My Birth Story - Part 2

Part 1 here..

Staying the hospital in a maternity ward is NOT the most relaxing of experiences - people being wheeled in after their delivery in various stages of activity, most sleepy and dazed, some chirpy as ever, ever so eager to talk about their baby. And then there are those who are around due to some complication in their pregnancy. And the one common thing that seemed to run through them all (at least that day) was that nobody wanted to sleep - just exchange stories at 1:00AM. I managed to get very less sleep, being in a room with 3 other women. But that one night made me realise how lucky i was in my pregnancy to not have any major complications - there was this one woman who was barely in her 4th month, but she had been in hospital for half that time because of her vommitting. She was so fed up of being pregnant already, poor thing !

The next morning, a consultant came to examine me and told me that the decelerations looked better but since I was overdue, they would induce me that day !! I was so unprepared even then - i was sure they would send me home, as the midwife had mentioned that they normally do not induce till 2 weeks after the due date. The consultant, on the other hand, said "You are here anyway and you are overdue - we might as well induce you". So easily said - and here I was, so totally unprepared. We had not even brought all the baby stuff - just a few things which I needed for the night. The consultant also said that there were no beds available that day in the labour ward and so I would have to just wait it out. Calculus was with me by this time and we were chatting away when at about 1.00, the midwife said that there was a bed ready downstairs. Excitement, apprehension, fear, relief, tension were a few of the emotions running through my mind at that time. The NHS is system of such bereaucracy - it is unbelievable, involves so much of waiting around, mostly without a clue as to why we are waiting. One commendable thing is that most of the routine pregnancies are handled entirely by midwives - leaving the doctors to attend to complications. Coming from India, this was such a massive change and required a lot of re-adjustment, if you like.. In India, I was so used to seeing a specialist even for minor ailments, as my sister is a doctor. One of her friends in the associated speciality would see us, even for routine illnesses.

So after moving down to the labour ward and waiting for a couple of hours yet again, I was finally induced by 4.30PM.. It was a vaginal pessary and the midwife told me that this was just the start of the inductions as most women require about 3-4 pessaries and sometimes other medication, before the contractions begin. She told me to relax as much as i could and eat as much as I could to build up my energy reserves. It was a wise piece of advice and I probably should have taken it. But i did not and ended up spending time with my sister-in-law, who had chosen that weekend to visit us from the US. (they had planned to welcome the baby 5 days after her arrival and so had chosen that date, but got more than that.. they were here on the day the baby was born). I also kept pacing up and down the corridors and the stairs as they had told us to do in the labour classes. I had waited patiently for 9 whole months, yet those last few days and hours felt the longest.. Time seemed to drag by at such a slow pace. I did try and rest a bit, but could not, what with all the excitement within and around me.

The labour ward reminded me so much of the scenes you see in Hindi movies where the heroine is having a baby - long, exhausted, painful high-pitched screams. The delivery suite was next door and each time a midwife opened the door to it, you could hear one of the women bawling. It was so unnerving, to say the least, to think that i would be in a similar state in a couple of hours. There was also a feeling of immense finality in a sense. If it had not sunk in before then that I was to go through such a massive experience in a few hours, it surely did then. All those weeks and months of waiting were finally coming to an end.