Everyone’s Popping Out Babies

It started when Lisapopped out Isla on Wednesday, then T popped out CJ this morning, and KP is due any day now, in fact she should’ve popped one out last Friday.  Then there’s C and M next month, and Hannah and TrannyHead who’ll both get in there before Christmas.  Oh!  And me.

See what I mean?  Everyone’s popping out babies.

And it’s making me think about exactly how I want to pop mine out.

You see, giving birth and staying in hospital last time wasn’t exactly the most pleasant experience.  I’m not talking about the pain of labour, but more the treatment of the whole event. 

You see, I didn’t have access to pain relief, although not through choice.  Looking back now, it makes me quite proud that I managed to pop a kid out without even a paracetamol.  But it wouldn’t have been my choice.  I guess you could say that I’d been quite disorganised in finding out how things were going to go.  In the weeks before the boy was born I found out that I wouldn’t be able to take the husband into hospital with me.  I cried, I screamed, I shouted and I begged for him to get us on the first flight home.  The only consolation was that as his Aunt A was a doctor, they would let her in with me. 

Then there was the pain relief issue.  At one of those same appointments I asked about pain relief.  Only to be told I wouldn’t have to worry about all that.  I wouldn’t be getting any.  And if there was anything that made me want to go home even more, it was that.

But I didn’t have too much time to worry about any of it because aside from a buggy, car seat and cot, we had nothing for the baby and he decided to pop out a week and a half early.

When it came to the hospital, Y2 got to hold my hand at first, being the only girl present and able to translate for me.  That lasted long enough for one quick examination with a doctor who turned out to speak English and she was gone too.  A, of course, still hadn’t arrived. 

Then there was the drip.  As I’ve already mentioned, I don’t do well with needles, and before I knew it, there was one being driven into my hand.  At an angle that made it impossible to move my hand without digging that needle in even further.  I asked what it was only to be told that it would make things happen faster. 

They’d offered me a wheelchair after that first examination but I refused.  There was no way I was sitting down.  I’d figured a few hours ago that it only made things hurt, just like lying down did.  Of course once I’d gotten into the labour ward I’d been laid down.  Now the drip was in I wanted to get up, but there was no way they were going to let me.  Once again, I had no choice in the matter.

Just like with them breaking my waters.  Yes, I was very far gone by that point, and yes, it made sense.  But did I have a choice in the matter?  No.  They’d practically got that crochet hook up there before I’d had a chance to argue.

And then we were good to go.  At least at that point the scary doctor disappeared, leaving only the nicer one who’d first examined me.  But, still no A.  There was some pushing.  And some noise on my part.  I was told to keep quiet.  Maybe I was upsetting the other women in the ward who were still earlier on in their labour.  The ones stuck in that other room and the corridor, all connected to drips, lying down with those vacant expressions in their eyes.  And another needle.  Local anesthetic.  What for?  I asked.  Because we’re going to make a little cut she said brandishing the scissors.   By that point I gave up.  I didn’t have the energy anymore, and they wouldn’t listen to me anyway, so I let them get on with it.  I’m sure it all would’ve been fine if I hadn’t ripped the stitches only a few days later.

Then there was the ward.  A room with two other women, a bed that was little more than a wooden plank with a slice of foam on top.  As you laid on that bed your bones sunk through to the wood, the foam doing little to protect you from its harshness.  I was lucky once visiting hours were over.  They let someone sit with me.  As long as it was a woman, that was ok, but only because they couldn’t speak to me otherwise.  In one of the brief interludes where one friend left and A returned, a woman took the boy away.  From her wild gesturing I could just about make out that there was something wrong with his nose, but what she did, or where she took him I had no idea.  It worried me that she could just walk away with him like that.

Both women were recovering from C-sections.  One was going home the next day.  The other liked to talk.  She had no visitors; her family lived two hours away and couldn’t afford to get out to see her.  Both her and her baby, although born days earlier, wore hospital gowns.  I got the impression she didn’t live in one of the richer parts of the city.  And then she cried.  Her baby died that night.

I cried too the next morning.  I was miserable, tired.  A had been good that night; where possible she’d let me sleep and looked after the boy herself.  But I couldn’t sleep properly on that hardboard bed.  All I wanted was to go home, back to Grandma’s where we were going to stay for the next week.  They poked and prodded, unsure of whether I should be released.  The husband argued.  He knew my history; there was no way he was going to let me stay in there longer than absolutely necessary.  He fought for me, and we went home that afternoon.

I know that things will be different this time around.  I’d built myself up last time, reading so much about how things are done over here.  It was only inevitable that things wouldn’t go to that plan.  But still, I don’t want to risk it.

This time around I want to be at home.  I want to avoid the hospital if at all possible.  I don’t like hospitals; they bring back memories I’d rather push to one side.  This time around I want to be comfortable, to be able to do what I damn well please.  I’d like the husband in the vicinity, although maybe not too close by – he’d only panic and flap.  I’d like a birthing pool, because it looks like fun, and while you’re pushing out a baby and trying not to think of the pain, fun can only be a good thing.  I think we can fit one in our living room if we move the sofa a bit.  We’ll have to get the tape measure out and give it a try.  I want to be able to collapse in a comfortable bed once it’s all over, to be able to raid the kitchen cupboards for goodies instead of hospital food.  I want to be able to kick the husband straight out of bed to deal with night time, because labour’s damn tiring you know.

All I know is, this time around, I want it to be very different.

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