Its the final countdown... duddleduhhduhh

So, here I am... 2 weeks or so left till birth and I’m bored. Bored of waiting. It seems like everyone wants to share their birth story with me at the moment, they seem to relish providing me with the gory details with a look on their face that says ‘thank goodness I aint doing that again’ which is fine, only errmm I AM doing that again so can you please either lie and tell me how ‘it was a breeze second time round, the baby practically fell out’ or maybe just not say anything at all? I understand the desire to share though. I had a few classic moments during my last birth and thought I’d share them with you (see... we women can’t resist, now I’m at the whole sharing thing), anyway these were a few of my favourites. (Just so you know, Isaac was very co-operative in his timings, I felt my first contraction at 9.01am and Isaac was born the same day at 17.28pm... just like a regular working day!).

I had numerous helpful conversations with the labour ward during the day, here is an example of the last one I made where I finally got fed up (this was made at 3.00pm after having contractions since 9am!):

Me: “Hello, it’s Fiona, I called earlier about being in labour”

Labour Ward: “ahhh yes, how’s it going?”

Me: “Well the contractions are 3 – 4 minutes apart, lasting over a minute now”

Labour Ward: “Oooh that sounds good”

Me: <long pause> “Ermmm shall I come in now then?”

Labour ward: “Oh, Well you can but you’ll probably be ages yet what with it being your first, and its caesarean day today so we’re quite busy, did you have a bath and go for a walk yet?”

Me: “Yes I went for a walk but now I can’t really walk because the contractions are too strong and too frequent. Do you think I can come in now please because you’re over an hour in the car and I don’t want to leave it too late, oh and can I have the birthing pool filled please?”

Labour ward: “Ohhh right then well of course you can come in if you want to, we’ll see you in an hour or so, the pools free so we’ll start filling it up for you when you get here.”

Me: “Rightyo, see you soon.”

At 4.00pm we arrived at Labour ward, I sit down and my waters break ... all hell breaks loose. Midwives are scuttling in dragging various bits of equipment, alarms are going of everyone is dashing in and out. I’m now very confused, did I do something wrong? Am I in the wrong place? Is something wrong with the baby? “Do you feel like pushing?” asks one midwife, “ermm no I’m fine thank you...” is that the correct response? “Would you like some gas and air?” asks another, “ermm yeah go on then” (I’m up for anything – it says so in my birth plan, not that they have opened my notes yet as there is still much rushing about going on).

Anyway, things kick off with a bang now, and I feel like I’m dying -“Keep breathing the gas and air” the midwife says, ohh yeahh believe me I will do, because there’s NO chance you’re getting that off me again now, it’s my lifeline, I’m pretty sure I’d DIE without it, “bring on the serious pain relief” I say, relishing the thought of some serious medication, but what’s this... she’s telling me “you can’t have anything stronger now, it’s too late”... “Too late? TOO LATE” I say, “what do you mean too late?! That’s not fair, YOU were the ones who told me not to come here, and now I am here and you tell me I’m TOO LATE? Right, well - I want to get in the bath now then”, I demand “ermm well actually you can’t do that either because we won’t have time to fill it now” “ARE YOU JOKING?! You’re telling me I can’t even get in the bath because I’m TOO LATE?”... “errmm Yes”.

At 4.30pm The midwife turns to me and says “great job with the pushing but what I think would really help is if you stopped screaming so much and used that energy to help with even better pushing”... I nod and then as she walks away I turn to Ben and say “Did you hear that? She says I’m screaming too much... I’m not screaming at all, what’s she talking about? How rude is that? She’s a LIAR”,  looking back now I can clearly remember Bens face at this point, and I can see the indecision written all over it, to give him his due he very kindly nodded and agreed with me, “Rude” he said. Anyway, the next contraction I thought I maybe COULD hear a noise... an animalistic guttural roar of pain, a shocking sound, whoever was making it must be scaring the other moms-to-be waiting out the early stages of labour half to death the selfish cow... oh hang on a sec, that sound is coming from somewhere really close by... hang on... that sound is coming from... ME! Damn it, and I thought she was just being rude.

At 5.00pm I went through what I have since found out is the usual denial/change of heart stage:

Me “right well I’ve had enough of this now thanks, I think I’ll be okay without a baby to be honest... in fact I’m pretty sure anything that hurts this much can’t be a good thing anyway, it’s probably best if we forget about the whoolleee thing and I just go home now?”

Midwife: “It doesn’t work like that; you don’t get a choice now. The baby is on its way”

Me:  “Well I’m afraid we’ll just have to cancel the order, I didn’t sign up to this, it’s not ‘as described’, I won’t even ask for a refund – you can keep the last 9 months too how’s that sound?”

Midwife: “Ready to push again then?”

Just after this the midwife said to us “I think by 5.30 we should be done here, just before my shift ends, perfect timing” I thought “jeez I don’t think I can keep this up for another 12 hours, I’m exhausted already” and I said as much to Ben, Ben said “err I think she means half five as in about 30 minutes?”, at which stage complete panic set in as I “HAVENT HAD ENOUGH TIME...IT’S TOO SOON... HE CANT COME YET...IM NOT REEAADDDYYYY”

At 5.28pm Isaac was born and all was well with the world... then I had some tea and toast, and then I threw it back up.

Anyway although they say it’s the "quickest forgotten pain” I was still adamant that I was NEVER doing that EVER again... well until Isaac was 3 months old that is and I found out I was pregnant again...