She's here!

40 weeks +4 days

Nine months and four days after two blue lines showed up on that little white stick N made her way into the world courtesy of Watford General Hospital. You've read the tabloid headlines about the woeful state of the maternity services in this country, well I'm going to tell you a positive birth story.

N arrived with little fuss and bother, (er, relatively speaking, that is). Contractions started at 1.24am, got fairly consistent and particularly uncomfortable by about 4am, and oh-my-god-that-hurts by 5am. My waters broke on the hall floor as we were leaving for the hospital, and again in the car on arrival (it had to be my car, didn't it). "Wheelchair!" I gasped when we got there, "Get a wheelchair, I can't possibly walk." No can do, said the midwives, who instead came down and walked me up to the ward.

It Was The Longest Walk of My Life. Enough said.

I heaved myself onto the bed and, and as the midwive got ready to examine me. I thought, God, PLEASE let me be a few cm dilated, if I'm not I will DIE

"Ooh," says Claire, my lovely midwife, you're already 8 cm.

Hurrah!

Then, utterly without shame, I begin to BEG:
"Drugs! Give me drugs!"
"What sort of drugs would you like?" asks Claire
"Anything. I don't care. Just inject me with something," I wailed.
"Well," explains Claire, "it does say in your birth plan that you only want gas and air."
Birth plan? Sod the effing birth plan. Just. Give. Me. Drugs.
But they (Claire and my husband) persuaded me to try gas and air and somehow, god knows how, I forgot about the harder drugs.
Contractions continued in full flow and I coped by breathing heavily, closing my eyes and zoning out. Quite out of character, I was remarkably silent.
It's a shame that the same couldn't be said for the wailing woman in the next room, who was intent on turning her labouring experience into an opera.
This was most distracting, and, given that I had arrived at what they call "transition" – the point in labour where women are apt to swear loudly at everyone in the room – I remember saying: "Someone get that woman to shut the f*** up!"
So they put a CD of singing dolphins on.

I'm in the water at this point, having suddenly remembered that I wanted a water birth, and I'm pushing and pushing, exhausted by my efforts and asking "can't you just yank it out of there?". Meanwhile, it's all gone quiet next door. Has the baby been born? Has she passed out? Gulp.

Husband had been primed for weeks beforehand to utter encouraging words and administer massage – but not just any massage, oh no, certain strokes at certain times on certain areas on the back. So, when the time came, he told me "great job!", "hang in there" and I, in no uncertain terms, told him to Shut the F*** Up. He bravely continued with attempts at the massaging that I had gone on about for weeks, and I very ungratefully brushed him off. Instead, he responded to my demands for gas and air and pressing a cold flannel on my forehead every few minutes. And I remember thinking, God, you bloody men have got NO IDEA what this is like.

Then, at 8.17am the baby that I had been convinced was a boy for 9 months arrived and the midwife cried:
"It's a girl!"
"Oh!" I said, and held her in my arms, thinking WOW – The rest of my life starts here.