Your Birth Story - Flashback

“They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth… they can if you hit them in the goolies with a cricket bat … for fourteen hours.” Jo Brand

You are beginning to doze off when you something wakes you with a jolt. You’re suddenly wide awake and realise you’re sweating and your heart’s beating like the clappers. You were having a flashback. Remembering the delivery room, the harsh lights, the jumble of people coming and going. The paediatrician, standing by the resuscitation machine, looking impatiently at his watch as yet another push failed to produce the baby’s head. The doctor between your legs, her hair askew, losing patience because the ventouse wasn’t attaching properly.

“You’re not pushing hard enough,” she’d snarled. “If you don’t get on with it I’m going to have to wheel you down the theatre for a Caesarean.” Her threat held no impact for you. Legs up in stirrups, exhausted and running out of steam, you had little say in the proceedings in any case. You winced as she inserted the ventouse contraption; it felt like she was pushing a cardboard tube up inside you. “Stop it, you can’t feel anything, you’ve had an epidural,” she’d scolded. But epidural or not, you could feel it, it was uncomfortable and wasn’t working. Finally she’d looked at you and sighed.

“What about forceps?” you suggested, trying to be helpful.
“All right, I’ll try, but I’ll have to cut you. That’s the first failed ventouse delivery I’ve had in fourteen years.” Tutting, she’d reached for oversize pliers and set to work.
“Wait for the next contraction and push as hard as you can!” You’re not sure but you think you might be having a contraction so you do as you’re told.

There are more midwives appearing in the room. It’s early morning now and the new shift has arrived. Eight nurses and two doctors chant “Push!”, “Come on, you can do it!”, “Keep going!” “Down in your bottom!” The noise is deafening, like the roar at a football match. And a cheer goes up: “It’s a girl!” She’s out, her head, then her body and the doctor flops her onto your stomach. In your woozy state, you can only say, “Oh, my God” because you’re thinking “Where did she come from?” The baby lying on you seems unconnected to the hideous and traumatic ordeal that you’ve just been through. You realise you’re crying and tell MC to check her over. Is it definitely a girl? Is she OK? Is she OK? Have you counted her fingers and toes? He doesn’t answer and you look up and see why; he’s crying too.

You seem to cry a lot after that. If anyone asks you if you’re OK, you cry. You can’t help it. You cry because you’re so annoyed with yourself; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your carefully thought out birth plan specifically requested low lights, a peaceful atmosphere and a smorgasbord of pain relief options you'd hoped you wouldn't need - nowhere in there did it say anything about wanting sarcastic doctors and noisy crowds.

Your mother comes to visit and asks if she can hold the baby. She’s alarmed by the huge red weeping sore on her head where they took blood gas samples, the swelling inflicted by the ventouse and the red welts left by the prongs of the forceps. That’s enough to set you off again. You cry for yourself and for every woman who has ever given birth.