Oh Baby!

 

Ladies, and gents has it really been that long since i posted? Wow time truly does fly. Disclaimer : this post has no photos or visual aids, no time  to look them up ! Too busy being a mum.

Oh well, here I am finally finding a minute to blog. You see its been one month since our little girl was born. She decided due dates are lame and arrived 3 weeks early on November 3rd. Remember one of my earlier posts when I declared my desire to have a natural birth? Well, i got my wish. Clearly I had no indication of what I was in for.

I remember feeling exhausted the weekend of October 31st. My husband and I slept in that Sunday and spent time with family that evening. When I got time I spent the evening having a ‘troubled ‘tummy. I had no idea why as I hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary but boy was my stomach running. Later that night I woke up to go to the bathroom at 3 am. I returned to bed and almost immediately felt liquids about to gush out of me. I was embarrassed thinking that my running stomach was to blame, until my husband put on the lights and on looking on to the floor realized my waters had broken. In the movies they make it look like it’s a onetime thing, where a little pool of water comes out and that is it. Well reality is different, it was A LOT and continued for a while.

We immediately called my midwife and remained in contact with her waiting for the onset of the contractions before heading to hospital. The contractions never came, and eventually had to head to hospital where my ob/gyn decided to induce my labour .  They tried the tablet, where i only dilated to 3 cm. The next step was to use the dreaded DRIP *scream*. I had heard horror stories about it  and i truly was not ready .I remember the nurse telling me not to worry that the drip would take about an hour to kick in.  So I would have time to prepare for the pain. That didn’t happen. the contractions started immediately for me. They came hard, and they came fast. During normal labor , a woman has time to breathe between contractions. When labor is induced the interval in between are a mere few seconds. The pain is unbearable. I cannot find enough words to describe what it feels like. Thankfully I had my husband holding my hand, cheering me on, my midwife helping me with breathing exercises and massaging my lower back. The medical staff were expecting that I would labor for a long time but thankfully my torture didn’t last too long. Four hours later the baby crowned and I was able to push our little girl into this world.

Truth is, halfway through labor I toyed with the idea of having a c- section. The pain was enough for me to want to change my mind! I did ask for painkillers which I got, but they did nothing pain all they did was make me feel like I was intoxicated and drowsy. The easiest part for me was pushing, that was nothing compared to the labor.

One month later and I still can’t believe I survived that whole experience.  It felt like it would never end. How do women do this more than once? I think God definitely has a sense of humor and strikes women with amnesia and they forget the pain they went through and are thus able to bear more children.  I must admit every time I look at my baby’s cute little face , I can say the pain was worth it and I am thankful that God gave me the strength to birth her.

 

Taji, our crown of joy born November 3rd ,7.35pm.