Baby Makes Three ( Part Two )

It was late afternoon before the contractions became stronger, I'd been
in labour eight hours – hubby was still engrossed in the football.
'Surely this baby would be coming soon,' I thought to myself, but no...
zilch, nothing.

Hours came and went, it was 6pm. By now I was beginning to wonder
if I'd be carrying this baby forever. 'No!' I thought. “How many women
do you see going round pregnant forever?' Although I do recall a girl
I worked with in a Christmas job, who reckoned she was pregnant
every year for three years, but hadn't actually given birth. We even brought her baby clothes, never did find out what happened to her, weird or what?

A new shift nurse came on duty that really got to me, you know the
kind, that's seen a million – zillion babies born, in fact she's probably
got a football team at home.

Anyway she had absolutely no sympathy with me at all and thirteen hours later when I was ready to give birth, she kept calling me a silly lady, that millions of women gave birth every second of every day and what was wrong with me crying.

It got so difficult at one point, I asked for an epidural, to which she
agreed and I also got plugged into the monitor beside the bed, that
watched my contractions, as now I was numb from the waist down,
so much for a natural birth.

Now I felt like I was in a torture chamber, with my legs splayed apart
and my feet in stirrups, plugged into a machine, with a drip in my back.

Then the ultimate humiliation, the nurse asked me if I would mind
some student doctors standing in on the birth, well I know I should
have said no, but the nurse was so scary I said yes, 'big mistake!'
Suddenly I was having my private parts on show to all to goggle at,
when the only person that should have been watching, should have been hubby.

The nurse that upset me, kept saying, “push...push, come on it can't
be that difficult, now stop your crying, and push.”

Well for her information it was difficult and I was pushing for all I
was worth, but it still wasn't good enough. Now with all this pushing
and not being able to feel anything from the waist downwards, as I've
already said...I know I must stop repeating myself. I had another
ultimate humiliation...can you guess? Yes I started peeing, it was like
a never ending fountain between my legs, I could see it, but could feel nothing.

The nurses all assured me that it was completely normal and nothing
to be ashamed of. “Yeah! Easy for them to say, with a load of student
doctors watching.”

Anyway they're all staring as I'm pushing for all I'm worth, then on
the stroke of midnight, a nurse announces that they will need to cut
me, due to the fact the baby's having problem coming out.

“Carry on,” I said. “I just want my baby out, thirteen hours was long enough.” Finally he arrived at ten past midnight...phew! What a relief.

“It's a boy,” announced the nurse.

At that point all the student doctors left, thank goodness. I got to hold
my baby while he was still attached by the umbilical cord, that was so
cool.

The epidural had now worn off, but that awful nurse informed me that I wouldn't be having any more of the numbing stuff, even though the time had come to stitch me up.

“Five internal and six stitches outside,” she informed me in a less than diplomatic way.

Cringing at the thought, again my feet were placed up on the stirrups,
legs splayed once more and I was stitched, I decided then and there
that I would scream like I'd never screamed before. Now I knew what
those other women were going through and why they sounded like
they were being tortured.

As for all those women shuffling along the corridor in pain, I was to
become one of them...boy! Did those stitches hurt, as any woman
that's been through the same thing will know.

To be continued.......