This picture is 12 years old I am not pregnant, people! 😂❤️
This post was inspired by a close friend of mine on a private social media group who is pregnant and looking for encouragement! It's her 1st pregnancy and as we all know, that's some scary stuff.
Like many people these days, she's having her 1st baby in her late 30s. Gone are the days where you needed to be married and have 5 children by 29. Thank heavens. I look at how old I was when I had Matthew and I honestly think I was actually still too young at 27. I was determined to be married and a mother before my 30th birthday. Social conditioning is something we're not always aware of and it can be really damaging, sending us down strange paths at the wrong time for the wrong reason.
However, this story isn't about that.
I did have my little boy when I did and this is the story of how he came into the world.
The only piece of advice I ever give new moms is to disregard unsolicited advice, but I do have one pearl of wisdom: expect the unexpected. Ok and maybe one or two more pieces of advice like fuck everyone else and their opinion, you do you and be safe and ask for help.
I fell pregnant with my son 12 years ago and gave birth to him at Milnerton Mediclinic. He was born at 38 weeks, weighing 3.8kgs. My mom birthed both my sister and I through "natural" birth. Both of our births were, as far as I can tell, horribly traumatic for my mother. It's funny though. Women don't talk about that. It's like you are programmed to say "oh but the pain was worth it," or "Oh but wait until they put the baby in your arms", but honestly, the experience is hectic.
Now, every child, every birth, and every mother is different. You may have ideas and preconceptions about motherhood, how it will change you, and how you need to be "perfect," however that looks for you.
Motherhood is raw and messy. It's painful and pure delight, it's terrifying, and holding your baby in your arms is the most comforting thing you will ever feel. Motherhood is a host of contradictions and oxymorons
Whatever you are planning, please just plan to be kind to yourself. Try to come to terms with the idea that childbirth and motherhood might say fuck you and your plan. I planned to just pop Matthew out and that breastfeeding would be a natural instinct. HAHAHAHA. No.
I remember Skyping my best friend in the UK while my husband at the time was out working. Matthew was about a week old and I clearly remember telling her (also because she reminds me) that I said to her "Don't let the hormones brainwash me. If I ever tell you that you should have a baby or that childbirth was worth it" you will know I've lost the plot or I've been brainwashed. It's 12 years later and she hasn't had any babies. Lol. Did I scare her off?
I was traumatized by the unexpected. I had never felt so out of control.
I'm grateful that we live in a time where we can be honest about the whole experience, but there are still unfair judgments and standards that we, and other moms put on ourselves and each other, and as I said, although there is definitely change happening, we could do more to lift each other up. We could all be a little kinder.
But let's go back to the beginning, shall we?
It took me three different obstetricians before I found the right one for me. The first one was amazing but charged way over medical aid rates so I ended up having to pay in an absolute fortune.
The second one was super grumpy and made me feel like a cow in a production line.
I finally found the right doctor when I was around 5 months pregnant and he was absolutely incredible. With a wicked sense of humor and excellent bedside manner, he helped me bring my precious son into this world. I was incredibly blessed to be surrounded by such excellent care as nothing I had planned for my birth worked out that way.
I took photos of my belly through as many stages as I could. You can see me getting grumpier and grumpier towards the end!! Hahaha.
I had morning sickness for the first three months, but that ended exactly when my 1st trimester ended.
The rest of the pregnancy was smooth sailing, aside from horrific heartburn, but Matthew was born with a full mop of strawberry blonde hair (that's a thing, apparently, or an old wives' tale that if you have bad heartburn, your child will be born with lots of hair - the only old wives' tale that actually turned out to be true).
I lived on chocolate ice cream and pickles and spent most of the day poking and playing with my belly, trying to figure out what part of Matthew was poking me back. I'd say the second trimester is the most awesome. I cannot describe to you what it is like to actually feel the little person move inside you. It's one thing to know you are pregnant, but to physically feel it is something else all-together. By the end of the third trimester, I was ready to murder my partner in his sleep. No space in my tummy for anything else but the baby. That meant I could only eat tiny meals and my bladder was under constant assault. Matthew was massive. He would only let me sleep on one side, otherwise he'd kick me all night long. I was already tired, and this wasn't even the hard part!
Here is Matthew sucking his thumb and refusing to show us if he was a boy or a girl yet! We only found out when I was more than halfway through. I was convinced I was having a girl tbh, and the news of having a boy was a wild surprise.
This is apparently the photo that shows Matthew was indeed a boy. I don't know about you but I still can't see shit.
In the third trimester, your pelvis and surrounding bone structure starts to shift. And that's pretty damn painful, and then there are Braxton hicks contractions, which are such A FUCKING joy. It's like your body saying "haha, fooled you!" You get contractions but they go away after a few hours. This can happen to you two or three times before you actually go into labour. Not fantastic for the nerves.
After I left my very active job to go on maternity leave, I had a big scare. Matthew had gotten used to my routine of walking all day and our clocks had synced up. I knew when to expect him to move and he knew when it was time to sleep. When I was at home, I went for almost 24 hours without feeling Matthew move at all. I was completely freaked out. I ate chocolate, I jumped up and down, I played "poke the belly." Nothing. So at 3am, I had Matthew's dad rush me to emergency, convinced something was terribly wrong. The emergency staff rushed to my side and were very kind. They had me lie down and they put a special belt on to measure the baby's movements and heartbeat. No sooner had the belt touched me than Matthew started kicking! At least we could all stop crying and went home to get some rest.
I spent the next few weeks becoming increasingly anxious about the birth and uncomfortable with the ENORMOUS baby and all of my bones and innards being shoved into unholy places.
I got to the stage where I JUST WANTED THE BABY OUT. I went for walks, ate chilies, drank weird oil stuff, everything. I remember the last walk, There is a photo of me sitting on a swing and I swear it looks like the whole structure is about to collapse! It also didn't help that I was wearing a bright orange jersey that day, which meant, with my round form, that I looked like an actual orange. I unfortunately no longer have that photo, but I'm sure you can imagine it.
The day before I went into labour, I was climbing on the kitchen counters and went into a mad cleaning frenzy, so I guess that is another ":old-wives'-tale" that has some truth to it. I was totally nesting.
I was up late the following evening with what I thought was another round of Braxton Hicks, but the contractions started coming closer together and more intense. At about 2 am I realised I was in active labour!
Off we went to the hospital! I remember being so excited. I remember catching my own gaze in the car mirror and realizing that was the last time I'd look at myself that way.
When we got to the hospital, I was practically bouncing off the walls. I was so happy that I was in labour. The staff had a hard time believing me until their instruments and the doctor confirmed that I definitely was in labour.
At only 2cm dilated though, they gave me a shot of pethidine, made Matthew's dad comfortable, and told us it would still be quite a wait.
I woke up to horrific contractions about four hours later. The nurse came rushing in with the happy gas and the doctor came to check on me. Active labour stepped up and the pain meds had worn off. Oh god. I can try to describe it... It's like a period cramp, but your entire upper body feels it. You can't breathe. The pain is unimaginable. It lasted for a few seconds while I breathed frantically into the gas mask (which really helped). It was too late for any more pain meds and I'd stupidly said I didn't want an epidural.
They checked me again and noted that there had been no further dilation! What the heck was going on? Between contractions, the Doctor had me stand up and Matthew had gone completely into reverse. He was engaged and in a perfect birthing position the day before, but now? He'd crawled back up. This meant there was no pressure to cause my cervix to dilate.
This meant I was in full active labour with no way of getting the baby out. They couldn't induce me or break my water because Matthew was too high up.
For some reason, desperate to have my baby the "natural way," I ignored the doctor's recommendation for a C-section and tried everything from walking up and down the passage to bouncing on a yoga ball between contractions to try to get Matthew to come down.
1 and a half canisters of gas and 4 hours later, the doctor came back and noted no dilation progress. He did note that both myself and Matthew were becoming dangerously exhausted and it was time to consider the C-Section. I managed to convince the doctor to give us another two hours (in this time I consumed another half a canister of gas), but I'm afraid it was all for naught. Still no change.
They packed me up and started rushing me into theatre. That's when the unexpected shock and panic set in. I was convinced I was going to die.
The stark contrast between my labour room and the operating room was terrifying. Everyone was in scrubs, including Matthew's dad and the gas was gone, which meant no help with labour pains until they could get the spinal block in.
Now the spinal block is weird as fuck. It feels like you've just been plugged into the Matrix. More like an electric uncomfortablness than pain, but still severely uncomfortable and very weird. I went completely numb from the chest down in a very short space of time. I tried to not let the thought that I was paralyzed from the waist down feed my panic.
At this point, I told Matthew's dad that if there was a choice, he had to choose the baby, and then I completely spaced out. I was exhausted and beyond scared.
The doctors were talking about golf, which I found oddly comforting. I felt some pressure and pulling, but was convinced they were still prepping me when the next thing I knew, out came the baby!!!!
A healthy, incredibly grumpy-looking baby boy!
grumpy alien baby
At around 3pm on the 27th of July 2012, Matthew was born.
It's true what they say, that eternity seems to go by between the arrival of the baby and the first cry, but cry he did.
The first time I held my son
Cutting the chord
Kangaroo care. Skin-to-skin contact after birth is supposed to be incredible for both mom and baby. This is the last thing I remember before I passed out.
We were all exhausted and they pumped me full of morphine and took us back to the labour ward. I remember nothing after that. I woke up at around 9pm, never having felt so hungry in my life. I buzzed for the nurse. All the cooking staff had gone home, so she went and made me a sandwich (totally not her job) and it was THE BEST ham, cheese, and tomato sandwich I had ever had. They then brought Matthew in and suddenly everything was euphoric.
I looked down at his face. He was an exact clone of me. I could see it in his eyes, his mouth, his nose... and in the strawberry blonde hair that I too, was born with.
I stayed in the hospital for three days. I wish I had stayed longer.
Those three days of just me and my baby, an electric remote-controlled bed, and a hospital full of staff made motherhood feel incredible. Also, I was high as fuck on morphine.
They gathered a group of us mothers together, once we could all walk, and gave us a bathing class. We lined up all our babies and Matthew looked like he could have eaten the other babies. He was enormous! I was suddenly very grateful that he didn't come out the other way and that my nether regions were still intact. Even if it felt like I'd been sliced in half.
On our way home!
On day four, I went home. My best friends had been cleaning my house getting ready for me and my sister had made a casserole. I was hallucinating the whole way home and both Matthew and I passed out. I woke up to a screaming baby (which is terrifying if you've never been in this position) and intense pain. I took my meds and attempted to get Matthew to feed.
Unfortunately, in the 16 hours we'd been asleep, I was no longer producing colostrum but full-on milk and had become engorged. This meant my boobs were like cement and extremely painful, squirting milk everywhere, and poor Matthew couldn't latch.
Just like birth, I just figured breastfeeding would be natural... you know?
There is nothing "natural" about being on all fours on the bed trying to shove your boob into your baby's mouth while you squirt milk all over the walls and swear at anyone trying to come in to help you.
I didn't have any bottles or formula as a backup because I had been convinced that I wouldn't need them. In hindsight I wish I had, so please, If you're considering this, make sure you have a backup plan and a really good breast pump.
My mom sent my sister off to go and buy me a top-of-the-range breast pump which alleviated the engorgement. I was able to feed Matthew with a bottle until I could get back into breastfeeding. Luckily, he didn't seem to care where the food was coming from, so I could do it interchangeably.
I did go back to the hospital and their special breastfeeding clinic helped me get back on track. They reminded me that this was new, for both me and Matthew. We both had to learn. They also told me to be kind to myself.
This story could go on for a lot longer, but it was supposed to just be about the birth. Not the whole 1st year of motherhood. I did experience post partem depression, and mom guilt when I went back to work, expressing at work was shit and I wish I could have waited more than two months before I returned to work.
I managed to breastfeed till he was seven months old, but eventually, I couldn't produce enough milk while working a full-time job, so we moved him on to formula, at first to supplement the shortfall, and then I stopped altogether. I do miss that closeness. I'm glad I got the experience of breastfeeding. A lot of moms literally can't. And you know what? That; 's fine. You do whatever you need to to keep your sanity and to keep you and your baby happy and healthy. And for god's sake, if you're struggling please ask for help.
I was lucky to have a great support structure though and I got through it one day at a time.
So there you have it. My birth story. And he's almost 12 so I must have done something right!
P.S.
Also, don't wait until you are 8 months pregnant and enormous to try to figure out the car seat 😂