I wrote this piece originally for another website and realised afterwards it was probably a bit weird not to include it on Mumra. It is after all where it all started...
Fourty weeks is a very long time to wait especially when you have already waited seven years.
I had wanted a baby for seven years and four years previously undergone three sessions of IUI unsuccessfully. I had in my heart given up on it happening.
It did happen and without any help, unless you count a birthday meal and an exceptional bottle of wine.
So here I was fourty weeks and still counting. Everyday you are overdue feels like an eternity. I cried when my midwife told me the induction date was day fourteen not day twelve due to a weekend, two more days was forever.
My second overdue midwife appointment I had considered a cash bribe for a closer date. I had a sweep and nothing not a thing was saying my body was ready to give up this baby yet. I was gutted and stomped off to do a urine sample for my protein check. It wasn’t good and she sent me into the hospital for a blood test to check it again. Take a bag they advised in case we keep you in.
At the hospital my blood was taken and while waiting for the results the midwife and her trainee wired me up to a monitor. My mum could hear the baby’s heart beat in the waiting room where she was sat with my case. I chatted to the trainee about her course and juggling kids with college.
I noticed the monitors tracking had stopped and asked if I should move to re find it and the trainee did some jiggling of the pads, then she called the midwife who did the same, they reclined the chair and moved the pads some more. Their faces started to say much more than their words.
‘Upstairs’ was called. ‘We are taking you up we need to use another monitor. Baby is being awkward’. I was moved into a wheelchair and zoomed past my mum in the waiting room to the lift. In the lift the midwife didn’t say that much and Mum was almost in tears. I however was a vision of calmness. I knew this baby was fine.
In the delivery room another monitor was attached, it didn’t work so another was brought in, everyone was looking very stressed. Pads were wiggled, I was wiggled. The speakers burst into life ‘badoom, badoom, badoom….’ there she was.
The hospital kept me on monitor for the whole day even though she was text book for the rest of the day. My bloods came back fine. I was twitching to go home but no one would let me. I had to stay over night, I was not happy. Jamie came to see me after he got back from London and then went home to bed. Mum brought me KFC which I ate and then promptly sat myself at the nurses station begging to go home.
‘I’m not even being monitored what is the point?’ was met with a nurse and a hand held monitor. She lost the baby again, so went and got me another big monitor and left me with it on ‘badoom, badoom, badoom….’ Everyone in the ward was badooming away, it was very weird.
Listening to all the noise on the ward you hear snippets of conversations. I overheard a girl opposite call a nurse and say she thought the heartbeat was really fast that she’d got used to the normal rate and this was really fast. The nurse agreed and thanked the girl. My curtain shot open, she was talking about my baby. My print out was looked at, my volume turned down. ‘Is everything ok?’ I asked. I was still really calm and not at all concerned I think denial had kicked in to stop me stressing. The nurse dashed out then back and informed me that someone from ‘Upstairs ‘was coming down.
The doctor arrived took one look at my print outs and told me ‘We are taking the baby out’ I actually tried to get him to discuss a compromise ‘Shall we go up and talk about it, then I’ll call my boyfriend?’ ‘No, he has one hour to be here and we are taking the baby out’ Oh right then.
I was rushed upstairs, I was now just massively excited about it all happening I had no worries about the c-section even though I am a massive needle phobia freak and hate even the idea of operations.
I felt as though this was my journey to hold my baby and I needed to just shut up and let it flow. So I did in the calmest manner…I called Jay who was asleep and told him I was having a c-section he needed to be here ASAP. That everything was fine but to hurry. A few moments later I called him back to tell him to bring the baby bag. He was asleep again ‘Is this really happening?’ he asked. Err yes.
When he arrived they threw scrubs at him and we laughed at the idea of him wearing Crocs in theatre… Looking back the nurses seemed a bit confused by my laid back manner, but I was in the zone and like I said I knew this baby was fine.
We went into theatre and I had the epidural, which I had spent 9 months fretting over. I did not bat an eyelid, your body and brain are amazing things, it was needed and they accommodated. My hands shook violently from the epidural and I repeated again and again to Jay ‘I don’t like the way it feels’ as they delivered Tabitha. Jay stood to see her arrive and held her once she was checked over. I felt too shaky still to hold her but looked over and straight away saw my own face in hers. ‘She has my nose’ was the best I could do.
It turned out my waters had gone, no one knows when or where. Tabitha had been choking herself on her cord, possibly at one KFC too many. She was a drama queen from the start!
Tabitha-Lo you are my world.
