Birth and all that.

I never got the natural birth everyone talked about at NCT, which was fine because Lord knows I didn’t want one. I’d have been very happy to have had an epidural at 7 months, just to get me into the swing of things. In fact I went to my first NCT class knowing that I’d be induced at 38 weeks because of the crippling pain I was in from SPD. Sadly one mention of this put me automatically at the bottom of the class (along with a diabetic and twin-mum who were also booked in for induction due to risks involved with their pregnancy) and forever marred my experience of NCT classes.

It took four days for the induction to work. I had, in fact, been booked, despairingly, in for a C-section and then, wouldn’t you know, my waters broke. Cue Syntocin, Epidural and a long night of no sleep in the Delivery Unit (DH got to sleep in our bed as I sent him home) and 17 hours later I was a Mamma. There were 15 witnesses. The baby barely made a peep, had low APGARs and was whisked to SCBU for a few hours before being returned to me. Small but perfectly formed.

Second time round the SPD was worse, but I was better prepared. I didn’t bother with NCT, had all my midwife appointments at home and I literally peppered my notes with paperwork related to my ‘condition’. Thankfully some of the midwives actually read my notes this time. But it took five days and a trip home overnight to get things going. I went into labour on my own in a private room and spent the night struggling to cope with the intense pains of labour and a baby pressing down on pelvic bones that had already spent 30 weeks protesting, and NO PAIN RELIEF. I thought quite seriously about throwing myself out of the window. By sunrise I was exhausted, the midwives didn’t really believe I was in pain and I have no recollection of DH arriving at the hospital (he got to sleep at home with our daughter as I wasn’t in ‘active labour’.)

The epidural turned me from a screaming gibbering pain-wracked shell of a person to the me I know (and regularly like.) Suddenly, much like coming round from a blackout, I saw my husband, who I had missed so much. Suddenly I likedthe baby I was carrying. Suddenly I could sleep. 7 hours later, and with only a midwife for company, Dimples came into the world, scoring a perfect 10 on her APGARs. Man was she cross that she’d been ejected from her cosy nest.

Despite starting the same way (I had the same expectations of pain relief and early induction,) my birth experiences were still so different. They aren’t the stories you read about in pregnancy books, or that you hear at NCT groups. But they’re the only stories I have, the only stories I will have, because I’m not doing it again: I have two healthy, happy children and I can still walk. I am happy with my births because of the resulting children (who spend every moment of their days driving me crackers.) I’m frustrated by the way my body let me down, and equally frustrated by the reluctance of both my NCT group and Yoga in Pregnancy group to want me to come back and talk about my experiences. Of the seven people in my NCT group, 2 had C-sections, 4 had LOTS of pain relief and only one had a natural pain-free birth. She later admitted to us that she didn’t know why she held out and she wouldn’t do it again. A lot of the women I know have been traumatised by their birth experiences because they weren’t prepared for the realities. Perhaps if more women like me were allowed to talk to expectant mums, they’d be better equipped to make decisions in labour.