Day One

Part of the reason for starting the blog again/properly, is to keep a decent record of what my Wee Daftie gets up to. Where better to start than the beginning? And who doesn’t love a good labour story? I know, right? Read on at your own peril…

One weird thing I learned about discovering you are late into your pregnancy, when you finally find out about it, is that it is harder to date it precisely. Usually, when you go for your first scan, there is a margin of error of two days. When you find out that you are pregnant at 24 weeks (and 5 days), the error can be two weeks, either way. 

Because of this, and my annoyingly high-ish blood pressure, I knew that if my Wee Daftie hadn’t made an appearance by Friday 8th July 2016, we had a noon appointment to have my waters broken. 

How cute was I all fat and preggo, by the way? 
My hospital bag had been packed pretty much from when I had finished work and moved in with my Big Human so when we headed into the hospital that morning, I was prepared. Not for everything but I did have comfy clothes, lots of disposal pants (I heard that was a thing), healthy snacks and water, clothes for the baby, nappies and the most hilarious birth plan ever written. No, really. One of my midwives giggled as she read it and actually thanked me for writing it. “What are your expectations of labour? Literally none, apart from a baby at the end of it. Oh and lots of swearing throughout.”

Having never had a baby before, I was more than happy to put my entire faith into the medical team. And I can honestly say they were amazing. They treated all three of us beautifully. Even though we weren’t on the labour ward for that long, I genuinely felt like they all took some time to get to know us a bit. It was ace. That said, the only thing I didn’t want was to take morpine unless absolutely necessary. I’d never taken any major pain medication before and I was unsure of how my body would react. This may be surprising to hear, but I don’t like to feel out of control so facing a strange event (birthing a small person is pretty odd, if you ask me) I wanted to be as present as possible. 

This turned out to be a good thing as gas and air sent me loopy, so goodness only knows what anything stronger would have done. I lost a good 1.5 hours of my life that day but, according to my Big Human, I didn’t miss much. I remember finding it more comfortable to be in a sumo position when the contractions hit. I remember throwing a few arabesques in for good luck and that my Big Human kept having to fix the gas/air breathing device as I kept biting down and pulling it apart. 

What I don’t remember is trying to crawl under the bed and away from the pain – a valiant but realistically pointless endeavour. I don’t really recall my midwife being on the floor with me holding the pads monitoring Wee Daftie on my tummy and I definitely don’t remember the doctor and two more midwives coming into the room. 

Apparently, having 7 contractions every 10 minutes wasn’t ideal so the other staff were there to consult and help. So when I stopped floating about on the ceiling and started coming back down to earth (my Big Human had given up fixing the breathing device so I was finally breathing regular air again for the first time in over an hour), I started to get a little paranoid. There was clearly some conspiracy afoot. These new people had arrived because I was bad at this. I obviously wasn’t good at labour so they were here to do something about it! 

My Big Human started to help me back onto the bed so I had to ask, as rationally as possible, what was going on. I think my exact words were…”Why are you moving me? I am doing it wrong?” 

“What? Labour?”

“Yeah. I am just bad at it? I need help, because I’m not getting it right?”

Confused silence. 

“No? They just need to examine you.”

Which made more sense. Still a bit spaced, I settled back down on the bed and it was decided (definitely not by me. I had no idea what was going on. Clearly.) that it was time to start pushing. With the help of the midwives, the doctor, a ventouse cup and words of encouragement from my Big Human (“Come on. Just a bit more.” “Nope. Done. Not doing aaaaany more. Done.” Pause. “Well, you have to. Baby’s not coming out otherwise.” Sigh. “Fine!”) Wee Daftie was born at 10:52pm. Less than 11 hours from when we arrived. 

Despite the fuzziness of most the experience, I was fully there when my girl was given to me for the first time. When our midwife popped a tiny hat on her head. When she just lay on my chest, all small and gooey. When my Big Human held my Small Human for the first time. 

Glad I didn’t miss those bits.