Are you insane?

Who said giving birth was magical? A wonderful experience? A blessing from God? Are you insane!

Beginning.

On the 7th of December 2010 the dreaded day of my induction had arrived. I calculated less than an hour of sleep, I was sick and petrified about what was going to take place.

Firstly you should know my husband Jess faints at that sight of blood, is there a word for that? Bloodophobic? Sissy? Who knows... Basically he turns from man to woman. So Jess my strong and endearing support person takes the first half hour supporting himself after seeing nursers messily insert a drip into my reluctant veins. Unfortunately most nursers/doctors become frustrated by my shy veins and begin poking and prodding my body like a universities mock corpse which can result in a bloody show. Regrettably no one was interested in changing the bloody vein routine for this day.

Jess gloomily scurried off to his chair in the corner of the room to recover from the first bloody show of the day which leaves me to wonder how we thought we could do this?

We arrived at the hospital around six in the morning, my waters were broken and I received the drip containing drugs to begin my contractions around six thirty. By 7am Jess' face was back to full colour and he was right by my side. I was in full blown labour, the contractions came on hard and fast and my fears became more real than ever.

Middle.

I began to try some less invasive birthing techniques to help relieve some of the pain. Okay so one thing I have learnt at this point is birth is nothing like the movies. Yes you sweat, yes you scream and maybe express some profanities in your head but it lasts a hell of allot longer than in any movie I have seen! Happy Gas what does that even do? It is not happy nor kind and it didn’t give me anything I had hoped for..

I wish I was happy I need to be clam and happy. The nurses are telling my husband to calm me down and help me to relax. Don’t you know I can hear you! I am right here! I want to curl up into a ball. Don’t you know I can’t breathe, speak or move, this is way too intense! I wanted to scream at them to shut up and mind your own business.

By 10am reason was out the window. I was hysterically crying its ridiculous I know you’re not supposed to cry I was supposed to be strong but the pain was too intense. I felt it had to stop or I was going to pass out I couldn’t do it anymore. I accepted I had been defeated and seized the epidural. Knowledge that the epidural would lesson my burden was the only way I managed to get through the following half hour and the rest of the day. The epidural arrived and reduced the force of the contractions thankfully this gave me some time to breathe and prepare for the last satge of labour.

End.

Isn’t the epidural supposed to deplete the pain... I was still experiencing allot of pain luckily it was little enough to take the edge off and get me through to the last stage, pushing her out. Ouch! Lying on the bed exhausted I couldn’t see the end and then finally the nurse came in and said I was ready to push little holly out.

OKay OKay so this part again became unbearably painful although I remember feeling so happy that there was an end in sight and no longer felt death was upon me. Then came allot of encouragement from my wonderful husband, pushing, screaming, crying and then all the sudden there she was. Our beautiful tiny girl had entered the world with a big set of lungs taking over the role of her mum’s squealing with some beautiful squealing of her own.

Our daughter Holly was 6.6 pounds and 100 precent healthy.

My husband wrapped her and brought her over to me. This moment was surreal. While being pregnant and feeling Holly wriggle around in my tummy I felt close to her, now knowing she was here in my arms as a pure and innocent child sent straight from God was a beautiful experience. I’m positive this part of birth would make the hardest of hearts melt.

After Holly was born the pain vanished in an instant. Labour was over we had succeeded with much help from my heavenly father and my awesome husband we did it!

Nearly 6 months later...

 and we have a giggly, explorative, witty, bright eyed daughter. My husband came home today to a big smile from his little girl, he turned to me and said "That’s enough to make anyone happy". So after all that I can’t help but agree with all of the other insane mums out there that Giving birth to Holly was a magical, wonderful experience and a profound gift from God.