I had possibly the best pregnancy I could have ever hoped for. I never felt sick and didn’t have any of the usual side effect apart from a bit of nausea here and there at the beginning and a bit of heart burn around the 5th month. My belly was really big and I really loved showing it off with tight fitting clothes and massaging it with oil every day.
I’m a yoga teacher and I kept my practice up throughout the whole 9 months, just toning it down to work around the bump and making sure I wasn’t getting too tired. I was even doing backbends and inversions until the 8th month. I walked as much as I could to make sure the I got enough cardio and sat squatting or tailor sitting as much as I could to open up my hips in preparation for birth.
I was really looking forward to the birth since I first got pregnant and had discussed with my doctor having as natural delivery as possible with no drugs or intervention. Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out…
My hospital of choice was International Peace Maternity in Xujiahui. I say choice but I didn’t really have much choice as I’m not covered by health insurance and that was the only cheapish good option. I was pretty happy with the care there, I speak Chinese and my doctor was very nice and competent.
I started having stronger contractions on the Sunday afternoon and started getting really excited as I was already one week overdue. I was so excited that I didn’t even take my afternoon naps but went instead for two walks around our neighbourhood with my husband Phil. That night at around 12 I woke up with strong contractions and woke up Phil to let him know that the games had started. We set up the sitting room with a sheet and shower curtain on the floor in case things got messy and then I just starting sitting around coping with contractions. Things were fine apart from this really sharp pain in my lower back, I think caused by the baby’s head pressing down and the pelvis slowly opening.
The next 30 hours 
were spent between sitting on my yoga ball, on my knees, eating ice lollies : ) and getting endless massage from Phil or spending time attached to the Tens machine which I borrowed from Mhairi, (the midwife with whom we did our preparation for birth course and who helped us loads after the birth).
I had a couple of teary breakdowns as I was getting incredibly tired. The pain in my lower back wouldn’t allow me to lie back or on my side during contractions and that meant I didn’t get any sleep apart from the few times I dozed off sitting on the ball or in other strange positions.
I was determined to have a natural drug free birth and both Phil and I were hoping that the baby would come easily while we were still at home as neither of us really liked the idea of giving birth in a hospital. However, when the 30th hour struck I was crying and exhausted. I woke Phil up while he was having a well-deserved nap, we grabbed our things and headed over to the hospital.
We got there about 12 30 and were greeted by a very nice midwife. When she first checked my cervix I was 4-5 cm dilated (only ; ((( )!!! Then another midwife, Liyuan, came in and stayed with me until about 8 in the morning. She is so so sweet and she is the only positive thing I remember from my hospital experience. She massaged my back and was extremely supportive and encouraging. The doctor on duty that night had no social skills and didn’t even really talk to me. Thankfully she just checked that we were okay and left us to it.
I was finding it quite hard to cope so I started thinking about pain killers. I asked for gas, but by the time it arrived I’d decided against it and thought I would struggle through. By six in the morning my still waters hadn’t broken so the doctor decided to help them along, saying that she was going to check my cervix and that she might break my waters in the process… of course she went straight for it and the waters broke, bringing no relief at all…
At seven thirty my doctor came in and after talking with the night shift doctor decided that my progress was pretty slow, she checked again !!! and said that I was at 8 cm. By the time I was fully dilated the head was apparently too high up, who knows.. and really they said it would be hard to get this baby out even with forceps. The sound of that was really off putting and from then on I was told I had 2 hours to get the baby out and if he wasn’t born in that time we would have to perform a c section… Labour has its own time that’s what one of my pregnancy books said, clearly they hadn’t read it and I wasn’t performing well enough. ON top of being tired and in pain I was also in a rush and couldn’t keep my eyes of f the clock. At this point an epidural sounded like a good idea but no too late for that apparently, all I was left with was gas which made me really high and got a few laughs out of Phil. Our lovely midwife had left leaving a much less compassionate colleague.
By the time the doctor came back she said that we had 5 mins to agree to a c section and if we didn’t we only had another half hour left. We didn’t know what to do and decided to go with the op as we were both too exhausted to try any longer.
The c section was not pleasant, I really don’t understand how anyone could choose to have such a horrible op out of will. I felt like a piece of meat and when Theo was born it almost seemed like he didn’t come from my body. Both Phil and I cried as we looked in amazement at this chubby baby, 4.9 kg, wow they were all amazed! Of course we knew he wasn’t going to be small… the doctor wouldn’t shut up about it throughout the whole operation saying that it would have simply been impossible for him to come naturally, he was huge, simply too big. Who knows…
After Theo gave a few little cries the nurses decided he wasn’t breathing well and was taken for a check up while I was being sewed back together.
The quick check up turned into 4 hours, apparently a hospital routine…. Then it turned into 24 hours. Neither of us had held our baby boy and we were extremely angry with the hospital. They told us he was in no life threatening danger and, according to the big poster listing the WHO standards the hospital is proud of apparently updholding, mother and child should for no reason be separated within the first 24 hours from birth unless the baby’s life is in immediate risk.
So my first 24 hours as a mother were spent in bed, without being able to move, without my baby and feeling very upset that the birth I’d looked forward to for so long had become my nightmare, all my biggest fears had come true.
The next day meeting Theo was the most exciting meeting ever, so cute and chubby and lovely, what a blessing! It has taken me a while to let go of the anger I felt about somehow failing to deliver my baby naturally but Theo is here with me. Looking after him is hard work but also the greatest joy. Today he smiled at me and that beats everything, thank you Theo!
For me labour was most certainly a big lesson in surrender, acceptance and finally devotion to this shining new soul… life with never be the same and that’s a very very good thing ; )
x