The very unplanned birth of my child [Part 2].

This birth report is a three-part blog article. Here is the first part of Merle's birth report.

When we arrived at the hospital, the midwife on duty introduced herself to me and my husband, who was in disbelief that it was about to start, after we were brought into a room. I was examined by a doctor. What the findings were, I don't know (I don't think I was told, but I didn't ask). Half an hour later there was a shift change and the new midwife came to introduce herself. She was very young and at least as nice. So I liked her, which was good. A doctor came to "educate" me, but actually he was probably only interested in my signatures to sign off on everything they were going to do with me, because he left out half of the information that was interesting to me. A CTG was hooked up, an IV was put in, which was extremely painful because they tried it over and over again in - in my opinion - very strange places, and then the waiting began. Waiting for the OR to be ready for us.

About two hours after my water broke (please don't nail me on the timings, I lost all sense of time for the day upon "entering" the hospital), I went into labor. Mind you, I was only allowed to lie down because of the bubble burst and the breech presentation, which was relatively uncomfortable. The midwife must have been very busy, at least she rarely came to see us. I remember her coming three times in the whole time we were there, but I could be wrong. The first time, I wasn't in labor yet, that was when she put on the CTG. The second time, she came in a contraction, so when she asked if everything was okay with us, I answered yes. Everything was all right, the contractions were easy to bear, and I thought she was aware of how things were going with us. After all, the observation room with all its monitors is no secret. So she went again. The third time she came, she came when I was in the middle of a contraction and was visibly surprised that I was having contractions. Oops. The CTG, hadn't shown anything, so she didn't know anything. Since the contractions were now more intense but still bearable, she helped me breathe, for which I was very grateful to her, because until then I had no clue how I should have done that (I had probably forgotten again, because I must have known that, with all that I knew and know about births). I got a pusher in my hand to manually indicate when I was in labor and was left alone again with my husband, who was a wonderful help to me just by being there and holding my hand. My worst fears that I could become foul-mouthed towards him during the birth were fortunately not confirmed, we were very nice to each other ;) I definitely know myself differently.

I don't know how much time passed until our midwife came back to finally take me to the OR. Since arriving at the clinic, about four to four and a half hours had passed. Anyway, there I was examined again, and it was determined that the cervix was fully open and that it was now time to hurry. One of the doctors in the room advised an emergency C-section, which fortunately was deemed unnecessary by the others present. That would have been a sh....! So everything was quasi good (of course with the exception of the fact that I had not really wanted all this). The midwife helped me when the spinal anesthesia was placed, talked me through it and was almost euphoric about my great contractions, which almost messed everything up for me much more, but for which I am still grateful. However, the doctor performing the scalpel was quite impatient in the end, even though he had been so against the emergency C-section before, he still wanted to cut before the anesthesia was really effective. The anesthesiologist and the doctor were involved in a tussle for several minutes where said doctor wanted to cut, but the anesthesiologist wanted to stop him (I found it a bit creepy, but was glad to have such a dedicated anesthesiologist). It ended up that the doctor probably just tried his luck and then got reprimanded by me with a sharp "That stings!". The anesthesiologist then also immediately commented on that with a "See: That stings!". Even though it was a bit funny, this whole situation was incredibly surreal for me and it didn't get any better later.

You always think that when you're anesthetized, you don't notice any more of the junk down there. But that's not the case. I was able to feel a lot of uncomfortable things that I can only guess what it was. The stretching of the skin, the moment when our sweetheart was lifted out of me (really uncomfortable!) and what came after (I don't really like to think about the clearing out of my uterus, to be honest). At one point, a child was placed on my chest that I was told was mine. Okay, let's believe that. It didn't feel like it, but I didn't know what I should have felt at that moment anyway, so I just let it go with the feeling. My husband seemed touched, at least that was the only moment in our life together that I saw him shed a tear (but it was really only one!). In the meantime I was sewn up again, but I didn't notice it as much as before and then we went back to the room we had been in for so long. There we waited for three, four or five hours - I have no idea how long - quite undisturbed (once the midwife came to bring us water and later again to take a picture of us) to be transferred to the maternity ward.

Here is the last part of Merle's birth report.

The cover picture comes from pixabay.com.