My Birth Story...Part 1

I have been debating for a while now if I should write anything about the birth of my child at all on this public forum. After a lot of thought, I have decided to put it down, mainly for the sake of my daughter, so she can read it when she grows up.. Also I have personally gained a lot reading other birth stories on other blogs, so if there is anything that somebody can gain after reading this, then it would have been worthwhile..

My daughter was due in the second week of January and so I stopped working around the end of December.. Waiting those two weeks for her to arrive was the hardest part of the pregnancy for me. When you are working and are busy, you dont realise how the day passes..But waiting at home for the baby to arrive, with not a lot that you can do without having to go to the toilet ever so often, is HARD !! In hindsight, I would have worked all the way to the end, specially because I felt so fit all along. Being big was a bit uncomfortable for sure, but not enough to put me off travelling to work.

We went for a routine ante-natal check up on a Thursday (by which time she was already 3 days overdue). Calculus came with me this once, because he wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat. The doctor asked me if the baby was moving around and I said "yes - a couple of times a day". He asked me for a rough number and I said that I felt it move about 4-5 times a day. He seemed concerned and said that it should be more than that. I had assumed that the baby would not move around much during the last few weeks because of not having much room to do so and had not thought much when the movement reduced in the last few days. The doctor asked me to wait to confirm that the baby was indeed fine by monitoring the baby's heartbeat using a monitor. Being the NHS, the EKG monitor wait was 3.5 hours.. so we went for a coffee and came back after about 3.5 hours to be told that it would take another hour. After an eternity, our turn came and I was put on the monitor. The nurse asked us to wait after the test, as she said there were some "decelerations". She explained that, in layman terms, this meant foetal heartbeat irregularities. She said that I would have to stay the night and that they would repeat the test after a couple of hours. Those few hours (it was around 3) were probably the longest hours of our lives. In those few hours, I had some horrible fears.. what if the baby did not make it, what if she was brain-damaged, what if i am unable to love her the way she is..... I dont think I have ever prayed so sincerely for anything in my life.

The next test still showed some decelerations, so it was certain that we were not going anywhere. I was to be continuously monitored through the night and so Calculus went home, got some clothes and food for me. Food, of course was the last thing on my mind, but I had to eat keeping the child in mind. Calculus could not stay the night and saying goodbye to him was so hard. I hate hospitals at the best of times and to stay overnight in one of them was like a nightmare come true. Sleep, of course, was impossible. I tried to stay positive, focus on pleasant thoughts and kept having conversations with The Force to make things ok..