The definition of Birth.

The definition of birth.

1. An act or instance of being born:
2. The act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring
3. Lineage; extraction; descent.

Let’s focus on point 3 here. ‘Extraction’.

For a little while I felt really disappointed in myself for having to have an emergency caesar. It made me feel like I didn’t give birth like a real woman should. Like I cheated, copped out, gave up. And I did give up. 30 hours of contractions did me in. Being at 7 cm dilatation for 6 hours was enough to break me.

I had to get out of the bath pool and say goodbye to our little sanctuary. Feeling sorry for myself, I hung my head as Lach guided me to the more clinical hospital room where they could stab my spine with a huge arse needle and monitor me. I was going to be induced now too, cause they said I’d been going for too long now.

Walking past the reception in the maternity ward I felt as if all the midwives had eyes on me. “Another one bites the dust” I imagined they were thinking.

I was looking forward to the relief the needle was going to give me. My girlfriends had told me about the bliss they felt when they had an epidural. And now I wanted that bliss.

Lach was petrified. He’s one of those people that won’t eat panadol and takes medication reluctantly. So a needle into my spine was freaking him out. I had to sign a consent form. The one that says if you get paralysed from the epidural, we can’t blame the hospital. Lach was hesitant but I signed that sucker without a second thought.

Give it to me now.

Over I bent, head resting on Lach’s shoulder and in comes the doctor…with a student. She administered the needle as she was explaining what she was doing. She was taking her time cause she was showing and explaining just what the fuck she was doing. I was slumped on the edge of the bed like a limp puppet as wave after wave of contraction hit me. “Giiiiiive it toooooo meeeeeee”.

She had to keep stopping whenever I had a contraction. Needle flopping about in my back and all. Poor Lach was so scared for me. I could feel his rage towards the doctor. Finally it was done and they laid me back down on the bed. It took a while for the epidural to work but slowly I could feel only one of my legs… which meant I could still feel the contractions but only on half of my uterus. So I was still in agony. Then my midwife rolled me onto my side and let the drugs drip down through my blood into the unaffected side.

And that bloody worked. So now I was just a head. A big dumb head on a bed. ‘Hello’. I was back. No pain. I couldn’t feel my legs, my body, nothin. Just a head lolling about on a bed. The relief I felt. I could talk now, look at Lach and comfort him that I was ok. I could even crack jokes again and play games with myself, like, ‘Wiggle your big toe’. ‘Nope, nothin’.

I was delirious. Asking the doctors what they were up to as they fossicked around down below. “To get things moving we just broke your waters” she said …. “Really? Wow! How much water is there?” “Now what are you doing?” I watched as my legs appeared under the sheets like mountains before me without even feeling them move. “Whhooaa, did you just move my legs? Now what are you doing?” I swear the doctor probably had her entire fist up ‘there’ and I didn’t even feel a thing.

Lach was in and out of the room at this stage, talking to the doctors. A nurse came in and rushed over to me. “Oh sweetie, your leg fell off the bed, let me just pick that up for you”. I think she even laughed a little. I had no idea. Just a dumb head on a bed.

Doctors and midwives were in and out of the room. There were beeps from the heart monitor which were monitoring baby birds heart rate. Breaking my waters did nothing so they shot me up with man made oxytocin (hormones) to induce me. I just lay there in a daze as Lach paced the room chasing the doctors around making sure they were doing their job properly.

Apparently my contractions skyrocketed (didn’t feel it) but little birdie’s heart rate dropped and slowed significantly. It was a scary sound hearing the heart machines alarm going off. Doctors raced in again and shot me up with something else to counteract the hormone and baby’s heart rate returned to normal. Lach was calmly panicking by now. He was so worried. His wife was a drugged out head on a bed and alarms and monitors were beeping all over the place. Our little baby didn’t want to come out and I couldn’t help it.

I felt helpless.

Finally the Doctor came in again and gave me two options.

1- Attempt the hormone induction for a second time with the risk that baby’s heart rate will drop again

Or

2- Take you in for an emergency caesarean

Option 1 was a definite NO. I didn’t want to hear my baby in distress again. Even so, I still had 3 cm to dilate before pushing out the baby in a posterior position.

I was tired and scared. “Cut it out of me” I whimpered.

At this point I was numb. Numb because of the copious amount of drugs in me but also numb because I had been defeated. I gave up. I had failed what our bodies are created to do. Give birth.

They wooshed me up under the fluorescent lights to surgery. Put a stupid hair net on me, dressed Lach in some stupid scrubs and into the surgery room we slid. Surgeons and nurses incessantly talking to me. Lach squeezing my hand. I shut down. I was in such a daze I remember water leaking out of my eyes but no sound coming out. I started to feel nauseous from all the drugs and my body was shaking and convulsing rapidly. I had no control over anything now. The sheet went up over my legs, guarding Lach and I from seeing my insides being taken out of me. I remember shaking hard, staring into Lach’s eyes, he looked so scared.  

I had no emotion. Just… nothing.

And then we heard it.

I’ll never forget it.

A baby’s cry.

Our babies cry.

Our baby’s first breaths, gasping for air.

And all of a sudden my emotions leaped up out of their druggy coma and came flooding out of my face. Out of my eyes and out of my mouth. I was a watery mess. The first thing we saw was a little vagina being lifted up over the sheet.

“It’s Luca” Lach managed to cry out. “It’s a girl, it’s Luca”.

And within seconds she was put on my chest, her tiny, wheezy cry filled our ears as she snuggled into me. Tired, in shock and relieved, the three of us lay there, just breathing each other in.

And even though my birth plan went to absolute, tear up the paperwork, ‘extracted’ shit…

I still gave birth. Incredibly.

And 6 months later, to the day, here we are. Baby girl, Lach and me. Just us 3. And we can’t imagine life without her now. You complete us. Happy half year Baby Bird.