When we had settled in at the hospital, a nurse came in to start off the induction process. Once we started this process, there was no turning back. First came the induction gel. We had a six hour wait to see if it was doing its job. That would take us to 1am. Lucky we had a TV and The Voice was on that night!

We tried to sleep but we were on horribly uncomfortable beds. I tossed and turned for hours. The hospital bed I was on felt like it was made of concrete. By midnight I still hadn’t fallen asleep and realised that I probably wouldn’t. At around 1.15am a nurse came into the room and hooked me up to a machine so she could monitor the baby and see what effect the gel was having. “This will need to stay on for half an hour. I’ll be back to check on you then,” she said. If I couldn’t sleep before I certainly wasn’t going to sleep while hooked up to a noisy machine. It was about 2am when she came back to check on me. “I don’t really like the look of the baby’s heartbeat. Nothing to worry about. I would just like to watch it for a bit longer,” she said. The way she spoke didn’t give me a reason to worry just yet. I was really just annoyed that this was being dragged out and that I was so incredibly tired. I was clock watching and going over in my mind how much longer this would be if I had to wait another six hours for a second lot of gel. Come on people, let’s keep it moving.

At least my boredom was broken up by the sound of women screaming down the hall as if they were being tortured. Perhaps it was just women giving birth. I had never heard anything like this in my life. I could not fathom the extreme pain one must be in to make those noises. I lay there in absolute fear of what was yet to come – there’s no way I was getting any sleep that night.

Meanwhile hubby sounded like he was getting some good sleep! It was about 2.30am when the nurse came back in. She still didn’t like the look of the heartbeat. “I’ve tried to contact your doctor but can’t get a hold of him.” Well of course you can’t, it’s the middle of the night! “But don’t worry, if it was an emergency I’d contact the on-call doctor. I’ll keep trying your doctor – I think he may be at another hospital. In the meantime we’ll keep monitoring you.” “So I still need to keep all these on?” I asked gesturing to all the equipment attached to me.

At around 3am I had the brilliant idea of using my body pillow to sleep on instead of hugging it. It was just enough to create some padding between me and the concrete, err, um, I mean the bed. I actually fell asleep after doing this but only for about half an hour. I was awoken by the sound of voices entering our room. I rolled over and saw my doctor standing by the bed. It was so strange to see him in jeans and a t-shirt when he’s normally in a suit and tie. “What’s going on?” He asked. The nurse proceeded to show him the print out from the machine. He obviously didn’t like the look of it either because he decided he was going to break my water. This was taking us off course. I guess we weren’t going to do the next lot of gel hey? At this point, the lights went on and blinded my poor tired eyes. Hubby got up and walked awkwardly around the room while we were waiting for the doctor to get set up. “So why are we breaking my water?” I asked. “I want to see what colour it is,” replied my doctor.

At this point I thought back to the antenatal classes we had attended. In the very last class they tested us and asked us this very question. “Your water is supposed to be clear. But what if it’s green?” To which I yelled out “It’s bad!” The nurse taking the classes smiled and said “Well, it’s not bad, it just means you should get to the hospital straight away.” Translation in my head was: it’s bad.

Well, having your water broken is a rather unpleasant experience. Lying there on the bed, legs spread apart, and my doctor reaching up and up and up. It was extremely uncomfortable. I put my hands on my forehead and took some deep breaths as a way of coping with the discomfort. Seemed to take a few minutes for him to get it – although I’m sure it was quicker than that. When it broke, this gush of warm water came out everywhere and didn’t’ appear to be stopping. Gross! I felt it fill up my bed as it spread around my butt and up toward my back. This was so gross. “Is it green?” I asked. “Yes” he said very plainly. Well, at this point I started to stress. Wish I could remember what green meant apart from ‘bad’. Hubby was stroking my head and slight panic crept into my mind as I started to think the worst. “Is my baby ok?” I asked my doctor. “Yes” was all he said as he proceeded to ignore me and start making plans for the next course of action.

Nurse: Theatre will be ready in one hour.
Doctor: One hour? Tell them 15 minutes. We go now. Tell them category one. (Have I mentioned he has an accent?)

Well, I don’t know what category one is but it all sounded a bit serious. I watched as they both made calls, grabbed paper work and generally looked quite serious and busy.

Me: So… what’s happening? (Should I have known? No one had told me what was going on!)
Doctor: We do caesarian, now.
Me: Oh. Ok.
Doctor: Here, sign this. (As if I had any clue what I was signing at that stage.) When is the last time you ate and what did you eat?
Me: It was about 1am and I ate Tiny Teddies.

Here I was about to become a mum and I felt like a little girl. What’s worse is that several other medical staff asked the same question as I was getting prepped for surgery. They were all very professional and kept a straight face but I felt like an idiot every time I said ‘Tiny Teddies.’ Surely I’m not the only grown woman who eats Tiny Teddies. They’re such a great snack!

While being wheeled down to theatre I felt what I assume was contractions. They were bad but I could see how they could get much much worse. It was in this moment that I realised I never would have been tough enough to give birth without drugs even though I had wanted to. There’s no way. Every time a contraction came, more liquid came out of me and trickled down my legs and up my back. On the way down to theatre I asked the nurse about the green water. “It just means bub has passed a stool, so we need to get him out to reduce the risk of infection.” That’s right! It all came flooding back to me. No pun intended. This is actually what had happened to my husband when he was born. Maybe it’s genetic.

As I arrived at theatre I was thoroughly disgusted by the pool of filth I was lying in. Have I mentioned ‘gross’ yet? Everything happened quite quickly although it felt slow at the time. The anesthetist needled me and I slowly felt the feeling going out of the lower half of my body. I had really wanted to avoid a c-section for many reasons and one was that I didn’t want the epidural. I had heard that it could make you permanently paralysed and my fear of that was greater than my fear of pain. But I had no choice so had to go with it.

They threw the sheet up in front of me so I couldn’t see what was happening. “Where’s my husband?” I asked as they were clearly about to get started. “Someone has just gone to get him,” replied one of the medical staff. The anesthetist stayed close to me the whole time, which made me a little nervous. It reminded me how serious and dangerous this is. “Can you feel anything cutting you right now?” he asked. “Nope.” This obviously meant they were cutting into me, which I would prefer not to know about.

Foolishly prior to birth I had YouTubed all the types of births. I was fine watching all of them except the caesarian. I can usually watch some of the most gory stuff but I couldn’t finish watching the c-section because it was so awful. They’re so rough when they cut into you and dig around! Now that it was happening to me, flash backs to the YouTube clip was all I could think about. Hubby arrived next to me and I asked him to talk to me about anything that had nothing to do with what was happening right now. I needed to be distracted. Poor hubby, he was struggling to deal with the situation himself, so coming up with a distraction was a bit too much for him in that moment. I looked up at the ceiling to try and escape my reality. Unfortunately the big bright light above me was a giant shiny silver light so I could actually see a mirror image of what they were doing to me. Awesome. I quickly threw my hand over my eyes. The anesthetist asked me what I was doing. “I can see what they’re doing in the light.” He looked up to see what I was talking about but didn’t seem to care. Meanwhile I’m thinking that they should really do something about that. Now wasn’t the time to give feedback though was it.

The next thing I remember was feeling my whole body move as they were tugging on me and were obviously not being very gentle. I felt quite a bit of movement up around my ribs. It was hard to breath because I weighed a tonne and didn’t have much feeling from below my boobs. I’m sure at some point I heard my baby cry, I just don’t remember it. What I do remember is seeing him. The first thing I said was, “He’s so big!” I was shocked that he could fit in me. He looked so foreign too. I felt like I had gotten to know him while he was growing in me and I had been trying to guess for so long what he might look like. Now that I had a face to put to this little person, he just looked so foreign.

Hubby went over and had a hold and then cut the cord. At this stage I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing or what anyone was doing with the baby. I was just so relieved that this was all over and he was out of my body. I really had not enjoyed pregnancy and had been longing so long for it to be over. I couldn’t remember what life was like NOT being pregnant.

When I was all stitched up, they moved me onto another bed, put the baby next to me and we started making our way back upstairs. I remember looking down towards my feet and excitedly exclaimed, “Hey I can see past my belly!” What a moment. It had been a while.

We got back into our birthing suite and started skin to skin time. As I lay there with bub on me, I felt like I was having an out of body experience. This was so surreal. Probably didn’t help that I had not slept all night. I lay there thinking about the epidural and hoping that I would get the feeling back in my legs. I concentrated really hard and tried to wiggle my toes. Nothing. I had asked the anesthetist when I should expect feeling back in my legs and he had said 10am. So basically I was going to worry until then.

Meanwhile, bub had pooed all over me! It was like black tar. Normally I would be grossed out but I think I was just too tired to care. I was probably also distracted as I kept trying to wiggle my toes. Eventually I could move my left toes just a little. Success! “Hey I’m getting some feeling back!” I told the nurse excitedly. But with feeling came pain. Despite telling the nurse that I was starting to feel quite a bit of pain, she still decided she would fluff around for an hour before getting me something for it. It got so bad I had to ask hubby to take bub as I was lying there groaning and feeling worse every second. Because the pain had gotten so bad, the pain relief drugs took almost two hours to kick in. I was not impressed with that nurse. But eventually it did and then it was time to move us to a room so we could attempt to find our way as parents of this very dependent little baby.

As a teenager I would watch pregnant people and think how cool they looked. I’m embarrassed to say it but I would stuff a toy up my jumper and mimic the pregnant walk and that awkward way pregnant people sit down holding their back. I thought those people were so cool and I couldn’t wait to have the pregnant look.

Now, I’d like to go back in time and slap some sense into myself. What a naive idiot I was. Once I got pregnant and started to experience the not so glamorous side of it, I couldn’t help but wonder if all the pregnant women had made some sort of pact to keep it all a secret, to ensure the population doesn’t cease to exist. I realise there are many people who genuinely enjoy pregnancy. I am not one of them. Does anyone else feel this way?

So how did it all start for me? Peeing on a stick. I can’t tell you how many sticks I’ve peed on. It would be a rather weird fetish if I wasn’t talking about pregnancy tests. After so many negative results I had come to hate peeing on the stupid sticks. I couldn’t bare to take another test that would surely end in disappointment. This particular time, I was encouraged by my Chinese lady to pee on yet another stick. When I say Chinese lady, picture someone that looks like Shapelle Corby who practices Chinese medicine. She said my pulse was slippery – whatever that means.

So I peed on the stupid stick. Almost immediately it very faintly showed up positive. But you’re supposed to wait a few minutes so I figured I should wait for the correct negative result to reveal itself. It still said positive. So I took it to hubby. He said, “Bull! I don’t believe it! I won’t believe it until I see a big belly.” Yeah, I didn’t believe it either. But I couldn’t stop staring at it. I’d never seen what a positive test looked like and it held my gaze for a while. We decided to suppress any excitement about this result and did our best to remain sad.

The next morning I called my doctor’s office and told them of the positive test. The nurse I spoke to asked me to come in for a blood test. She also got pretty excited, which annoyed me. Stop giving me false hope people. I’ve been down this road before and the more excited I get the faster I fall to an even harder landing.

When the nurse was taking my blood I asked, “So how accurate is a blood test?” She laughed at me and said, “If it says you’re pregnant, then you are.” I was really looking for a percentage, but ok.

I went back to work and anxiously waited for a call. It was two hours later when Gilbert called. Gilbert was the code name I had given my doctors office as I was keeping this all very private. I snatched my phone off my desk and ran into the nearest room for some privacy. I’ll never forget what she said to me. “You’re difinitely prignant,” in her Kiwi accent. Oh! I was shocked! Really? I didn’t know what to say, it was all a bit surreal.

Hubby then called me as he does most days, just to say hello because he misses me. I thought I was going to have to work hard to convince him of the validity of the blood test and I didn’t want to talk about it while I was at work. So later I sent him a text saying that I had the blood test done and asked if he would believe it. He called immediately and was like “So…?” I wasn’t sure if people could hear me so I was trying to be discreet.

Me: Yes.
Hubby: Yes what?
Me: I’m at work so I can’t exactly say.
Hubby: We’re pregnant?
Me: Yes.

“Wooooo hoooooooo!!!” I had to hold the phone away from my ear cause he was so loud. I still couldn’t get excited. It was early days and the skeptic in me wouldn’t allow such excitement.

We went for our first scan at six weeks. The doctor pointed on the screen to where the baby was and where the heart was beating. “Where?” I asked. It was hard to make anything out. Both hubby and the doctor kept pointing. Eventually I told them I could see it even though I couldn’t. When we left, my hubby laughed as he said “You couldn’t see anything could you?” “No.” He shook his head in disbelief as he said “Gees, as soon as I heard the heart beat, I was choking back tears.” Really?

At this point I should probably mention that in our marriage it’s my husband who is more in touch with his emotions. Sometimes we have a bit of a role reversal. You might say he’s a lot more nurturing than I am. So much so, that my own family members and even a friend suggested that he be the one to stay home with the baby instead of me. Hey, I suggested it also. He wouldn’t go for it. He said something about how kids need their mums. But what if their mum is me?!

Not long after our scan, the many side effects of pregnancy began to hit me. From about eight weeks through to the end of my pregnancy, I slept through the night maybe four times. This was mainly due to a raging hunger. Actually, it was worse than raging. There’s no word strong enough to describe how bad it was. It woke me up every night once sometimes twice, between 1am and 5am and it usually took a few Weet-bix to shut it up. And I would have to eat almost hourly throughout the day, which quickly made me the butt of every joke at work.

One night my husband and I got Thai for dinner from the local take away. Normally that would fill me up and that’s all I’d need until breakfast. But no… I ate it and felt like I’d eaten nothing. So I ate a banana. Bananas are heavy, that ought to top me up. Nup – still starving. Ok, I’ll try a piece of toast with avo. Bread is kinda heavy so that should do the trick? Nope. Ok, how about half a rockmelon? Nope. Ok, I’ll finish the rockmelon. Nope – I STILL felt like I hadn’t eaten anything. Maybe a punnet of strawberries will do the trick, after all I must be close to being full. No. No I was not nearly close. All the while hubby is telling me to stop fluffing around and have some freaking steak. But as a vegetarian, that was not an option. The fridge was quickly being emptied and I couldn’t stand the thought of eating MORE food. Hubby sat back in shock as I just kept downing food. He had never seen anything like this and his laughter actually triggered my outburst of tears. At this point he wasn’t sure if he should keep laughing or not. Through my blubbering tears I explained “I’m so hungry but I just can’t eat anymore.”

By the time my pregnancy was public, I had already put on 10 per cent of my starting weight thanks to my raging hunger. All the crippling side effects of pregnancy began to infiltrate my life. Speaking of crippling - leg cramps. They are the worst! I was still getting them in hospital after I’d had the baby! Swollen ankles, numb fingers, overheating and constant sweating which equals constant smelling really bad! I would often be greeted by my husband after work with “Hello stinky!” If I sat too close to my husband on the couch he would say “Can you move? I can feel the heat radiating from your body and it’s making me hot.” Gees! Am I not doing enough already? You move! :)

There are a million other side effects that contributed to my grouchiness throughout pregnancy, too many to list. One of my least favourite things about pregnancy was that all of a sudden everyone thinks they have the right to comment on your body. Especially strangers. “Oh you must be due any day now.” No, I still have two months to go. “Are you sure you don’t have two babies in there?” “Look at the stretch marks I have from when I was pregnant.” When you’re struggling to waddle around in the heat of summer, carrying a tonne of extra weight, the last thing you want is to be engaged in obligatory conversation with strangers.

The last week or two of pregnancy was the big killer for me. It was still quite hot, I was super uncomfortable and being the impatient person that I am, I absolutely HATED playing the waiting game. Everyday I would have people sending me messages or calling me asking if the baby was here yet. I’m sure I’ve done that to people before and I know they mean well, but it took everything within me to hold back my sarcasm. “Yes, I’ve had the baby, I just forgot to tell anyone.” I thought I was going to lose my mind. The plus side was that anytime I called hubby he would answer straight away! Normally if he was busy at work he wouldn’t answer, but I had him on standby 24 hours a day, which was kinda fun. Especially when I had insignificant questions to ask like “Can I wear one of your shirts?” Ha ha :). Anyway, the day arrived and my doctor said it was time to book me in for an induction. FINALLY bub was going to make his grand entrance into the world!