By Melissa Meehan OPINION
I need to have a shower. NOW.
I was growing tired of my husband’s constant eye-rolls following my repeated requests for him to ask the nurses for a heat pack.
Just a few hours earlier the process of induction had begun. My OB had checked my cervix and would be back in the morning to break my waters.
“By this time tomorrow night you’ll have a baby,“ she smiled and it was getting real.
But, it didn’t all go EXACTLY to plan.
My husband agreed to stay the night with me in hospital but rushed home to pick up an overnight bag as well as some muesli bars that would help him get through the marathon day ahead of us.
Nearly everyone we spoke to had warned him not to forget food – his best friend’s wife had been in labour for more than 24 hours – so we had prepared for the worst.
He was gone for less than an hour when I started to feel uncomfortable. I called him asking to bring a heat pack to me on his return. My OB had warned me that I could get period-like pains overnight and I felt like they had already started.
Even over the phone I could feel his eyes roll at my request. His eyes almost rolled out of his head when I asked for a second heat pack another 10 minutes later.
I then felt the strong urge to take a hot shower and soon enough the pain in my lower back became unbearable. I screamed out for my husband, who offered to help hold the shower hose on my back where the pain was.
It was a comedy of errors because as I passed him the hose, he dropped it and water went flying everywhere. He was drenched and I was in severe pain.
We decided to call the nurse. I didn’t know if I was in labour or if this was the normal reaction to the gel.
She arrived. And I was in the late stages of labour.
She counted two contractions in five minutes. And when the nurse moved me to the bed to check my cervix, she announced she could feel the baby’s head and told another nurse to call my doctor. Not only was I in labour. I was about to give birth … this was REALLY happening.
I looked at my husband and told the nurse that I wasn’t ready to give birth as I needed an epidural (doctor’s orders) but I was told that wasn’t an option as it was happening now without the help of drugs – only the gas which made me vomit and offered little (if any) relief.
My OB arrived as our baby’s head crowned and was there to deliver her in the next push. Our daughter was born just before midnight after a labour totalling 50 minutes – 30 minutes of labour and 20 minutes of pushing.
(Apparently a labour so quick is SUPER rare for your first child).
My body soon went into shock – I couldn’t even tell whether she was a boy or a girl but I found some clarity as they placed her on my chest. I never knew I could love something or someone so much.
But that dreamlike moment was over in an instant as she stopped breathing and turned purple.
Nurses and doctors came rushing in from everywhere and my perfect moment was over.
The short labour hadn’t given her the chance to expel the fluid in her lungs and they had become saturated, making it almost impossible for her to breathe.
Luckily they were able to clear her airways and got her breathing again. But she was to spend the next four days in a humidicrib recovering inside the special care unit.
It was almost 24 hours after she was born before my husband could hold our daughter in his arms for the first time.Thankfully she is now a happy and healthy nine-month-old. But if anyone tells you a quick labour is better than a long one, I can safely correct them and say that both have their ups and downs.
