The Delivery

In the words of Coldplay’s Chris Martin – Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this crazy, painful and so intrusive.

Okay I kind of added that last bit…

I never really had any plans to share my labor story, but I find that I am beginning to forget the details, my 30+ memory is honestly shit. Also, I don’t have one decent picture of my baby bump.For some reason I wasn’t in the mood for pictures all through my pregnancy so I thought to myself, I might as well document it somehow.

I remember finding solace before my delivery, in reading other women’s experiences. Now whether my story will allay your fears is another kettle of fish but I will tell it as it is, so you can have an idea what to expect.

As grueling, painful, tiring, stressful and scary as delivery might be, it’s also the beginning of something wonderful. Like come on you’re bringing a life into the world. If that isn’t the ultimate flex, then I don’t know what is.

THE NEWS

It all began during a routine antenatal checkup, I wasn’t meeting with my usual doctor so I was a little upset but this doctor was familiar to me, he had helped with a serious issue a while back.

Minutes into the consultation, he dropped the bomb - I would have to deliver two weeks before my due date because of an arising issue. I didn’t know how to process what I had just heard, I thought I still had about three weeks to prepare for the annihilation of my vagina. I kid I kid.

I would have to be admitted and induced on Friday for a possible Saturday delivery. I had no idea what being induced meant, I just hoped and prayed it had nothing to do with injections.

Little did I know that injections would be the least of my worries.

I told my husband and he took the news better than I did. Oh but of course he would, like I said ME.PUSH.BABY.OUT.VAGINA not him.

The week leading up to Friday was torture. I truly wasn’t mentally ready and I was scared of the pain, injections, something going wrong, death, shitting my pants there were so many thoughts going through my mind. So I found solace in reading birth stories on the internet, praying, watching Sisi Yemmies birth related videos and googling breathing techniques, as a way to prepare myself.

*Insert Patience Ozokwor laughter here* You aint seen nothing yet.

AT THE HOSPITAL

I got to the hospital Friday afternoon with my husband. At least I had someone I could exert all this pre-delivery jitters on. The doctor (a different doctor again) took his time to explain how everything would go down. Make sure you ask a lot of questions if you don’t understand anything.

“So you’ll put what, in my what and tomorrow you’ll put what in my what what to break what?”

Sidebar: Why are hospital beds so horrible and uncomfortable? This was truly one of the worst things about my experience.

Later that night, I would find myself in the theatre, legs up in the air, waving it around like I just didn’t care as the doctor inserted something called a balloon catheter – it looks like a long pipe with an inflatable end that is pushed far down into your cervix to help it dilate and then filled with water while it’s inside you.

So yeah, don’t get pregnant. 0/10 I don’t recommend…just kiddin’

I had to walk back to my room like one of them happy feet penguins.

The next day was water breaking day. Yipee! A.K.A rupturing the amniotic sac. If I thought the balloon catheter was invasive I was in for a rude shock. I thought I had prepared for this delivery, you know I had read all the readables, I had prayed, had my Rambo stare down. LOL. I would later come to realize that there are some things you can’t really prepare for and this was one of them.

Picture my doctor holding this shiny long plastic hook and reaching far inside my cervix trying to ‘break my water’ repeatedly with no success. Picturing it right now and I’m breaking out in a sweat.

Every time he would leave to come back and try again I could hear ‘HALLELUYAH HALLELUYAH HALLELUYAH HALLE-LU-YAH” play in my head but whenever he walked back into the room I would flash my husband the evil eye. Like look what you did….as if I didn’t participate actively.

After many unsuccessful attempts at poking my stubborn amniotic sack, I was left to my own devices. Basically everyone was just tired but finally while everyone was away I started to feel something trickle out of me – My water had finally broken after all the initial gra gra.

Call the doctor I’m ready to push, just like in the movies. I am ready to pop this baby out…I… aunty sit down, this is just the beginning.

My husband was in the room the whole time, half on his phone with family, half comforting me, half making me laugh. It was comforting but the pain. Oh the pain, whenever I felt the pain I just wanted to reach out and knee him the groin so he could feel a bit of what I was feeling. Just a little preview, a small kick to the groin would do.

CONTRACTIONS FROM HELL

Nothing like some Pitocin to get the contractions going. At first I felt nothing, it was 10 am now and I was telling the nurse beside me

“Hmmn this isn’t really bad you know, I thought it was supposed to be much much worse.”

She was smiling but deep down I know she was like “wait for it…just wait for it. It’ll be like film trick.”

Omo thirty minutes later I wanted to strangle her, my husband, the doctor, all nurses on duty, the matron. In fact anyone could have gotten it at that point.

What the hell is this pain that comes and goes? Where is my mummy? I can’t do this anymore…ok breathe in and out like we learned on baby centre.

What the fuck, it’s not helping.

My contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart and about 60 seconds in duration.

Brethren, I write this not to scare you but the honest to God truth is that nothing prepared me for the pain. Not baby centre, not the breathing lessons. Nothing.

There was no way I didn’t position myself that day. I could have bent like a pretzel, done the Macarena and tootsie roll and I still would have been hurting.

And so for the next 8 hours, in intense pain and lying on a bed that made a cold concrete slab seem like the four seasons, I waited with bated breathe for my fucking cervix to dilate fully. As if the pain was not enough, every hour the doctor would show up to check how far I had dilated, reaching into my cervix like he was casually reaching into his closet for his favourite sweater.

Like …

‘Oh! I quite fancy this mustard yellow, tweed number’

The pain of that intrusion cannot be put into words, you can only feel it through the intensity of my slap.

At one point during the cervix inspections the doctor came with a medical student on clinical rotation and was using my lady parts for show and tell.

BABY, WHERE YOU AT?

At 8pm I was only 6cm dilated.

In between the blood pressure checks, fetal heart rate checks and painful contractions I was just over it and tired.

At this point I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I had already vomited three times, prayed an uncountable number of times, imagined kicking my husband in the groin multiple times and cried all through. The doctor tells me we have two options at this point. Wait till 12 to see whether I’d have fully dilated by then or do an emergency CS.

I shouted CS without thinking twice, my mum who had stopped by earlier was protesting.

“Why can’t you wait just a little longer” I threw her the sidest of eyes.

My MIL was asking why we waited this long to have a CS done on the phone.

My husband was confused but he asked me. What do YOU want.

“CS mudafucker!”

The anesthesiologist was called and about 30 minutes later I was wheeled into the theatre.

She was a pleasant woman who really made all the difference as I was a little bit nervous but she told me she had all her four kids through CS. So I was like, i got this.

DELIVERY

The only reason I didn’t opt for an epidural was because I wasn’t really giddy about being injected in my spine, not because I wanted to give birth like a Hebrew woman. Trust me you don’t get any cookies for how much pain you can endure during delivery. I was given a spinal anesthesia in the exact spot i was trying to avoid.

I started to feel dizzy afterwards but she gave me some oxygen and I felt better. I talked the whole operation, partly because i was nervous and didn’t want to fall asleep or something and she made for good conversation.

I felt something plop out after a while.

*Cue Halleluyah*

The wee little one was out and I could hear him crying.

Minutes later I was wheeled back to my room.

Opin cinema.