heartbeat had slowed, so much so an alarm sounded from the machine and a flood of doctors and midwives rushed to my side. They stayed calm, not wanting to frighten me but I knew something wasn’t right.

“Are you ready to have your baby?” A new, male doctor asked. He was kind-looking, happy”¦ hopeful. “We have to cut you a little and we will have to turn your baby with special forceps but in five minutes you will be a mummy. We don’t have time for a cesarean.”

Into the room walked an army of staff, all staring down the barrel of my privates, waiting for the slaughter to begin. I later learned they were three paediatricians, two obstetricians and four midwives.

My legs were hoisted into stirrups, a white sheet draped across my knees to cover the view of the doctors. I then heard metal scrape together and felt a tug on my abdomen.

What Epic Labour?

“Push like you’re going to the toilet,” they told me and I did as I was told, as weird as it was to push something you can’t feel.

Then, like the past 13 hours never happened, he appeared. Screaming the most beautiful cry. Pink, swollen, bruises on his face, heart hammering against my chest. Me, purring like a cat (I have video evidence of this).

The assembly of doctors left the room, that cry was enough evidence to know he was healthy, happy and apparently, hungry!

My rollercoaster had ended and this, this was my fairy floss moment.

Everybody has a different birth story, share yours if you wish to give confidence to other mothers.