by The Kid

Created on: May 05, 2010

Since I was a little girl I KNEW I wanted to be a mom, I just didn't know exactly how it would feel to deliver a baby.  You can read all about pregnancy /childbirth and  typically what to expect, to try and prepare yourself,  but until you have gone through it, you will never truly know.

I never had the pleasure of going into labour "naturally", both times I had the opportunity to have my body pumped with synthetic hormones to trick my girls into thinking that it was time to come out. 

With your first baby, things tend to be slower in the delivery department, your body hasn't done it before, it knows that it has to, but isn't too sure which way to shoot the baby out.  There are many" techniques" that the nurses will give you to help open up your cervix and get it to dilate to the winning number of 10 cm.  I did laps around the hospital, sat on an exercise ball and rolled around the room, nothing was making her come out any faster.  So more hormones were given.  That brought on contractions hard and fast, but still I would not dilate.  I was  in a lot of pain, but could not get the ever loving epidural until I was in the right "window" of opportunity.  So instead they gave me "laughing gas".  It made me laugh alright, at the idea that this stuff would take the "edge" off.  It was making my visitors high more so than myself. 

Finally I was ready for the epidural, they brought the forms in for me to sign so I wouldn't try and sue them if the dude slipped and put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.  I said," I promise I won't sue you, you are like my new best friend if you can make me  comfortable."  The best part was being told to hold still between contractions, (uh, right, I'll hold still but you have like 2 minutes to shove that huge needle into my spine and make my world a happy place for the duration of this miracle of birth.)  He made my day in two deep breaths, my body was numb from my armpits down, I was peeing in a bag and finally giving my husband looks of "love" instead of "you are never touching me again". 

 I fell asleep for little catnaps of 20 minutes here and there and finally I was ready to push.  And push, and push, and push, for 6 hours straight. The epidural had worn off and it was time for more, the Dude came back and did his wonderful job of making women in labour comfortable.( I bet he has like a gazillion "friends" on Facebook!) 

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