Because what the internet needs is more wittering about rubbish parenting



Monday 23 May 2011

A Load of BS....

That's Birth Story (sorry, think it's a parenting forum thing), by the way. As in mine, for The Toddler. I thought I would take this opportunity to share it with you, before the next one comes along. I'm sure most of you that have ever met me ever have probably heard it in all its glory at least 12 times, but I've never written it all down before. It'll be very long and waffly, (in fact, so long and waffly that I am going to do it in installments) and undoubtedly extremely tedious to anyone who isn't me, but I'm doing it anyway.

WARNING - TOO MUCH INFORMATION ALERT!!! This is about labour. Labour = not pretty. The following contains gore, dilating, and even some vomit. If you have no desire to know any of this, then go read something else. Perhaps this. It's pretty funny.

And for those of you who are left, here you go. How The Toddler Came Into The World.

Part One: In The Beginning....

Thursday 25th June, 2009. I was awoken at the unsociable hour of 4am by twinges in my bump-type area. Being 2 days past my due date, I wondered if perhaps this could be IT. I tried to go back to sleep anyway, because, let's face it, 4am is an inconvenient time to be awake even if you are in labour, but I couldn't manage it. So I decamped to the sofa, and did what I always do in times of great import, which is turn the laptop on. And, because there is now nothing that you cannot find on the internet, I found a contraction timer, and proceeded to sit for several hours doing nothing but press the space bar at the start and end of each contraction. You'd think that would be dull, but there was something oddly fascinating and soothing about it. But then, I'm a complete weirdo. At some point, I decided to over-excite all my friends and post "wonders if today might be the day....." as my facebook status.

And that was pretty much how the day went. Press space bar. Demand cup of tea. Press space bar. Watch tennis (Wimbledon was on). Press space bar. Start to get a little bit excited as contractions started to get more regular and closer together.

And then.... they stopped. Oh. Changed facebook status to "looks like I was wrong. Sorry everyone!".

But then, sometime in the evening.... they started again. (My, what an exciting and wonderfully written narrative this is.). And this time they started to really hurt. To pass the time, Husband and I played Joust on the Xbox. I love Joust. Do you remember it? It's that really old computer game with the little men on birds, and you have to go round and hit all the birds with your lance, and then collect the eggs before they hatch into birds again and get new little men on them. Brilliant.

Eventually, probably around 9pm, the feeling that someone had reached into my uterus and twisted it hard meant that I could no longer concentrate on Joust, so I hung up my lance and returned to space-bar pressing, just waiting for that moment when my contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting one minute long, which everyone seems to know is the magic time at which you ring the hospital, but no-one seems to ever remember who told them that. Finally, I reached that time, and nervously picked up the phone, and rang the hospital. Who told me "Well, you can still speak, you'll probably be ages yet, go and have a bath and a cup of tea, and phone again in two hours". WHAT? I'm having a BABY! And it HURTS! I don't want to have a cup of sodding TEA! But I did as I was told, like the good girl that I am. And the bath did help. The tea, not so much.

So I'm lying in the bath, eyes shut, telling myself "this one will be over in a minute, this one will be over in a minute", when Husband comes into the bathroom saying "I think Michael Jackson's dead!". I was so baffled by the surrealness of this, and, you know, still IN LABOUR, that I just snapped "What? I don't care. Go away."

My allotted two hours passed, so I phoned the hospital again. By now, it hurt quite a bloody lot, so I was determined to go to hospital, even if it meant putting on a fake agonised voice when I rang them, like when you're phoning in sick to work. I can't remember if I actually did or not, but anyway, they said I could go in to be examined........

Next time, Part Two: Hospital....



1 comment:

  1. ooh I read it! Looking forward to the 2nd part! At least you'll always remember what you were doing when MJ died!

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