B-Day Part 1

I'm in labour. Yes, right this moment...

Earlier this evening I had just finished watching Eastenders, (with its usual cheery festive themes of murder, madness and Machiavellian betrayals), and felt strangely uninterested in my usual nightly dabble into online fantasy gaming. Instead I got up from my giant inflatable space hopper and waddled over to the window, where the snow was falling once again on a frozen world.

Without warning there was an POP POP! It was both a sound and a vibration that came from somewhere half way up my hugely distended stomach. Calmly, and in slow motion, I looked down and said, simply, "...Oh."

I knelt down on the bed and waited for what must surely come next...
Sure enough, a small puddle appeared. Again, I said, "...Oh."

I heard myself call out gently, "Mom...? Mom! Um... My waters have gone. I think she's coming."
My voice seemed funny and small and quite far away.

In the dreamy four hours that have followed, I called the maternity ward, I ate dinner, I washed my hair, I watched my dad defrost the car, and around 11pm my mom drove me to the hospital. One reason this time passed with such serenity was that I had not yet experienced any contractions...

That was an hour ago. Since then a midwife has poked and prodded me "to get things going..." and sent us home again.

The contractions started before I left the hospital, and by the time we arrived home just after midnight, they were established into a moderately uncomfortable six minute pattern.

...
...
...

1 am: I just had a bath and played some hypo birthing meditation thing. Had to turn it off, that man with his calm voice was making me mad! He has no idea what I'm feeling! How dare he tell me to stay calm! Ha!
1:10 am: Called my friend to let her know that I'm in labour. Had to cut the conversation short. The pain is making it hard to talk.
1.34 am: Have to go now. Mom strapping a Tens machine to my back. Need to bounce on space hopper.
2 am: Breathing. Pain. Think I need hospital soon?




( 24/12/10 02:32:08 - The last photo taken of me before my life changed forever)

"...Have you had that baby yet?..."

...Has to be one of the most irritating questions to ask a woman who is a week overdue. I have lost count of the number of well-meaning Facebook friends who have spoken those infuriating words in the last few days.

Isn't it obvious that I haven't yet given birth, just by the fact that I am online, writing inane status updates, posting trivial messages and wasting my time playing ridiculous games designed for people who have no life?

To put an end to this in the best way possible, I posted this photo as my profile.

Baby it's cold outside...

It was a cold cold winters night. Snow had fallen, snow upon snow, and weather reports were warning people to stay indoors and "avoid unnecessary journeys..."

Unfortunately childbirth is pretty damn necessary, and if I hadn't been pumped up on mother nature's natural sedatives I might have been feeling worried. I was three days past my due date and the weather seemed to be getting worse, not better. I overheard my parents talking in the lounge earlier in the evening,
"...there's no way..."
"...have to call an ambulance then..."

I retreated upstairs for a relaxing game of Warcraft, and tried to get comfortable on my special orthopaedic kneeling chair, which was hard these days, as I weighed about as much as a baby elephant and jutted out in all the wrong places. I was just considering another plate of pineapple chunks and jalapeño peppers when there was a sudden CRACK! and a BUMP! and I was sitting on the floor on top of a pile of wood that used to be my chair. I blinked slowly in mild shock for a few moments and then rolled off the pile of chair bits, with that beached-whale fluid style that I had mastered by now.

I was mortified. I was so massive that I actually broke the chair. Now I know how Goldilocks felt.

Suddenly inspired, I checked for suspicious wet patches...
Aaaah...nothing.

Feeling heavy with the weight of disappointment (and 50 extra pounds) I decided to forgo the pineapple and peppers. If falling off a chair couldn't encourage this baby out tonight, then the forced ingestion of disgusting food was probably also a lost cause.
































(Yes, really.)