After a lovely “last supper” as a twosome (I had roast pork and crackling, a last ditch effort to get things moving – crackling is an old wives tale to bring on labour), instead of catching some zzz’s in the bank for later, we very stupidly stayed up til 11.30pm watching a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon. I was way too excited to sleep, but would live to regret that choice. Seriously though, what the hell was I even thinking?

We get to Pindara Hospital at midnight for a scheduled induction (4 days overdue and some other medical reasons I won’t go into here). Gel is put in at 12.30am, and I’m punched in the stomach with medium contractions almost immediately. As we are clearly in some kind of weird opposite-to-logic universe, hubby is sent home and I’m left to “sleep”. I couldn’t sleep due to pain and also not surprisingly could not get comfy in a hospital bed in a weird, not-too-homely delivery room.

After feeding our puppies and (oddly?) stopping to get petrol (oh that’s right, and my grape Hubba Bubba I all of a sudden needed) on the way back in, it seemed like forever until my husband was back by my side and finishing my hospital breakky, the start of which I’d already vomited into the bin. I was 3cm dilated when they checked at 7am and my waters were broken, super strong and regular contractions had started. I was still vomiting heaps and in loads of pain so they gave me the epi around 8.30am, it was pretty straightforward but really only took the edge off – I could still feel most pain and move my legs etc, not really what I thought an epidural would be like.

I was checked by the midwives again at 11am and was 7cm, I was told bub would definitely be here by lunch – no induction drugs necessary – woo hoo! I was totally doing this thing. But alas 3 hrs later I was still only 8cm, so they gave me the syntocinon drip anyway, and by now the epi was almost doing nothing, I was in so much pain – I begged the midwives for an hour and when he popped his head in for 2 seconds my OB finally topped me up and it was magic – no pain at all, now that’s what it’s supposed to be like!

I was finally ready to go now, but my obstetrician was held up with another lady (who I could hear screaming like a banshee across the hall, again I’m in opposite universe – exactly not what I wanted to hear right now), so it wasn’t til 3pm that he appeared and I started pushing. The previously non-existent epi was so good now that I couldn’t feel when to push, or whether the pushing was even working. Although no longer transverse, Clover was still posterior so we struggled to get her moving at all for a bit. My doctor decided to use a ventouse (vacuum) to assist her to come down, and unsurprisingly I needed an episiotomy – epidural or no, this still hurt like a bastard!

Side note: A lot of women would hesitate at the suggestion of either of these interventions, or even the induction itself, but I am one of those mums who puts themselves squarely under the control of their health care provider – this guy had delivered thousands of babies, I’d delivered precisely none – who was I to do anything other than exactly what he thought necessary? Plus I really don’t think positive thoughts and aromatherapy candles were going to shift this back-to-front and sideways lodged human from inside me.

So anyway, I blindly pushed for about an hour and was actually surprised she when came out – like I’m sure every pregnant woman probably does, I honestly thought she’d be in there forever! I’m not a pessimist at all, but the whole time, I was half expecting to be rushed off to theatre to have her cut from me. The fact that she wasn’t felt like some kind of human triumph – the whole experience very empowering.

As she was lifted up and placed on my chest, my husband cried (sorry buddy but it’s true) and she found the boob by herself pretty much straight away, she even got grumpy if we took her off (lil piggy)! I will never forget the seemingly never ending moment of staring into the huge dark blue eyes of my new creation, and the smell of her (it’s still fresh in my memory like it was yesterday). I barely noticed about a billion stitches being done down the business end (in the OB’s words “too many to count” – I certainly noticed them later haha) but she was and is so worth it, I feel truly blessed, there is simply nothing like this in the world.

Originally written 10 January 2012.