Everything That Happened When I Gave Birth to My Child

A post full of TMI…

It was a warm summer night in my Mexican border town, almost 12 years ago. I was eight and a half months pregnant. Everything had been going reasonably okay up to that point.

I was just waiting for The Big Event.

I wasn’t very hungry that night, so, instead of a proper dinner, I just ate a bunch of strawberries and went to bed.

I was going to regret that.

Did I just pee?

I had gone to bed at around 11 pm. Not much time went by when I suddenly felt some cramps on my lower belly. Fearing that it might the strawberries executing their revenge on me, I rushed to the bathroom.

On the way there, I felt wetness between my thighs.

“Did I just pee?” I asked myself.

Once I sat on the toilet, liquid kept on flowing, a tiny bit of blood in the mix. Fearing I might be having a miscarriage, I woke my husband up.

“We have to go to the hospital. Something is off,” I said.

We got on the car and drove off. I had to sit on a towel because fluid kept coming out of me. Also, from time to time, the cramps would come back. That’s when it hit me:

I was in labor!

First, I felt like an idiot. How come I didn’t notice? I realized that years of watching Hollywood movies had made me think that, when labor began, it would manifest as a large puddle at my feet, as well as unbearable pain that would make me scream in agony.

I was wrong, of course: the agony was going to come later.

Natural birth, right?

Once we got to the hospital, my husband was thrown into the waiting room, and they sent me to a small cubicle. There, a nurse took my vitals, a doctor asked me some questions, and I was admitted.

This is a good moment to add that I gave birth in a Mexican public hospital. What does that mean?

Well, for starters, I was not allowed a companion. All pregnant ladies were sent to a common room, so interns and nurses could keep track of us. I was there, laying on a stretcher, surrounded by women on different stages of labor.

Also, an elective C-section or an epidural was completely out of the question. These procedures were reserved for cases of extreme urgency.

I didn’t care much at first. I had always said I wanted a natural birth. However, as hours progressed, …let’s just say my opinion on the matter quickly evolved.

Enema nurse

At this point, a nurse came to my stretcher. She had a large plastic tube in one hand and a bag in the other, full of what looked like saline solution.

I had already changed into a hospital gown — you know, the kind that lets you show your butt to all the strangers around. She asked me to uncover myself and lift my hips a bit.

Then, she extracted a bedpan from somewhere in front of the stretcher and placed it under me.

I did not like where this was going.

Finally, she connected the plastic tube to the bag, and, as she inserted the tube into my anus, said, “I’m going to give you an enema.”

Once again: she did it as she said it. She did not ask for my permission. She did not ask if I agreed to this procedure.

She just went for it.

It was not the first time someone did shady maneuvers around my behind, but still!

Luckily — I think — the second I felt the tube trying to get into my anus, I closed my legs and removed myself from this…situation.

“I have to do it,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

She said something about how this would keep me from shitting myself when the baby finally came out. Oh, and it might also make labor easier on me.

I thought about all of the conversations I had with doctors on the months before, as well with a few nurses. As I recalled, no one had warned me about this.

A doctor and another couple of nurses came, and they all ganged up on me. Apparently, it was a requirement if I wanted to give birth in this hospital.

Having no cash to go to a private clinic, I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?

Still, I wasn’t going down without a fight! We managed to come to an agreement. They were going to let me enema myself!

The nurse handed over the bag and the plastic tube, and I went to the toilet. And, yes, I did it! It was a relief to get it over with 😉

Before writing this, I did some research and, it turns out, enemas used to be the typical procedure. However, it seems that nowadays, the World Health Organization (WHO) is firmly against them:

…the routine use of enema has neither been shown to reduce the duration of labour nor confer any other clinical benefits. It is considered invasive and associated with discomfort for women.

It appears that the public Mexican health care system has evolved, and, according to this guide, the procedure is no longer performed on patients.

Twelve years too late.

I can take it

After my procedure, there was nothing more to do but wait. Interns would come and go, checking all of the patients’ vitals. They would also monitor our babies’ heartbeats.

The doctor had told me that, since this was my first pregnancy, it would likely take 24 to 48 hours for my child to be born. However, in true renegade fashion, my son decided he was in a hurry.

It had only been 12 hours since my water broke, but I started to notice how my contractions came more and more frequently.

Have you ever gotten a drop of hot oil on your hand? Okay, now imagine that thousands of those drops land on your belly, all at the same time. Oh, and they come every ten minutes, then every five, and then they seem never to leave.

That’s what contractions felt like.

As I mentioned before, an epidural was out of the question. I was to ride this storm in full control of my senses.

The good news? I discovered I can take a lot of pain. The bad news?

I was in a lot of pain!

I would try to work with my breath to manage the agony. Still, at times it was impossible to keep myself from screaming. Most of the patients seemed to be in the same situation. The interns would walk amongst our stretchers, advising us to “keep our strength,” to not waste it with “our screaming and teeth-clenching.”

I’m typically against violence but, I swear, if there ever was a time in my life when I wished I could kick the crap out of somebody, that was it.

Strangers staring at my vulva

Then, it happened: The Mother of All Contractions.

I almost stood up to run out of there. A futile exercise, of course: the pain was coming from within.

One of the interns noticed something was off.

“What is it? Do you need to pee?” he asked.

I barely managed to answer, “pee, poop, EVERYTHING!”

He went to me and checked my cervix’s dilation. Sure enough, I was ready to go!

They hurried me into another room and there, in a rush, everybody got ready. In the middle of it all, I was amazed to see how each person knew their role in the play.

They asked me to move onto a new, clean stretcher. I have no idea where I found the strength for that.

After that, they set me up, my feet on stirrups, and my private parts out on the open for a bunch of interns to see.

A doctor positioned himself in front of my vulva and explained everything he did. I knew he wasn’t doing it for my benefit — he was merely instructing his pupils. Still, it was good to know.

Then, the moment we all had been waiting for! My baby was about to come into this world.

I was exhausted and lonely beyond belief. I had only see grumpy interns for the past 12 hours. I was exhilarated with the whole experience, and yet, wanted nothing but to cry.

“Okay,” the doctor said, “push!”

When he shouted his command, I instinctively reached out for one of the nurses’ hands and held her tight. It was a primal reaction: I needed some human comfort.

At first, she hesitated. But then, I felt how she squeezed my hand back. It was the most curious thing: we never knew each other’s names, and still, for a moment, we were more than sisters.

We were together in the miracle of life.

A new human

So, I did it. I pushed.

My son came out into the world in a whisper. Relief coursed all over my body. Honestly, compared to the pain of contractions, delivery felt like a blessing.

I looked at my baby and couldn’t believe my eyes: I had just 3D printed a human!

He didn’t cry like in the movies. He just whimpered a bit as they took him to a nearby table to evaluate him and clean him up. As I watched him, I felt as someone wiped my butt up a bit.

Guess that enema didn’t work that well, huh?

Feelings

Once we both were clean enough, they took us to a room, together. There, I took a good look at him: his toes and fingers, the dark mane on his head, his wrinkly baby skin. I was finally going to get to know this person.

Now that the whole commotion had died down, I realized I was starving. After all, it had been several hours since I had eaten those strawberries.

It would be a few more hours before they brought me something I could devour. Then visiting hours came, and my husband was able to see our son.

As doctors, nurses, and visitors came and went, I realized my heart was overwhelmed.

It amazed me how the world had kept on going while I was busy in the whole bringing-life-into-this-world affair. Those 12 hours went by in a flash, and yet, I managed to acquire several lessons.

All in all, I discovered I am capable of feeling everything at the same time: happiness, anger, fear, and love. Oh, and I can also develop murderous feelings toward people that urge me just to ignore the pain.

And let’s not forget, I also learned how to self-apply an enema, that strawberries are not a proper meal, and how something as simple as holding someone’s hand can make all the difference in the world.

Let’s raise a bag of saline solution to that!

A note for the doctors and nurses who might read this:

I know most of this post could be read as a criticism toward your profession.

It isn’t.

Instead, it is evidence of what can happen when some individuals fail to practice the art of empathy and compassion. I know most doctors and nurses do their best to excel at that. I think I was simply very unlucky that day.

Thank you for all the work you do.