Having a baby

Giving birth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,
Please don’t believe the hype. I was to be induced, my midwife kindly informed me that at my little age with it being my first baby and an overdue baby..this would likely lead to an awful birth or a Cesarean. Luck of the draw. Your baby book might tell you to make a birth plan but it won’t work, it might make you think your in control but that baby is coming out any which way it wants. I soon became a failed induction pessary after pessary, they told me I would have a Cesarean and I refused. They seemed shocked but I was adamant.. they had no idea the real date my baby was due..they don’t have an exact idea with a normal pregnancy, yet my dating scan was done 32 weeks in and they think they’ve got it all worked out? No sir. Hospitals are not in charge you are. It’s your body and though they try to help you they do have a strict routine they stick to, it’s easier for them to give you a c section and you have a premature baby..I was offered this ‘service’ 4 weeks prior to birth. You can say no. Exercise day that right. It may be the only time you give birth be sure you have no regrets. I left hospital and went for a walk in the park next door. Do what you need to do. Keep yourself happy and sane. I felt pains at 11am, a gent kindly reached up and tried to pull Toby’s head down into the birth canal. And bam! A doctor entered..a real bitch from what we knew of her and informed my midwife that she’d see us in theatre. The next day after gas and air along with the epidural that I was afraid of and said I’d never have. A baby boy arrived naturally at 6:40. Up yours doc. It was sheer panic an hour of pushing an hour of back and forth back and forth and finally a stretching stinging pain that you just could never imagine. They dropped this long skinny thing on my chest and he didn’t move and inch. Soon he was whisked to the other side of the room and seemingly brought to life. A single stitch was put..well it felt like right across the middle of me.
Everyone kind of disappeared then, my mother went home to rest, the nurses were on a changeover so went for toast and I sat alone covered in blood in a real panic..when I tried to move to get the baby. I was abruptly reminded of the needle still in my spine. I yelped.. I looked forward to see my placenta on a table along with some metal instruments and pools of blood. Help. He’s going to cry for me and I’ll be stuck on a hospital bed suspended by needles. It was a nightmare of mine I’m sure. Long story short. Hospitals aren’t perfect either.
I stood up and showered after I’d angrily hissed some woman with a face full of toast to get these damn needles off me. I waddled into and out of the shower and put on my bright yellow Hawaiian shirt.. to lighten my painful mood. I was wheeled to a bed upstairs with Toby in my arms. It was like a movie montage. I saw everyone on the way past that I’d seen during pregnancy, they all smiled and waved and congratulated me. I was beaming with pride.
Toby slept since birth. I was too wired to sleep. I just sat. Alone. The nurse came swiftly to my bed with a face like thunder.. ‘an angry man is in the corridor refusing to leave until he sees you..shall I let him in? It’s not our policy to accept abuse..I told him he’d have to wait till visiting’ now which angry man could that be I pondered. It was my brother and his girlfriend, Hannah. Driven all the way from swansea as soon as they heard the news. Every other woman had a visitor with them, yet they kept my family in the corridor and requested they return later. I’d be an angry man too.

I kept visiting in the hospital to a bare minimum, family only, my boyfriend, the baby’s dad. That was it. I didn’t want anyone to visit until I was myself again not this scared little thing I was.

Breastfeeding is hard and being 2019 it’s really not a necessity. The nurse came to tell me that if I didn’t feed my baby soon he’d starve..he hadn’t woken up for food. What’s a woman to do? Not like the movies I guess. When he slips out of there easy and crawls his way to your nipple and latches on. Toby was put on a drip as was I, if one of you gets antibiotics you both do..due to a temperature in labour, I mean really? Seeing that little cannula in his hand was enough to make me cry. Them taking him away to give him his drip was enough to make me son until he returned.

I stayed up for three nights trying to pump breastmilk, I watched a nurse syringe feed my baby as I wasn’t allowed to. Some things I’m afraid just aren’t meant to be. The only path out of that hospital was to show them Toby was feeding properly. So in went the bottle. It wasn’t expectations that upset me. It was the fact I just wanted to do it, it had always been my plan. My mother breastfed, I wanted to do it the hood old fashioned way..looking back it was easier the bottle fed way. I don’t believe it affects the baby regardless. Tony’s alert, he’s playful, he’s smart, he loves me, he’s trying to walk. Just like a baby who drank from a breast would. Do it your own way. I barely had visitors at the house, barely answered my phone the truth was I hadn’t been sleeping, eating, I’d been led in bed listening to him cry or settling him for hours, he was as nocturnal as he’d been in my stomach.

To this day I believe Toby wasnt ready to be born he slept the first week of his life away. In the night if I did doze off I’d dream I was getting up to settle the baby. I’d dream I fall and land on him and I’d lie awake the rest of the night. If anyone did visit I’d see flashing lights behind their heads I was so tired. Take care who you’re inviting round and whether they are helpful to you. They only want to help but some people are better at it than others. Jane brought me lunch, lucozade for energy and biscuits incase I had visitors and nothing to offer them. That’s the kind of person you need around.

Though it’s stressful try to treasure it, though its against the rules have the baby in the bed. Life’s not scripted do it how you see fit. Enjoy every bit you can.