Four Minutes Is Peanuts & Reality Is Much Harsher

There has to be some sort of design to a women's memory that defies all logic!

When I was pregnant with my first son I watched my fair share of "A Baby Story", you know I had to be prepared for the whole birthing experience! I watched as the women screwed up their faces, moaned, pushed with style and tadah, out popped the baby! In all fairness the babies were actually covered in blood and had that wrinkly newborn look, reminiscent of a younger Yoda or something. Having been prepared for the whole course of events, when the day finally arrived I felt in control and calm!!! YA RIGHT! First I wake up at five o'clock in the morning with pain in my tummy like I've never experienced before. Each and every contraction felt like someone tearing my insides apart with a machete. The hospital pamphlets tell you to bear with the contractions and only come in when they are a regular distance and no longer than five minutes apart. In retrospect I could shove those pamphlets up somewhere on someone but that's besides the point. So I'm waiting patiently for my contractions to become regular while my Husband sits besides me stifling a smile because get this, he's happy! He's happy that our new baby is going to arrive shortly (that's another story!) and all that I'm thinking is, "I wish I could slap that smug grin off his pretty face!" So dutifully Hubby is recording all knife wrenches on a piece of paper when all of a sudden they jump from like nine minutes apart to like three! THREE! They continue at three minutes apart and the pain gets worse and worse. Then they drop down to two minutes and then one and a half minutes apart. "CALL THE AMBULANCE" I insist! Hubby then suggests we take a cab. I'm starting to wonder if I can kill him and hide the evidence. Finally I move to the bedroom to continue labouring, the Father-to-be calls 9-1-1 (with a little bit of gentle persuasion) and guess what? The operator on the line tells him to start getting ready for a home birth!!! What do you mean home birth? Those don't exist, they don't teach you that in birthing class. He's busy preparing clean sheet and towels and I'm torn between screaming from the pain of the contractions and freaking out over the possibility of a home birth. Just in time two ambulance technicians burst through the door and start examining the area in which this baby is supposed to exit. First, I'm starting to freak ... so it is actually true that I have to push this little one out from ummm, down there. Two, they decide that it's not actually that urgent because get this, HIS HEAD ISN'T CROWNING! (That word should never be used in conjunction with any other words used to discuss giving birth.) Next step: Now I'm probably going to get comments on how I'm being sexist buuuuttttt, one of the ambulance technicians is a woman and I've just gained a whopping sixty-five pounds (yes people, no lies) during my pregnancy, my thighs have ballooned to unprecedented proportions, my tummy and "love handles" are scarred with stretch marks and I can't help but think, "and she's going to carry my big ass down the stairs!" Total disbelief. Miraculously she hoists me up in the stretcher with virtually no effort and either she's really good at hiding pain or I'm just thinner than I thought I was! We drive to the hospital, Hubby beside me with our bags and I pant from the sheer effort of trying not to scream. To make a long story short about seven hours later the nurse informs me that's it's time to start pushing because my epidural is no longer working and I'm fully dilated. Easy, I've seen the women on the television do it! If the show is a half an hour long and about half of it is the history behind the pregnancy and the other quarter is life after the baby's born, that leaves just one more quarter. Minus time from commercials and I think I may have about a four minute window in which to push out that baby. Four minutes is peanuts and reality is much harsher! The thing that stands out the most in my mind is that when the time came to push there was only a nurse and my Husband in the room. "Where is that Doctor?" The nurse assures me that the Doctor will be there soon. So I start pushing (with constant reminders to "push through my bum" - but he's not coming out of there, so why should I be pushing down there?) and about an hour or so into it the nurse tells me that I'm doing WONDERFULLY and I should have this baby out any minute! YEAH! I push harder, the harder I push the faster the pain will subside they tell me. A half an hour later still no baby. Nurse Mrs. Positive Outlook looks a bit unsure and worried. "Hmmm, I think maybe I'll just prep you for a c-section in case". That wasn't in the plan. After she's done making me feel like even less of a human being she leaves the room and encourages Hubby to continue helping me push! The only thing I want to do is tell the baby to stay right where he is, there will be no exiting of a baby without a Doctor around, never mind a nurse! Finally the Doctor shows up and I resist the urge to ask her where she's been. Out come the big guns. Within fifteen minutes, a whole lot of screams begging her to cut me open and remove "this" baby and her telling me that it's simply too late for that and the only one who's getting this baby out is me, she manages to pull a red, wailing boy out! I will spare you the details of the after effects of the birthing process but let me tell you something, it was nothing like the movies or television or even those documentaries they show you in birthing class! My new tiny tot is actually a whopping ten and a half pounds but it's like it doesn't even matter! He's gorgeous. He's huge and cuddly and new and wonderful. I kiss his head, his cheeks, his eyes and his lips. He's mine. Oh and that man sitting beside me who hasn't gained a pound, felt a contraction or pushed a day in his life, he's his too!

Bulldozer grows and fills us with excitement and joy.

Bulldozer hits his first birthday and we celebrate him being in our lives for a whole year.

... We smile slyly to ourselves and decide to keep secret what our hearts want to tell the world! Baby number two is just a bun in the oven!

Not even nineteen months later I'm back in the same position. I'm blown up from pregnancy, uncomfortable and starting to feel like my time is never going to come. One morning (a few days before my due date) I go with my Mother In Law to get my H1N1 vaccine and we joke about the possibility of me popping that day. She offers to stay in the city so if I need her, she'll be right there. I'm exhausted and all I want to do is sleep. I politely decline and think, if it hasn't happened already it's not going to happen today. After all Son number one was born conveniently in the wee hours of the morning (before my husband had a chance to go off to work) so why would baby number two come during the middle of the week, during the middle of the day when my Husband is probably some halfway across the Island doing a delivery? I get home, send Bulldozer for a nap and crawl into bed for a much needed nap. Instantly I fall asleep. About an hour later I wake up because I feel like I have to pee so I roll over to heft my big tummy out of bed and whoops! I feel this trickle of liquid trail down my leg. Nobody is around and yet I feel totally mortified. I must have peed myself I think! I get out of bed and all of a sudden I'm standing in a puddle of ... ??? It can't be pee! It's impossible. I heard something about this... Maybe, just maybe I think I've just popped and a wee little one is on its way! I call my Husband at work and I simply tell him that it's go time! "Huh? For real? Are you kidding?" Reemergence of homicidal thoughts loom in my head but I tell him, "of course it's for real, why would I be joking?" He makes some sort of squeak and I can visualize him twitching. In the time that it takes my Husband to meet my step-father and come and pick me up I casually walk around the house, do the last of the dishes, tidy up and make sure the car seat for Bulldozer and the bags for the hospital are waiting by the front door. Bulldozer wakes up and I get him dressed to go and very graciously wipe up the puddle of amniotic fluid on the bedroom floor. Hubby bursts in the house (even my normally very calm step-father looks frazzled) and gives me heck for "working when I should be resting"! I assure him I'm absolutely fine and am not actually feeling any pain yet. At the same time I'm actually assuring myself because this feels like a whole different ballgame. No ambulances. No crazy contractions. No stretchers. No chaos. Just a simple understanding that our second son is on his way. The labouring portion of this pregnancy was actually pretty non eventful (except for the epidural that only froze one side of my body!), up until it finally came time to push. The epidural had started to wear off again and the nurse had just checked me not even ten minutes before and I wasn't nearly dilated enough. I insisted that something was different and she kept asking me if I felt pressure in my bum. How should I know? I opted for an epidural, wasn't the whole point to not feel the pain/pressure? The nurse seems a bit concerned (I'm getting a little leery of the looks I keep receiving from various nurses during my two birthing experiences!) and pushes a button when all of sudden (just like in the movies), more nurses and a Doctor show up. The Doctor tells me that's it's time to start pushing, the baby is right there and he'll be out in just a few moments. I resist the urge to tell her that's what the last nurse said! Instead I focus all my energy into pushing. PPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH. Okay breathe, okay never mind, push! One-two-three-four-five and there he was!

So some time after the traumatic events of birth experience number one I decide that we should think about having baby number two. My friends look at me in utter amazement (or maybe it's disgust!) asking me if I've forgotten how much it hurt. Hmmm, do I? I must have. Or maybe it just wasn't that bad. Maybe it didn't hurt nearly as much as I had originally remembered it to. Then the wee little one's labour approached and when the contractions finally started it was like a slap in the face! This really did hurt. I didn't quite remember what it had felt like to have a contraction, didn't the baby classes describe contractions as "really painful period cramps"? Another person/people that should be put down. Somehow the second birth hurt like someone was slowly torturing me and I had conveniently forgotten. Now fives months after the birth of my second son I can't help but wonder if maybe the third time won't be as painful... or was it really that bad to start? :)