It’s been exactly a month since I gave birth to our baby boy. For the last few weeks I have been getting the same questions: “How was it (it being labour)?” “How is motherhood?” and “How are you feeling?”. So here’s a post documenting most answers to the questions and to also serve as a personal reminder in case I forget how far my body can actually go when it’s cornered.
We had been waiting for Vukosi for months, and although we all know pregnancy is long, nothing feels longer than the last four weeks of being pregnant, from week 36 I was already feeling the impatient me come alive. Every pain, every sign and every feeling was filled with the hope that the baby is ready to come. We were really ambitious for first time parents, by week 38 we had cleared our schedules, packed our hospital bags and we were ready to welcome our prince! Let’s just say we ended up adding back multiple things to all the blank spaces we had created on our calendar, Vukosi was determined to do things his way and no one was going to mess with that.
40 weeks and 2 days, at 4 am I got woken up by a very unfamiliar pain, it stopped my world for 40 seconds, literally I just went into shock, and then I suspected, his majesty is trying to get hold of me. I walked to the bathroom and within seconds I was calling to my husband because our bathroom floor suddenly looked like it was in need of a bucket and a mop- yep, it was him, he was ready to meet us. We then eagerly opened the contraction timer App we had been waiting to use and started timing the pains as they came and went. Two hours into the cycle of falling asleep and getting woken up by pain, we decided it was time to call my midwife- 6 am seemed like a better time to call someone on a public holiday, as opposed to 4 am. She then told us to meet her at Genesis clinic at 8 o clock, I’m pretty sure this conversation happened in the middle of a contraction because I heard her tell us to call her back at 8 am, nothing about meeting. At 8 am when I called she was not pleased (understandably so) , who wants to work on Good Friday right? Anyway we eventually got to Genesis, cleared the air and got ready to bring Vukosi home. I was about 5 cm dilated when we got there, good thing I thought, she told us we’d be parents by 2 pm *air punch*. We then called our parents to tell them I’m in labour, I wasn’t interested in having anyone else bothering us every hour to ask how things were going, so they’d have to wait. My midwife asked what I’d like to eat and all I wanted at the time was a pepper steak pie, they advise you to eat light energy snacks like dried fruit, nuts and so on, but pastry was all I wanted- my body, my rules!:) My husband then went to get me one and man did I enjoy it- dankie Woolies. Okay enough about irrelevant things.
At about 10 am my midwife came in with what I’d call my pain reliever- a bean bag! Those bags you warm up in a microwave, man it made labour easier, if you are planning on using natural methods for pain relief in labour, please make sure you get that bag, together with a birthing ball, I felt in control of most of my contractions, the pain was manageable, thank the Lord, for someone with my kind of tolerance for pain, I didn’t think I’d be able to manage anything in labour. An hour or so later I then went for a walk with my midwife, I must tell you walking around the neighborhood with no bra, a bean bag and weird facial expressions can really attract some attention, but trust me in that moment I couldn’t care less. I needed to do something, anything to distract me from the transition phase that I was anticipating, this for those who don’t know is usually the most painful part of labour, where contractions show most women no mercy, so for me I found movement to help, it served as a good distraction, lying on the bed however made me feel every bit of the pain, so if you happen to have a similar experience in labour, keep moving…with the bean bag of course!
12 pm, by now hubby and I are counting down, at this point I was still sane, I could still smile between contractions and be able to hold up the excitement of meeting our little one, while trying to fall asleep, which failed of course. I then took a shower, most interesting shower as my 77 kg self was bouncing on a birthing ball and trying not to slip and fall at the same time. After succeeding at that, my midwife came in at about 2 pm to monitor the baby’s heart rate and see how far I had dilated, she then decided to break my waters and warned me that shortly after the contractions would intensify- the dreaded transition phase was upon us. After a while nothing had happened, there I was thinking, “oh yay, transition phase isn’t so bad”, until of course she told me that I wasn’t dilating fast enough, she was then going to put me on a drip to increase my contractions and something to help me survive that and fall asleep. She also suspected that I had meconium in me, in simple terms the baby might have pooped, this suspicion cancelled out the possibility of a water birth, well that was disappointing, but I was still relieved that she didn’t suggest an emergency caesarean. Anyway, the drip kicked in shortly and though I vaguely remember anything after that drip, my husband says I woke up screaming at the top of my voice and punching the wall- which explains my bruised wrists now that I think of it. My midwife came in and told me to not hurt my vocal cords and punching walls won’t help me…. Well let’s swiftly move along, she is an awesome person nevertheless. It was then time to push, the most confusing 15 minutes of my life. So many things went through my head as I was trying to get my baby’s head to earth, lol oh my, the most vivid memory I had in the midst of that confusion was, “God, never again!!”. As my husband was lying next to me cheering me on, I was thinking ” Wow God, you must have been pissed at Eve!”
After all that, I saw a human shoot out of me, then a cry followed, they then put him on my chest, the daddy cut the umbilical cord and there it was, we were now officially parents to a healthy 3,2 kg baby boy. So many mixed feelings but my favorite in that moment was a big fat sigh of relief, it was over, after 10 months, it was finally over- well so I thought…nobody warned me about the recovery and the impact of mommy blues, but that’s for another day, still navigating that road.
For any women who think they won’t survive labour, who think they might just stop and say, “look I can’t do it, I change my mind”, this post is to say you can, I read many labour stories before I gave birth, some helped me survive, so here is mine, hoping it will help someone or just entertain, whatever works for you.
After a month, I am still thinking of other ways to have babies- lol. But I have learnt so much from this little one, mostly how to love deeply all over again. I look forward to raising this little angel. Vukosi Ululamile Hlungwani, such a pleasure having you around my love. Such a pleasure. Here’s to many more posts about the journey we will have with you. 💖