The contractions and tightening had continued and was pretty constant but nowhere near as uncomfortable or painful as the previous episode. However, I felt as though I was losing a small amount of water. Calling the hospital, we were told to come in. They examined me and the baby and said all was fine with the baby and that my cervix wasn’t that much shorter than twelve days earlier, but they would check if I was losing amniotic fluid.
Me and the hubby will never forget the moment when the nurse confirmed that yes, I was losing amniotic fluid and that our baby would be with us within three days’ time. We both stared up at the midwife with the goofiest of grins, overwhelmed with relief that the baby was OK to be born at this time, and ridiculously excited that we were going to be real-life parents, that the two of us were going to become the three of us in just a matter of days. This was it. It was happening!
We had been reassured that our baby was healthy, and not in any danger: the steroid injection and the fact that I’d managed to keep the baby put for an extra couple of weeks meant that the baby was fine to be delivered at thirty-four weeks. They told us that we had a maximum window of three days to give birth, as my waters had started to break. Otherwise, they would have to give me a C-section – on Christmas Day. Oh yes, our end-of-January baby was now a festive baby; it seemed like the turkey might not be the only thing getting sliced and diced on Christmas day.
Over the course of the next three days, I was induced three times, each day bringing a new midwife and a different method each time. I endured the joys of an overzealous sweep, a pessary and a drip – and I have to say that it was the pessary which left me in the most discomfort. On Christmas Eve, I was told I was finally dilated and that they were moving me up to the labour ward so that we were closer to everything we needed to be close to (namely the epidural, ha ha). Looking back now, I am really proud and a bit in awe of how calm I was. I really did take it all in my stride and felt ready to go into childbirth. I was doing my yoga breathing through the pain and felt in control. This feeling of being in control helped me mentally, and made me feel prepared for what lay ahead.
The nurses all knew that my plan was to carry on dealing with the contractions this way, for as long as I could, and that then I would have an epidural. Things were all going swimmingly until I was asked if I was ready to go into the labour room since I was in active labour. Idiot here decided instead, to opt for another quick walk around the ward before we headed in for my epidural. As Julia Roberts said to the snooty shop assistant in Pretty Woman, ‘Big mistake. Huge!’
That decision to take an extra stroll meant that I missed my window of opportunity for the birth I had planned. The birth for which I was mentally prepared. When I was first asked to go to the labour room, the anaesthetist was available and ready. By the time I was ready to go into the room, she had been called to attend to an emergency case, and I would have to wait. Wait? Oh my days, telling a woman in active labour to wait when all she wants is a goddam epidural takes a very brave soul. My hubby was the one who had to break it to me. Through gritted teeth, I told him in my best demonic and savage voice that I wasn’t being rude, ‘… but please stop talking to me. Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me. Just leave me be to get through this and wait.’ I proceeded to pace around like a caged and angry tiger in a small circle, counting up to ten, on and on and on, around and around and around. I was consumed with such a savage and desperate pain that I no longer wanted to be in my own body. Instead I wanted to disown it and run as fast as I could away from the burning and disgusting pain and come back when it was all over. Oh dear Lord, why did I go for that damn walk and where was the damn anaesthetist?
She finally turned up, and I was so twisted in agony and despair at the level of pain I was in that I felt betrayed by my own body. I was desperate for the epidural – but despite wanting nothing more than those drugs, I’ve got to admit that actually having the epidural terrified me. I’d heard that if I moved whilst they were doing it, I could be paralysed forever. Not a great thought to have when they’re trying to get a needle in your spine during the ever-decreasing windows of time between body-shaking contractions that rendered it impossible to do anything, let alone keep still. My calm was starting to unravel, replaced with unadulterated fear and me repeating to myself: ‘This is not what I had planned.’
My epidural made me feel sick to my stomach because it took a good few attempts until she was able to do it safely. Once it was done, though, I told myself that I could relax and just start to get my head in gear for the delivery. My mind had been filled with nothing but unrelenting pain up to this point. I just needed a window of respite to get myself together – which the epidural gave me. It was pure bliss, like an ice cube on a hot day, or a warm bath after a long run. I fell into the most blissful of sleeps and slept deeply for a full hour. When I woke up, my hubby calmly told me they were going to come and break my waters when I was ready and that we would then start with the delivery. I was ready. The epidural, the loss of pain and the sleep had renewed and restored my confidence. I was ready. ‘Back in control.’
Just as these words left my mouth, a wave of excruciating pain crashed down onto me, breaking my hopes and resolve against its angry shoreline and leaving me face down in the water, unable to catch my breath before the next, more powerful wave of unspeakable pain came crashing down on me. What the hell was going on? My brain grasped for answers and air. I was hooked up to the epidural and should have been able to self-administer it depending on my level of pain, but no matter how many times I hit that button, nothing was happening.
I was now surrounded by a machine with its alarms going off, in even more pain than before and with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The anaesthetist was called back in, along with numerous midwives who couldn’t work out what was wrong with the machine; they rushed and fussed around me, checking wires whilst I was almost levitating off the bed in agony. One moment I’d been having the best sleep of my life, all warm, calm and safe, and the next I was trapped in the jaws of hell with no way out and no one to rescue me.
The midwives were all talking to me in French. My poor mind was now understanding only my body’s fear and pain and it could not decipher a word they were saying, so I started to block them all out. My husband managed to break through the barrier of pain I was trapped behind and translate, telling me that there was nothing they could do, the machine had stopped working and that it was too late to try and give me a second epidural because the baby was coming. The look on his face must have mirrored my own horror; I have never seen him look like that at me before or since, telling me that I was on my own, that I had to somehow get through what was about to happen and there was nothing he or anybody else could do.
I grabbed his hand, looked him dead in the eye and told him to just tell me what I needed to do and I would do it … I then remember telling him never to ask me to do this again. I screamed, ‘Promise me!’. He did and then, with him on one side and a midwife on the other, I grabbed their hands and stepped off the precipice, into the flames.
The rest of the birth is one giant blur of pain, indescribable noises and shocking realities that shook me to my very core and left me broken mentally and physically. I may have been physically strong enough to get through childbirth, but my mind was not equipped to deal with the level of panic, pain and shock that I experienced during it.
Through the whole experience, there was a moment of numb peace: the moment I met Éva. When she was placed on me – a hot, gooey comfort with wild, searching eyes and a perfection like no other – I knew her instantly. And boy, did she show us who she was from the moment she was born. Six weeks early, as strong as an ox and weighing an incredibly healthy premature weight of 5.2 pounds. The doctors were surprised, and pleased to tell us that she was fine and healthy, and that she didn’t need to go in the incubator they had ready for her. She even breastfed straightaway. She was an incredible little powerhouse, as dainty as a baby bird but as strong and as sure-footed as a Trojan.
It’s both funny and reassuring to think back to the sureness of the connection I felt with Éva, this little being I had never even met. From the moment I became pregnant with her, I felt this overwhelming bond with her, and when she was born and I finally got to meet this little girl I’d been dreaming about for the past several months, the bond became even