I'm back! I haven't written a blog post since the 9th of October but finally life is starting to return to some sense of normality. I was 38 weeks pregnant last time I posted and waiting patiently for something to happen. OK, maybe not patiently.
Well it is safe to say that things have certainly changed since that date! The hitchhiker, a little boy, arrived on the 26th October! So much has happened in the last 10 weeks its hard to put it all down in order. Much of it is a blur! I have decided the easiest way to do this is to split it up into a series of posts. This being the first I suppose it should start with D-day. Labour and delivery. Now I realise I have moaned about other people telling their birth stories to me and this may seem hypocritical but there is one difference here. If you don't want to know, just stop reading and wait for part two.
Labour is mental. Its an endurance test wrapped in a head fuck. I spent the last month of my pregnancy miserable and then the days after his due date (he was due on the wednesday and arrived on the Saturday, so it was hardly a long time!) were spent waddling along in the woods with Mr X. trying to get things moving. I lost track of the amount of times when I exclaimed "I just want this baby out now! I'm so sick of being pregnant!" This statement remained true right up until the second my waters broke....
It was midnight on the Friday and I woke up to a popping sensation and let me tell you as much as I had been moaning about wanting to go into labour when it actually began there was a split second where I thought "SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTT!!!" Now, I'm not going to tell you every little detail, that remains part of a very private experience between my husband and I and my best friend but I will tell you a few things that happened because some of them are not things that anybody tells you about in any NCT class!
I'll give you the condensed version of what happened. I had a water birth with gas and air. He literally splashed into the world and it was the most incredible moment. One thing I will admit, although I'm sure this will be a tad controversial, is that when he was born and they passed him to me through my legs I looked down at this little person and didn't feel the rush of love that people talk about. I didn't cry, I just stared at him. In truth I felt totally shocked at what had just happened.
My labour was about as perfect as it could have been. I got exactly what I had written in my birth plan which is so incredibly rare. I knew I didn't want to use strong medication as I wanted to be in control of my contractions and thats exactly what I got. I managed to push him out in 25 mins and considering he was 9lb 5 I'm pretty proud of myself. So if it all went so beautifully how come I didn't feel IT. That overwhelming rush of love that people describe. I laid there that night in the hospital cubical when my husband and best friend had left and just stared at this little person and I started to worry that I would never feel it and I decided to keep these feeling to myself.
Now looking back at that moment I wish I had read something like this to know that it is ok if you don't feel that rush straight away. I wasn't suffering from depression or baby blues and I'm not a bad mother, it just took me a while to adjust and get to know him a little. If I am totally honest it wasn't until about two weeks later after lots of sleepless nights and a readmission to hospital that I felt any attachment to him. I cant remember exactly when it changed, I guess it just gradually blossomed over the first few weeks and now I can't and don't want to imagine my life without him. I love him so much its overwhelming, just like they said it would be.
Thats why I said labour is mental. Its exhausting physically but nothing can prepare you for the amount of different emotions that you will go through. I'm so happy that he is here and that he's healthy and that in that situation even with all the different emotions I was able to be a little patient and level headed and give myself time to adjust to being a mother.
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