I wrote this piece for another blogger and she kindly shared it over on her website My little Babog Blog which you can find here My little Babog is an award winning Irish parenting, lifestyle and travel blog. Kellie, is a serial coffee drinker, a bandana bib addict and mammy to Kayla, Frankie and Kadie. Her tales of mammy life are real and very honest!
It was an honour for me, to be included on her website– thank you Kellie X
I have been lucky enough to have given birth to three beautiful babies, on three separate occasions. Each experience was so different that the only comparison I can make is that each time, a little bundle of baby boy was handed to me. Labour is such a funny word to use when talking about giving birth, it’s an accurate word, but still an odd word… labour makes me think of men on building sites not birthing a human.
My first experience of this labour was long, painful and absolutely scary, scary because I was only twenty and painful because I had a natural birth; did you know an epidural is required before intense labour begins… I didn’t and figured the pressure (feeling like you need to use the loo ladies) was normal as were the sharp pains. This would have been a good time to scream ‘give me meds’.
Luckily it wasn’t long before my 9lb baby boy was born, too late for an epidural but just in time for plenty of pain meds after. It takes a good few weeks to heal after a natural birth, something I wouldn’t ever do again. Almost three years later I was back in that delivery room but this time more of an expert.
“I will take absolutely everything you have, thank you!” I smiled sweetly at the midwife, who spent most of my seven hours intense labour appeasing me and using trickery.
Apparently they will cut you off if you take too much gas, they won’t tell you this, they will use trickery and before you know it , it is ‘show time’ – those midwives are amazing though and took my apologies after my most colourful language was on display along with my everything else.
My final time to visit this magical birthing room was three years ago. Everything was going swimmingly; I knew the score, I had my epidural and I was calm and relaxed. I just wanted to meet my baby, who I knew would need bloods and urine samples as soon as he was born but I focused on birthing him, hoping for a healthy little boy.
I have to say, when birthing doesn’t go according to anyone’s plan including the midwife’s you must try to stay calm – I could have done with this advice three years ago.
“Get this baby out!” I roared and yelled while the team was trying to explain to me that an emergency c-section was the only way this little dude was willing to come out.
“Get him out, get him out” I roared while I signed the consent and begged for them to do whatever they had to, to get my baby out safely.
A c-section in my experience is by far the hardest way to give birth. For me, it was the only way to have my baby who was a huge 9lb 6oz, he was too big to come out (the usual way). It was scary, there’s nothing easy about it, (mind you, there’s nothing easy about birthing a tiny human regardless of which way you do it, eh?). It was decided quickly and happened very quickly and then he was in the room. It wasn’t the same for me. I felt removed from the birth. I was, at this point, just watching doctors and midwives standing around me, I felt like a spectator when suddenly I heard a baby cry; my baby.
My baby, my baby was born.
It didn’t matter what way he was born; as soon as I could hear him, I started crying and thanking everyone in the room like someone who had just won an Oscar. I really didn’t have to thank the student who stood at the back of the room writing notes but I thanked him regardless.
The recovery from a c-section isn’t the same. It takes longer and it is major surgery, for me, it meant my husband really had to do a lot of housework for ten weeks. He thinks it’s ten, so we will stick with that, no point coming clean now.
As birthing stories go, mine are very different from each other but I am so unbelievably lucky I got to bring home my babies each and every time. I cannot begin to imagine the mammy that doesn’t get to do that – there are simply, no words.
Whichever way you bring a tiny human into the world, you are amazing, not all women get to experience that.
We are the lucky ones.