Eight years ago, I turned up at a hospital in London to be induced, armed with whale song CDs, aromatherapy massage oils and my birth plan.
“Here is my birth plan!” I said, handing a copy to the midwife on duty, as if I were Moses handing down the Ten Commandments.
The midwife smiled slightly and stuffed the plan away in my file without even looking at it. She probably already knew what I was yet to discover: the baby didn’t give a flying proverbial if I wanted to have drug-free birth on all fours like a cow. The baby had plans of his own and, it turned out, those plans mostly involved staying exactly where he was, thank you very much.
Indeed, twenty-eight agonising hours later – two hours of which were spent with the Oxytocin dial turned up to eleven – the baby had yet to make an appearance.
This is the point where the doctors revealed their own birth plan for me and my baby. A team of medical professionals began waving legal documents under my nose for me to sign while another team shaved my nether regions. Before I knew it I was being wheeled away from my birthing suite and all dreams of a drug-free cow birth, my aromatherapy oils unopened and my whale song CD cast aside. Turns out obstetric surgeons don’t like to listen to whale song while they operate.
In the operating theatre, the failed epidural I’d been given during my labour was upgraded to a failed spinal block and the operating surgeon kindly requested that I stop moving my legs while he operated. This, in turn, forced my anaesthetist to upgrade her assessment of me from “Whinging Bitch With A Low Pain Threshold” to “Possible Medical Malpracdtice Suit” and she offered to put me under general anaesthetic whenever I gave the word.
“Must… See…Baby...” I said, through the pain.
And then suddenly, there he was. My Mr Justice, held aloft and bathed in golden light. (My husband to this day denies that there was any golden light but he obviously wasn’t on the right drugs).
“Quick! Someone help me deliver the uterus,” I heard the surgeon say.
Doesn’t he mean the placenta? I thought vaguely to myself, as the pulling and tugging behind the curtain became so intense I became convinced the surgeon was pulling out my lower intestine like scarves out of a hat. Turns out that my uterus had gone ‘boggy’ – which is another way of saying it had started ‘haemorrhaging like a bastard’ – and needed to be ‘massaged’, although, sadly, not with my aromatherapy massage oils.
Since I didn’t really want to see my uterus held aloft and bathed in golden light, I turned to the anaesthetist.
“Put… Me… Under,” I hissed and then everything went black. Four hours later, I awoke, alone in the recovery area, seemingly intact.
“Where’s my baby?” I panicked and, with as much authority as a woman sporting compression stockings and a pubic mullet could muster, I demanded to be taken to him.
I needn’t have panicked. Back in the ward, my husband was in control of the situation. Braving the nervous giggles and strange looks of onlooking medical staff, he had taken his shirt off to give our baby the skin-to-skin contact I had taken such care to include in my birth plan.
At least someone paid attention to the fucking plan, I thought, somewhat despondently.
But listen. While the birth wasn’t what I had planned or wanted, the baby and I were both alive. And that, in my opinion, is what’s called a result.
And a lesson for me, too. The journey we’ve shared together as mother and son hasn’t always gone the way I planned or wanted – from controlled crying, to buying Wiggles albums, to fast food, to shoot-’em-up computer games. But as a parent, you can’t always stick to The Plan and there’s not much point beating yourself up when you don’t.
Today, my first born, with his shining eyes and his ready laugh – and who, incidentally, is still bathed in golden light – is turning eight years old.
Happy birthday, Mr Justice.
Oh, what a lovely story!
I, too, had a birth plan that went kerphhhhffffftplooey, though not nearly as comprehensively as yours, and I’m still not over it to be honest. I keep telling myself ‘I’ll get it right next time, Coach!’ to shut my brain up about it, already.
Happy, happy birthday to your first born. He’s a lucky kid, and you’re a lucky Mum.
Oh, the pressure we put ourselves under. I know that disappointment. I had it for a long time, like I’d let everyone down – Mr Justice most of all, especially since I wasn’t around for the first four hours of his life.
But then, I’ve been around almost every hour since, so I think I’m making up for it, don’t you? I’m sure you are, too.
Pubic mullet!! ROFLMAO!!
Other than that, I’m with you. This sounds a fair bit like The Bird’s birth in 2001. Without the general at the end.
On a serious note, I *love* this post, NDM, because of it’s truth.
I cannot stand birthing dogman. Women are cruel to each other. There is a ‘standard’ to be met – drug free, happiness and light, no cruelty to animals (one of my anaethetists was an animal and if I ever see him again cruelty will abound).
The best possible result is a happy and healthy mother and baby. I don’t give a flying fuck for all the “I had to have pain relief!!! I’m a FAILURE! My life is ruined! My child and I would NEVER FIGHT IF IT WASN’T FOR THAT CAESAREAN!”
Truly. Womanhood needs to get a fucking grip. And the media (oops, that would be me) and others who think they possess a collective fucking uterus should butt the hell out of women’s birth experiences. Who gives a shit how many caesareans women are having? Or why?
You want to make a woman feel bad? And truly affect her life?
Make her feel that the way she birthed her child is somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘not normal’, and then make sure you give her a really big guilt trip when she struggles, or fails, to breastfeed.
And so the list goes on.
I love you, NDM!
Result!
*DOGMA* FFS *DOGMA*
See what happens when you light my wick so early in the day?
Sheesh!
Thank you so much for your comment, Carol. I thought “dogman” was a clever play on the cow birth concept but I’m happy to go with “dogma”.
I think things like a natural birth and breastfeeding and two hours of TV per day and home-cooked healthy meals are all things that we should aspire to, for sure.
But why are we so frickin’ hard on ourselves and each other when our grasp doesn’t quite match our grasp?
Yep, the ‘sisterhood’ needs a kicking…
When you wrote, “Where’s my baby?” I was READY for that twist ending.
It didn’t come but a delightful article just the same. Give him a happy eighth!
A twist ending where the nurse handed me my uterus wrapped in a blanket?
And thanks, he’s had a great day.
Fan-bloody-tastic (said in all seriousness)! Happy birthday to the boy! And hope you have traded your mullet for a much more en vogue landing strip.
Honestly, the public health system would do well to hire beauticians who could do a proper job of it, eh?
I fear I have a pubic mullet without even having a caesar.
After pushing my last kid out I had what was called a ‘lazy’ uterus which I think for a body part that had just nurtured a 4.5kg newborn was a bit of an insult but just incase I’d missed the birth an obstetrician decided the only thing for it was to shove her hand up and scrape my insides out.
Ahhh, sweet memories.
Good times indeed. The word ‘scrape’ and ‘uterus’ should never be put in the same sentence and certainly never, ever, be done by hand.
Your lazy uterus and my boggy uterus rock. Clearly.
Happy birthday to your little man!
My birth plan was “Worst case scenario, 24 hours of my life in hideous pain” Turns out it was only about 7. Win.
OH and just realised that sounds like I’m saying I’m a total martyr. Fail bern. Like you I couldn’t give a shit how or which way a baby comes out, just that it does. Women should lay off each other. Let’s face it, all babies spew rice cereal on your chest regardless of which way they entered the world.
You’re totally right, Bern. I look at the kids in Mr Justice’s class and I’d be hard-pressed to tell who was born by c/section and who was born vaginally – or, moreover, who was conceived via IVF or in the back of a panel van…
Wow – happy birthday Mr J!!
Congrats to you NDM, for reaching this milestone!
Thank you, Ms Diva.
Beautiful post… tears in my eyes despite pubic mullet. Yours, not mine. Although thought of mine is making me well up as well…
I’m sure there is a society somewhere that worships the pubic mullet. There, we would be considered gods. GODS, I TELL YOU.
Guffawing at the ‘pubic mullet’ and cringing at the lack of plentiful anaesthesia.
Clapping & cheering for Carol’s comment.
And you are so so right. The best laid plans of mice and men are nothing compared to the plans we have as mothers, and the whiplash our kids give us when they, just by the very nature of their contrary little selves, do the exact opposite.
… and always when there’s a crowd of tutting seniors looking on, right?
Thanks, Meredith.
Great story. My first birth was horrific and like yours, the staff didn’t even look at the plan. Of course I got a baby at the end of it, which was so so worth it, but it was wrong that I was treated like a number, not an individual. The second birth was at another hospital …. ALL the staff read my plan and helped me with it. Again it bloody hurt, but I was working with my body and being supported by staff who respected my wishes … it was a really healing birth, and all those feel-good endorphins kicked in afterwards too. But I agree, birth is not a competition, nor is breast-feeding or bottle-feeding, nor is who gets bigger during pregnancy. Some women can be so cruel. It’s powerful when women actually support each other and celebrate the fact that we have produced little people the best way we could.
The birth-as-a-competitive sport thing drives me nuts – whether it’s at the mostest-natural end or the “I suffered more and for longer and had the most stitches” end (says the woman who just posted about surviving her c/section without adequate anaesthetic… I WIN! I WIN! Uh, what was I talking about again?)
Happy birthday to your golden boy xx
Thank you, Jayne. x
I read but don’t comment because everyone is so darned witty here I prefer to lurk.
However this time I de-lurked to say – happy birthday.
And – to any mother whose birth plan went according to that it must have been a bloody miracle.
At the end of a very very long labour with my first I was given an injection to numb my nether regions. It did NOT do that. The next day a witch of a midwife came onto the ward to publicly humiliate and call me names.
Turns out when diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos that anasthetics DO NOT work and I was not an hysteric. My only regret is that I did not return to see her and shove my diagnosis where the sun don’t shine.
Second time round – the only request on my birth plan was do what ever is required to get the baby out safe and sound, with me awake, asleep or drugged out of my box but DO hold my hips in their sockets because they DO disclocate. Allow me to tear naturally if necessary & forget the anasthetic. Cheers.
Thank you for your honest report of your experience. I hope it helps anyone who is about to give birth, has given birth to understand that despite their good intentions any midwife who promises that your birth plan will be followed to the letter needs a lie detector test.
So Happy Birthday Mr Justice. Is it just me but I think the mum should get the presents!
Thank you for de-lurking, Achelois, and for sharing your story. Sounds like that midwife needed a slap – I mean, why would someone pretend to have feeling if they were numb? As for publicly humiliating a woman about to give birth… what the fuck?
Hope to see you comment again some time soon.
My birth plan contained only one word ‘EPIDURAL’ in capital letters and underlined. For some reason, the obstetrician thought it also said 9 hours of labour with the baby facing the wrong way aided by gas, followed by pethidine, followed by an epidural followed by a caesar.
Your obstetrician obviously knows how to show a gal a good time!
Also, I think you don’t really appreciate an epidural unless you beg for it.
I gave birth on Sunday morning – it was a VBAC. I asked for an epidural & was told that they had to call the anaesthetist in. I started ranting that it was “utterly ludicrous” that she wasn’t in the hospital already. It must have been a surprise to have Snitty Lawyer Bitch appear in the room so shortly after I’d been Screaming Animal Begging to Die.
I think there is something in the Australian constitution that protects women’s rights to have an epidural when and where they need it. That anaesthetist was Un-Australian!
Happy (horrendous by the sond of it) Birthding day! Yes my best friend also had a very detailled birthing plan, spent hundreds on pain-free birthing classes and hypnobirthing classes and of course – c-section in the end. I just wanted my 2 out… and also came out via the sunroof. Bloody small pelvis.
Thank you for giving me the sunroof expression. It’s like one of those 80s movies with Andrew McCarthy driving around in a stretch limo with his head popping out of the sunroof. Wow. Imagine giving birth to Andrew McCarthy….
Was there ever even such an Andrew McCarthy film?
Very moved by your story. The vicissitudes of birth.
Happiest of birthdays to the firstborn of my firstborn!
Aw, thanks Dad.
Ah – it all resonated. My Shining Lion turned 18 last Sunday but I too did the “I want natural thing” but ended up with an emergency caesar….all those years ago.
The saving grace of my birthing plan gone wrong – was the presence in the hospital of an over 60’s night nurse – who disabused me of ‘I’ve failed’ in the ascerbic way that only someone who has seen everything can.
To my crying and near hysterics as they informed me that they’d fed 4.5 kg baby whilst I was recovering from anaesthetic because they were worried about his sugar levels and my ‘but I didn’t manage to give birth properly and now I’m not going to be able to breastfeed’ she snapped at me “don’t be ridiculous. You had 24 hours of real labour and then an emergency caesarian. Twice as much as many woman here. ”
She then continued with something to the affect that:
Frankly, had you been in other parts of the world, you would have laboured for another couple of days, given birth to a dead child, haemorraged and died yourself, or torn yourself to shreds and now have a fistula. But modern medicine intervened and you are both alive and healthy. We’re going to keep it that way.
Now..breastfeeding. Why is it that modern otherwise sensible and intelligent women think it’s innate. It’s not. It’s learned. “Native” women don’t just ‘know’. They grow up seeing babes on boobs all day every day and watch and learn how it’s done. When have you spent more than 5 minutes in your entire adult life with a breastfeeding woman? I will guarantee that I won’t sign you out of this hospital until you are breastfeeding. But it’s not easy. It’s like learning to rollerskate or drive a car. Lots going on all at once. And we’re lucky enough that because you’ve had a caesar I’ve got 5 to 7 days to actually teach you.
And she did.
The “And she did” made me a bit teary. What a wonderful story and what a timely intervention by a wise woman. Thank you for sharing your story.
Happy Birthday!!!
Thank you, Veronica.
I wish I could kiss you, NDM! I think some women are absolutely awful to each other with respect to birthing and mothering; those who achieve the drug-free natural birth acting smugly, and sneering or pitying those who don’t. And some who don’t have the “birth of their dreams” buying into this ridiculous notion, and allowing themselves be emotionally tortured by, and guilty and ashamed about, their birthing experience for years afterwards.
Seriously, the whole emphasis on “the birthing experience” is so self-absorbed it makes me want to puke. It’s a day in your life. A very special one, but it’s special because it marks the *beginning* of your life together with your child, and the fact that you are both healthy and happy and get to go on the journey together is what’s important. Those who place undue emphasis on the birth “experience” and believe it affects everything that comes afterward are confusing means and ends, IMHO.
I’m just imagining some woman in the third world, dragged to the hospital through the ravages of a civil war, having been in labour for more than 24 hours, and desperately wanting any intervention that can be done to save her and her baby. She probably turns up and finds there’s no doctor, or a doctor but no anaesthetic. 😦
Doesn’t it seem more than a little precious for some western women to whine about getting interventions they’d prefer not to have, or missing out on the spa suite, or not having the staff read their birthing plan?
Thank you, Kate.
I once worked in a maternity hospital which had a private and a public section.
I don’t care to count the number of times I encountered private patients all grumpy because their c-section or forceps delivery meant they couldn’t be transferred to a 5 star hotel. Having invariably just come from the crowded four-to-a-room public section, I couldn’t muster much sympathy for these women in their private rooms with ensuites and sweeping views of the city. Although, considering how much money they paid for their private health insurance, they probably had some cause for complaint.
No, they didn’t have any cause for complaint; they had cause for celebration!
I was hospitalised at 30 weeks with PIH. I almost made it to 31 weeks, when I had an emergency C-section and delivered two premature, but perfectly formed, boys – thanks to the steroid injections, they didn’t even require C-PAP! I found the hospitalisation, preparation for birth, and even C-section to be a wonderful experience; I was so excited to be a parent. 🙂
The only thing I didn’t like about the whole experience was receiving a phone call from a woman who’d been in my pregnancy yoga class, who greeted me, amongst all the joy and congratulations, with “I’m so sorry, you must be devastated that you didn’t get a natural birth”. *rolleyes* No congratulations on becoming a Mum. I can’t help but think that the intention was not to comfort me, but to reinforce that I’d somehow “failed”, or “let down the sisterhood”, by not only having a C-section, but – worse! – not buying into the notion that I’d somehow been “cheated”.
Oooh, that yoga woman sounds just like the mother who advised me to “Be strong” when I said I was considering a planned c/section for baby #2 (The Pixie). This was, of course, with her having absolutely zero knowledge of how strong I’d had to be to get through the birth of #1.
All together now: “Sheesh!!”
My firstborn pulled the rug from under me as well, and I think though it would have been nice to actually give birth in a pleasant manner…following a plan isn’t exactly what kids do, is it? The boys figured they’d get that point across straight away, mulleted hoo-ha and all. 🙂
Happy Day to you, too, for becoming a Mama!
Thank you!
Yep, the birth experience often sets the tone for the rest of parenting.
Happy Birthday Mr Justice! What a wonderful way to celebrate it, NDM. I always think that the child’s birthday is just as big occasion for the mother as the child, and always have a little reminisce about the events of the day, and those following.
I absolutely love Sharon’s midwife, and was fortunate enough to have a similar obstetrician for my last 2 pregnancies.
The 2 prevailing images – pubic mullet, and husband of NDM bare chested cradling a newborn Mr Justice – will stay with me for a long time. Wonderful stuff!
Thank you, Madame Zap. A child’s birthday is an occasion to remember their beginnings and to marvel at how far you have come together. I hope you enjoy your own beautiful daughter’s 8th birthday in the coming weeks. x
oh NDM, what an awesome story. and happy birthday to Mr Justice, what a way to come into your parents life – love the visual of dad and skin to skin, think i might have stifled a giggle if i saw that too, and then gushed with the fatherlyness of it all!
ps my birth plan stayed right where it was in my neat little folder, ipod with the ‘labour playlist’ unplugged on the bedside, being pumped to the gills with oxytocin. through the haze i remember hubby telling the OB that part of my plan was to be on my knees, to which she replied ‘do you want to try moving her?’ needless to say i stayed where i was and bub 1 got yanked out with the help of some comfy forceps…
How great that your husband remembered that detail of the birth plan amidst it all. And for some reason, the concept of “comfy forceps” really made me laugh. I imagined someone, at the end of a long day at work, slipping into “something more comfortable” – although it’d be more a case of “slipping IN something more comfortable”.
Awww, happy birthday to your beautiful boy!!
I was old enough to have had nearly all my friends and sister have babies before me so I knew birth plans were a crock. My birth plan was “just go with the flow”. What else can you do, right?
My birth plan was to go with the flow too. Which is fortunate because she arrived at 30 weeks via emergency caesarean and I was drugged to the gills and didn’t see her for 3 days. And I have spent every moment since being overwhelmingly grateful that we both survived. There are bigger things in life.
Oh, Almora. That sure was some damn flow you had to go with…
I guess the one useful purpose of a birth plan is that it makes you aware of some of the options available to you. But it remains firmly planted in the “fantasy fiction” genre because, until you’ve actually gone through it, you can only imagine it, like you can only imagine ‘Narnia’ or ‘Middle Earth’.
Having said that, the gas got me pretty close to Middle Earth – before it made me vomit, that is.
Happy Birthday Mr Justice!!!!!!
xox
Thanks, AngelaPJ. I’ve passed your message on.
That was beautiful NDM. I has tears in my eyes.
Similar expereince here (except the general and the boggy uterus).
Congrats to you for surviving 8 years, too
xoxoxo
What do you mean you didn’t get a boggy uterus? You obviously weren’t trying hard enough. 😉
Happy birthday Mr Justice!! And kudos to your hubby, bless him, that part with kangaroo cuddles made me smile 🙂
The whale songs would have only pissed you off in transition anyway 😉
You’re right. I think I might have killed my anaesthetist if the whale song had been playing.
Oh, and I forgot to say happy birthday to your beautiful child, and to you, a beautiful mum!
Aw, thanks.
Did Mr NDM shave his chest to achieve the more motherly style of skin-to-skin contact?
You obviously haven’t seen *my* chest, KC.
What a beautiful post (got a lump in the last few lines) and totally hysterical (pubic mullet!!!! Gold!).
I gave birth to Boz Scags. Is that his name? CD delivered straight from the CD player of Ob’s car to ward room after an uneventful 7hrs of 7cm dilation (since I had no birth plan of my own to talk about). Worked a treat and I highly recommend 🙂
Boz Scaggs? Please tell me it wasn’t “Breakdown Dead Ahead”.
Tears in my eyes. Beautiful post.
I’m new to your blog and love your musings 🙂
Thank you, Simonne.
NDM, as a mere male with no chance of giving birth, I salute you. At least it was only a pubic mullet, and not a Brazilian. Happy birthday to Mr Justice,and kudos to you for being the funniest mum out there…….. 🙂
Thanks, Fendy. I must say it’s taken me eight years to be able to write about the experience with any degree of humour – although it’s long been one of my set ‘party pieces’.
Beautiful post. Happy birthday Mr Justice! Enjoy your cake, it’s bound to be fab 🙂
His birthday dessert was sticky date pudding and his birthday cake for his birthday party tonight is, at his insistence, a skull. It’s kind of tempting to make it a 3D cake with a red-tinted butter cake inside but it might make my husband hurl.
And that my friend is why you are in the top 50!
Great post.
And Happy Birthday Mr Justice 🙂
Yeah, they should give me a trip to Dunk Island just so I can showcase my pubic mullet in a crocheted bikini…
(PS. Thank you)
Your husband was in control of the situation?!!! While you were in your drug haze, I was pacing the floor of your hospital room, wondering if Mr Justice had been born. Suddenly I could hear the small cry of a little baby and your husband burst into the room with a baby in his arms (and his shirt on thankfully!). After introducing me to my new little nephew, he said “we need to dress him” and promptly tried to put Mr Justice into my arms. We looked at each other with horror (Mr Justice was so small – how could we get the clothes on to him??) but we bravely and oh-so carefully dressed him before sighing with relief. I then got to cuddle the cutest little baby I had ever seen. Happy Birthday Mr Justice – even though you don’t like hugs anymore, I still remember all the hugs we shared in your baby / toddler years 🙂
Oh, dear dear Belle. For so long after Mr Justice’s birth, I was worried that I had scarred you for life. I remember lying in the bath and the look of horror on your face as I demanded you pour water over my stomach during the contractions.
You thoroughly deserve your share of recognition for your part in his birth.
xxx
firstborn was a 6 week premie surprise, so as you can imagine the birth plan never got aired out at all. toxemia, hellp syndrome, csection in a fog etc etc etc. He’s a hulking 10 year old now, handsome as hell the troublesome bugger:)
secondborn was a great experience, sched. csection with great meds, lovely docs and nurses etc. but then bedlam…congenital heart defect and open heart surgery, hospital stays, worry, tears. Now a 5 yr old handsome, troublesome bugger.
After those two experiences we got a puppy………………….
Please tell me the puppy wasn’t a troublesome bugger, too….
I was reading this while eating my tea (the boys are having a sleepover, so I don’t have to eat at the monkey table tonight). Do you know how hard it is to eat with a lump and it wasn’t my cooking, in your thoat??? You are so eloquent, I love your way with words, and I will learn not to eat and drink when I’m reading your blog – the computer cannot take much more.
One of these days I am going to be held account for all the computer screens I have allegedly ruined because their owners have read my posts while eating or drinking.
Perhaps my blog should come with some kind of warning?
Great post!! Yeah why do they ask you to write a birth plan when births never go to plan
beats me!!
mentioned you on my blog today … only just realized you’re a fellow Londoner sorry I’m a tad slow on the uptake sometimes
I used to be a Londoner – and a small corner of my heart remains so. Say hello to old London town for me, will ya?
Best. Birth Story. Ever.
Happy birthday, Mr. Justice.
Thanks, faemom. If it is the best birth story ever, it’s only because it had such a happy ending. I can’t help but think of those women who suffer allt hat – and worse – only to not have their baby at the end of it and it makes me hug Mr Justice especially tight.
A great birth story Happy Birthday Mr Justice xx
And a happy birthday he had. He concluded the day by proclaiming it to be “superlatively marvellous”. And yes, he’s reading Lemony Snickett’s ‘Vile Village’ at the moment (for those of you who get the reference).
Great minds! http://nadinewrites108.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/happy-birth-ing-day/
Birth is obviously a hot topic!
I really loved this post NDM. It was so vivid, scary and beautiful. Mr J is just the best. I loved that he had a “marvellous” day. Hope yours was too. XX
Thank you so much, Just J. And thanks for your phone call, card and presents to help make his day “marvellous”.
Was only yesterday, while explaining to the Women’s Health physio why my coccyx was shot, that I was re-thinking my not-really-to-plan birthing story, so great to read yours too (not so good for you I guess!). While we ‘experienced’ ones often scoff at those who talk about their Birth Plan, I kind of wish I had been more explicit about my desires for the birth of baby number two. And ain’t it true that parenting is often simply the extension of a birth plan gone wrong!
I guess a birth plan is like the basic of “how to” guides. It can only cover so many possibilities and the rest we have to just make up as we go along.
Pubic mullet – fantastic! Such a … lovely… visual!
My gift to you…
After a similar number of hours in labour and with mine and my firstborn’s vitals not crash hot, I was taken up to theatre for the doc to have a crack with the forceps before being given a C. Of course with a spinal block I was still fully conscious, so it was surprising that after my son came out I heard them saying on the other side of the screen “Don’t write that on the record.” They were referring to the fact that they had stitched me up and then realized they were missing part of the placenta and so had to undo the stitches, find the missing piece and then stitch me back up again. With all that time in theatre and then recovery I didn’t see my son for the first 2 hours but he was enjoying some very special daddy time… My subsequent weeks of recovery from the C was very slow and difficult and the breastfeeding was a nightmare with grazed nipples and mastitis, but he was a big, beautiful, thriving boy and that’s all I could ever ask for.
Hear, hear! It’s all worth it in the end. Even all that itching-in-public that comes from growing back the missing pubic hair.
Well I wasn’t expecting a caesarean but I *was* prepared in the pubic hair department so no shaving for me 🙂
Great post, and couldn’t agree more. My first birth could not have gone less to “plan”, and ended up in an emergency section under general anaesthetic. But you’re so right, it was the first of many lessons that, when you’re parenting, things don’t always go to “plan”. And there is much more to being a good mummy than having a “good” birth. A healthy mum and baby really is all that truly matters.
A “good” birth is just a slight headstart on motherhood. The rest of catch up eventually, don’t we?
I nearly fell of my chair laughing at this, which is quite a feat because I’m on a recliner, so kudos.
I am a beauty therapist and have tamed more lady gardens than I care to mention. I was shaved for a c-section and all I could think was “Where’s my wax? I could have done a bloody better job than that! That’s gonna leave an ingrown!”
Happy birthday Mr Justice
Maternity hospitals would be well-placed to hire more beauty therapists like your good self, Glowless. You could do the pre-op wax and sort out the patient’s feet (which were MIA during the pregnancy because the bump blocks all view of them) while they’re establishing breastfeeding.
What a great story (though not a great experience). My first birth went nothing like I expected. Though I didn’t have a plan, I had expected a traditional delivery. I ended up with an emergency cesarean instead. Good thing the end result is worth the hassle!
Happy birthday to Mr Justice, and thinking of you too on your birthing day. In a wonderful coincidence, I published my birth plan for #1 just last week too.
My first birth was taken completely out of my hands. At a smidge under 30 weeks, I wasn’t even expecting it. By time second little lady came along 3 yrs later, we’d gone through so much (our first daughter died after a month in NICU) that I couldn’t give a frog’s fat ass (or mine) how she came out but that she just did, safely. Which she almost didn’t, but that’s too long a story for a comment.
Love this post. And just adore so many of these comments as well! If I were an air-fist-pumper, I would. And I’d say an “Amen to that… and THAT.” Oh, heck, I just will. Am feeling the lurve. Despite not ever having had a mullet. ANYWHERE.
So lost for words – so in awe of your strenght and humour in the face of your loss. And you are so right – when you have your beautiful baby it doesn’t matter at all how they came out!
Happy Birthday to Mr Justice!
I’ve been lurking for awhile and had to comment on this one.
I also had a birth plan that did not go according to the great flow -dolphin-whale-visualisation-baby-is-swimming-his-way-calmly-into-the world. And I KNOW my birth plan included champagne somewhere in there.
For a long time I felt it was all my fault everything went haywire. I hadn’t excersised enough, I’d eaten too many vanilla slices, I wasn’t in touch enough with my inner-self, and then I read a line in Susan Maushart’s The Mask of Motherhood. ‘When all is said and done childbirth is largely a lottery. And ‘success’ probably has more to do with the vagaries of timing, the baby’s positioning and the woman’s innate physical endowments than any of the variables we control.’
I read that and could finally move on.
The luck of the draw.
I was not so lucky with my first born. (Though nothing like Mr Justice!) and then lucked out with my second born.
Thankyou for sharing!
Nothing quite prepares us for that first experience of birth. You can tell the first-time Mums by the size of their bulging overnight bags. Births and weddings are a little alike. Great if they go to plan, but hey, there’s also this little thing called THE REST OF YOUR LIFE TOGETHER if they don’t! It’s really just the first part of a long and winding journey.
Happy Birthday Mr Justice. Long may you enjoy the golden light…
As some have said here, I agree birthing is motherhood’s first lesson in sacrifice and in a way responsibility.
And so many things can go wrong that just don’t have anything to do with ‘in theory’ what should happen.
My first birth experience was a frightening one, my second was easy, but both went completely differently to how I had planned.
Well now the boys are 4 and 2 – and it is the second one who causes the most trouble now – despite being the easy birth and easy delivery. So NDM is right – how they get here is irrelevant.
What our bodies can do is amazing, but that shouldn’t define us as mothers. What is more amazing is the countless cries we answer, the tantrums we put up with, the sleep we lose, the bad hair we sport – up top and below, the SACRIFICES we make every day of motherhood happily and all for the love of them.
Happy birthday to your boy x