Unforgettable Experience During Labor

Since this is going to be my first post, I thought I’d start with the things that caught me off guard when the time comes that I will deliver my baby. These are the things I learned or stuck to me as something that I need to share with fellow moms or moms-to-be. Here are the top 5 memorable experiences I have when I was about to give birth.

• Pain, lots of it. I don’t mean to scare new moms or women who want to be mothers out there, but I don’t want to sugarcoat things either. Before I gave birth, I thought that my monthly period was the worst pain in my life. But I was so wrong! When I came to active labor, words are not enough to describe how much pain I am in. I was constantly asked how much pain I feel by the midwives attending to me and my constant answer was that “I think I am breaking some of my spine right now”.
• You can’t plan how you want to give birth. I wanted to have a normal delivery because my mom would always tell me that it only takes a week and your body feels back to normal. This concept was stuck to my head and somehow my maternity leave was planned all around it, that I will have a normal birth and I will feel back to my old self after a week. I was so wrong. When I checked into the hospital, my baby was in a comfortable head down position, the proper position for a vaginal birth. We were waiting for a couple more hours so I can dilate more and when my Consultant arrived to check on me, she saw that my baby moved and is now feet first! I wasn’t prepared for this at all and my plans of getting back to my normal self in one week shattered in an instant. I felt that I was a failure as a woman, mother and as a daughter (yes, I felt that I let my mom down at that time).
• Having a female Consultant eliminates the chances of a male Consultant present at your delivery room. The hospital that we attended to is also a school for midwives. I knew from the start that there would be students so it was OK for me for them to stay there. What I was trying to avoid are male Consultants. It may sound silly but I deliberately chose a female Consultant to attend to me. I thought that if I chose a female Consultant there is no chance that someone from the male specie will be present when I am about the give birth. Again, I was so wrong in this regard. Because I was put into an emergency C-section, the anesthesiologist that will inject epidural to me was a guy. I initially thought that after he administered the epidural, he will be gone and don’t get to watch the ‘show’. That did not happen. He stayed for the whole duration while I was giving birth.
• C-Section does not necessarily mean that your husband stays overnight. This one came as a huge shocker to me. My husband was prepared to sleep over at the hospital with me to help me take care of the baby. Plus the fact that we paid for private care and I had a C-Section, I initially thought that this is a no-brainer and the hospital will allow him to stay, right? This is another wrong assumption. My husband was only allowed to stay every day for up until 9PM and should arrive at 9AM the next day. And to add more fun to it, the baby stays inside my room the whole night! Hooray!
• There are no words to describe when you first see your baby. After the long, painful process of giving birth (painless if you have epidural!), the key moment is to finally meet that tiny creature living inside your body for about 9 months. As the Consultant hand over your little angel to you, emotions will come surging to you. You will cry and laugh at the same time. Your thoughts will be filled with so much uncertainty at that instant as you come into the realization that you are indeed a parent now and responsible to the little person you are snuggling close.