Women Still Don’t Say It As It Is About Giving Birth And It Drives Me Mad
Help other women face reality by being as honest as possible
No, giving birth is not pretty. Your baby is, and it’s wonderful what our bodies can do, but feeling how your intestines turn inside out while pushing your child out into this world is the bloodiest and hardest job on Earth.
But hey, it’s natural, you should embrace it.
Good for you if the birth of your child was like a dream, because mine weren’t and other women’s aren’t either. Also, remember that some women and babies still die during childbirth.
I could have smacked my friend’s husband on the face when he told her:
You always complain but you still want to have another
I wouldn’t have had a second one with him, I tell you.
Whoever says that doesn’t understand the call of nature either. There’s no other way to become a mother but to have your body mangled in the process and your hormones all over the place for quite some time. I’m sure you envy female kangaroos as much as I do. A pouch would have been better, thank you very much.
Thank God my husband never said anything of the sort and was an exemplary husband in both births.
During the first birth, he let me squeeze one of his hands until it turned purple. He never complained. He also tried to help me throughout the process by reminding me of my breathing to which I had to tell him to shut up at some point. It eventually got annoying the “remember your breathing” thing.
Because I wasn’t dilating as I should have, and I had broken my waters, they had to give me oxytocin. My happy face turned into that of a psychopath in no time. My boy was pushing down with all his strength. I didn’t even have the chance to have the epidural on time. By the time I asked for it, it was too late. Good job I had had the runs all day and I was internally clean, otherwise I would have made a mess.
Our baby was out three and a half hours later. Not bad for being the first. But they had to do an episiotomy for baby John to get out without suffering. Seeing him out was the best feeling ever and I didn’t care about the pain. My husband cried his eyes out when he saw him. The midwives were touched. I had him all dressed up quickly on top of me and I was the happiest mum in the world: Hello darling I said to him and I kissed him on the forehead, while they were stitching me down there. That’s when my husband cried. All of a sudden, the scans turned into a real person.
During the second birth, things got complicated. Baby Sam wasn’t in the right position, he was diagonally positioned and the wrong way round.
As it happened with baby John my waters broke but I wasn’t dilated enough. They gave me the bloody oxytocin again. But even then, Sam wasn’t playing ball. I knew something was wrong when he pushed and my right leg felt the pain instead of my female bits.
This time I got the epidural on time, but the anaesthetist was a rude man that said:
“The epidural is given, but the patient hasn’t behaved”
What did he expect? My body was constantly shaking, after 13 hours in labour I had enough. I said: if you don’t give me the epidural I won’t have the strength to push my baby out. They gave me two doses, it was taking that long.
Doctors crowded around my female parts and started figuring out how to manoeuvre. I felt like cattle.
My husband was there all the time, hungry, lightheaded, not missing a thing, scared of anything bad happening or missing the big moment.
This time they had to empty me. What is that noise? I said to my husband. He looked down where my bottom was and said: there’s a bucket, what’s going in there is green, yes, you’re pooing. I had been taking iron tablets for almost the whole 9 months. That explains the colour.
I got doctors putting their hands inside of me to get to Sam’s head and turn him round while another huge midwife was almost sitting at the top of my stomach saying you don’t know how to push.
At the count of three I had to push while they were doing all sorts of things to my body, but I was pushing with my head because the epidural had left me numb.
Finally, baby Sam was born, not without the gynaecologist saying to me:
“The next time you give birth let me know so I can be on holiday”
To which I said, “Don’t worry, this is the last time you are going to see me here”.
My husband started crying when finally Sam was on my chest. This time he started picking all the tissues he found in the room. He got told off and then they let him off because he had been holding on really well during the whole time and they thought that was cute.
I can’t imagine my friend’s husband going through all that.
After giving birth
When people asked me how it went, in both cases I gave them all sorts of descriptions. Some people laughed and appreciated the humour, others looked at me in disgust.
I do appreciate some telling me all the details because that’s the truth, that’s how you bond, that’s how you create awareness. Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but giving birth and what comes after with your body really sucks. So next time someone asks you how the birth went, please don’t say:
It was wonderful
Be honest and tell it how it is and how it felt for you. If it was that wonderful, then you are one of the few lucky ones. But for the rest of us, it was a challenging moment where everything that went well could have gone horribly wrong.
Key message: Women shouldn’t scare other women regarding maternity, but they shouldn’t hide everything that goes on during childbirth either. It’s important to be ready for the big moment in every single way.
Thanks for reading
I normally write about the Gothic on Medium and in my own online magazine. I help people learn more about themselves and their fears through literature, films, TV series, music and all those places where our Shadow- Selves lurk. Talking about motherhood has been one of the topics I wanted to write about for a long time but always doubted. Thanks to Sally Prag and her publication Badform I found a great opportunity to do so. So for that I am grateful!
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