To work or not to work?

So I have decided to get over the whole writing-is-impossible-with-a-kid thing. I can read, I can Facebook, I can Whatsapp. Which means I can write.

So here I am, writing on my phone's notepad with baby fast asleep at the breast. Her little eyes fluttering every few minutes as she dreams her little baby dreams.

What a journey the last year has been. I find myself not overly excited about this December holiday because I keep expecting it to be like December 2017. 
I am still constantly stopped in my tracks, thinking back to times past and realising how freaking depressed I was. How did I not see it back then? I suppose this is where "You can't see the forest for the trees" is an appropriate saying. I was obviously too busy trying to cope with a newborn to take a good hard look at my own state of mind. 

Besides, everyone warned me about the first three months and how rough it can be.

But after the first three months is really actually when the depression started kicking in.

I was confused. 
Isn't a good ol' post partum depresh attributed to hormones? And aren't those out of my system good and proper by three months? 

I kind of believe what kept me going the first three months was the slow-burn adrenaline. The mild but incessant panic attack that lasted all three months of the very pretentiously named "fourth trimester".

The only trimester where you LOSE weight actively, partly because of breastfeeding and partly because the only food you're getting in are the m&m's your husband bought and that you can shove into your mouth at any time during the day or night. No reheating or refrigeration required.

After the first three months Dita, who was still just a little bundle of pooping, feeding and crying, screamed marginally less and my nipples had stopped cracking and bursting into invisible flames whenever she latched.

I had succumbed to bed-sharing even though the internet warned me profusely of its dangers.
I tiredly justified it by saying it is also really dangerous for me to stay awake for three months straight and start having acid flashbacks as a result and maybe forward-pitch my baby into oncoming traffic as an even further result.

Today I am so extremely grateful for making this fatigue-riddled decision because it is so unbelievably special sleeping with her in my arms, her baby breath tickling the fine hair on my cheek.

No she did not suffocate and yes my husband and I still have a healthy sex life because we made a conscious desicion to make time for each other.

Anyway, I actually wanted to write about how I came to take a job, when I specifically meant to be a stay at home mommy for my precious first born whom I prayed into existence.

I was lounging around the house, taking brelfies, marveling at how much less depressed I felt after starting a mild antidepressant, prescribed by my friendly family psychiatrist, when an ex colleague of mine phoned me up.

I stared at the ringing phone balefully, wondering if I should pick up because it's really hard juggling a breast-feeding baby and talking on the phone and this particular girl had a tendency to talk really softly and rapidly so I constantly either had to loudly interrupt to ask what the hell she just said or pretend to know and hope "yes" is the correct response to whatever she was saying.

I ended up taking her call.
"The Dental Warehouse is hiring! They need reps for Pretoria and Johannesburg. Wanna go for an interview with me? Just think, we could be colleagues again!"

I started getting excited, her enthusiasm was catching.

"What the hell, let's do it."

They probably wouldn't hire me anyway because I can't do country trips because of my little breastfeeding snow flake.

I sent my cv through, thinking they probably won't even bother phoning me for an interview, nevermind hire me.

They phoned almost immediately.

This propelled me into my full list-making glory.

First I had to find someone to watch Dita who was by now 7 months old en relatively easy to keep busy. Maybe I should start looking at creches, just for posterity's sake?

Yes, let's do that.

I asked my Pienk Voet whatsapp group for recommendations and they said Duifies, next to the church. I drove there and after sceptically eyeing the informal settlement also next to the church, decided against it.

Next up, Moreletapark Preschool. Sounded official enough. I was after all looking for a professional set up, not a nanny who might end up abusing my child (I had seen the video of the Ugandan nanny beating and kicking the little girl she was looking after and it killed all chances of me ever using a nanny in the foreseeable future).

At Moreletapark preschool a young brunette lady opened up the front gate and immediately made me feel welcome and at home. She even had the decency not to gape at my hastily scrubbed, make-up-less face, red-rimmed eyes and frizzy (but miraculously clean) hair, in open disgust.

"Let me take you to the baby class".

She lead me through a cheerful yet humble little school where I could see little kids sitting around tables, eating porridge or lining up against the wall to be measured or clustering in groups glueing things to other things or fingerpainting or playing with clay.

I was charmed.

The baby class was sunny and happy with a few babies hanging around, lazily sucking on toys or bottles and staring at themselves in the low mirrors on the walls.

"You're welcome to bring her for a half day or so to feel it out? Free of charge".

"Actually, I have an interview scheduled soon, could I maybe bring her then?"

"Of course, we will take excellent care of her". 

I prepared myself for intense heartbreak in dropping her off the morning of the interview, but the most amazing feeling of freedom and exhiliration washed over me as I drove off.

This is easy!
Why haven't I done this earlier?
Oh gosh, I am dead inside.
Am I a sociopath?
Or worse, a *shudder* bad mother?

In the interview I surprised myself by bringing out the big guns and selling myself like a champ.

"My worst attribute? I'm a perfectionist" I heard myself twinkle.

What are you doing? You're not actually trying to get hired are you? Why why why would you want to do that? You're living the dream! A wholesome (except for the m&m's), only mildly medicated stay at home mom and housewife extraodinaire (occasionally serving up a slow-cooked gruel with a bit of bread).

You're happy!

But was I happy? My sweet, dear husband did give me an allowance and helped me pay my share of the bills so I can have a little bit extra to "spend on myself" but the idea of being a "kept woman" still kind of bugged me.

I didn't want to spend up all his money but I also wanted to spend a lot of money on my little angel. The shops were overflowing with adorable outfits and accessories and whatnot for babies. High chairs, mobiles, toys and little dresses blinded me with their buy-ability.

But the fact that I was earning zero cash plagued me and guilt was my constant companion, even if I just spent a little bit on something crucial, like diapers.

I also considered the feeling of freedom I experienced, leaving Dita at daycare (bad mommy) earlier.

Fudge. 

Parenthood is full of lovely moments followed by crushing shame.

I remembered in my younger years, asking a bunch of women who had had children and either stayed at home with them or went back to work, a multitude of questions, trying to discern which path is better for one's mental well-being, in the event of me finding a good man, settling down and producing offspring. I might as well have been sporting a clipboard and taking down notes as they answered, so researchy was I being.

I guiltily remembered coming to the conclusion that women who went back to work seemed more balanced and happier in the long run.

Conclusions are much easier come by in the theoretical sense than the practical.

I was not seeing the forest for the trees again.

They probably won't call for a second interview anyway...

Right?

Wrong!

"Yes, hi Elmien. They were impressed with your first interview. Can you see the Director tomorrow for your second interview?"

"But... But"

"Awesome, see you then, bye!"

Click.

What? But how? Must have been my little quip about being a perfectionist, I thought sourly but also a little excitedly.

Fine, I'll go see the Director and then I won't get the job surely. I organised with my mom to babysit as I didn't want to take advantage of the little school by "trying it out" another half day free of charge.

And off I went.

The Director didn't ask many questions. He prattled on happily about his time with the company, leaning back in his chair, relaxed and smiling. He told me about his wife and kids, his time in Oz and how South Africans stand out like sore thumbs because they are all obsessed with "north facing houses" and insist on deconstructing menu's, e.g: "I'd like the Cajun Chicken tramazini but with beef instead of chicken and olives instead of peppers, please?".

At the end of the interview I thanked him, and he looked surprised.
Was I not supposed to thank him?
Did I mispronounce his name?
Probably won't call.
Do I want them to call?
What if I get the job and abandon my little girl to a bunch of militaristic preschool teachers and then the job sucks ass and Dita ends up being a Marijuana abuser because of abandonment issues and everything is ruined and for what?
Money?
Am I trading my time with my daughter for money?

It was a Wednesday when I found out I got the job. I know this because they wanted me to start the following Monday and I was horrified at thinking I only had four more days with my baby before going back to the salt mines.

And yet I heard myself graciously accepting their offer and confirming that I will be there bright and early Monday morning.

What have I done?

Over the course of the next four days I cried and cried and cried like I haven't cried in years.

I cried everywhere. In the kitchen, in the garden, on the toilet, whilst eating m&m's, changing Dita's diaper, bathing her, feeding her.

She kind of eyed my quizzically. It was the first time she saw me like this, not that I had been a bundle of laughs before.

The day finally dawned where I had to drop off my sweet, innocent little girl and drive to Johannesburg to start my training.
It felt horrible. None of the excitement, sense of freedom or exhiliration showed up this time.

I just felt like a really shitty mommy and a really stupid woman for giving up my chance to not work and lounge around the house raising my kids and baking gluten free granola cookies.
Ah who am I kidding.
I can't bake to save my life.
And raising kids so far definitely did not involve lounging of any kind.

Training was complicated. I had a terrible feeling I was going to suck at this job and be miserable while I'm at it.
So many products.
So many customers.
Such complicated commision structures.

To top it all off, I had to express milk three times during the day because my breasts were so engorged my whole chest was on fire. The cleaning lady didn't want me pumping in the bathroom and instead led me to a weird, dusty kind of store room where a myriad of people barged in on me, blinking confusedly at the breastpump pressed to my chest and then hurrying out as realisation and embarrassment dawned.
I desperately missed my child.

What have I done?

I surprised myself by surviving my first half week.
Dita surprised the hell out of me by surviving it also.

Soon it was weekend and I was crying again. Whenever someone visited or phoned, I cried and cried and they akwardly patted my back and made soothing noises.

My parents brought Steers and I soaked my burger in tears while eating it.

"What if it's like the previous job and nobody ever buys anything from me, ever?!" I implored my husband.

"Then you quit and come back home?"

This made me want to marry him all over again but my stingy self would never permit such a gross waste of money.

"But I already serviced my car." I said as if it's a jail sentence.

"Then work six months and then quit?"

"But the guy that hired me will be so disappointed in me!" little did I know that he would be leaving the company in six months' time himself.

"Just take it baby steps. One day at a time" he told me and so I did.

Oh boy and how glad am I that I stuck it out. 

Once I started seeing customers, orders were flying in, I was fielding queries left, right and centre. I was cruising all over Pretoria, making deals, driving while talking on my cell, feeling cool with my aircon on full blast, my self-esteem rising like bile in my throat. 
But in a good way.

I got paid and the sweet, sweet nectar of receiving a salary made my head spin.

In the evenings I held my daughter close to my heart as we slept and I felt very very happy indeed.

I was a working mom, earning the good monaaay and still caring for my family while doing it.

Flirting with Post-Partum Depression

Having a baby is such a crazy experience, it can sometimes pass you by in a blur. And other times the clock freezes and everything stands still.
These are the times when boredom, self-doubt and depression can set in. Sometimes all at once, creating a muddy outlook on life as a parent, rather than the beautiful rose-tinted view,
depicted on Instagram and Facebook.

Life with Dita started as follows. She wanted to do only two things, seemingly; latch onto my increasingly painful boobs or cry whole heartedly.
This phase lasted about three months. Three quite stressful months in which sleep was scarce, worry was prevalent and nipples were raw and cracked.
She refused to sleep by herself. She slept only in my arms and wailed loudly whenever I tried putting her down, especially at night.

Worrying about my husband being tired on the road, I also tried letting him sleep as much as possible because I have a mortal fear of something happening to him and being left to fend for
myself and baba all by my lonesome.
I know this might seem like a paranoid fear but a friend of mine lost her husband in a freak accident when their little boy was but ten days old and it struck terror into my heart,
knowing that something so tragic, unlikely and unfair could happen to someone so sweet and selfless.

This was a little bit of a challenge though, I was very tired and baby seemed to be in pain a lot of the time which freaked my out constantly and trying to somehow stifle her
cries in the wee hours of the morning to spare my husband made things almost impossible.
Obviously, I mostly failed but happily my husband sleeps like the dead and woke only to the most mournful of cries, sleepily suggesting things for me to try to calm her down which just
further exasperated me.
In the vein of: "Oh, feeding/burping/changing her, OHHHHH! I didn't think of that, thank you oh wise loved one, now go back to peaceful slumber".

I must say that during those first three insane months, my boobs took on a whole new role. Dummy, food, comfort, lullaby and tranquiliser all rolled into one. The only problem was it only
offered these lovely things to my little child and not to me. To me, every time she latched it felt like someone took a steak-knife to my nipples, slashing away maniacally until she finally
fell into a kind of rhythm and the pain subsided. My toes literally curled with agony every time I put her to the breast. But believe it or not, this pain was preferable to the
utter unpleasantness of a crying infant.

Running on fumes, hustling at midnight to change diapers and pat out burps, learning tummy rubs that help with gas, toe-curling breastfeeding and a niggling fear of my husband
thinking I'm a terrible mother, adrenaline was always slowly bubbling away just underneath the surface, keeping me going.
One morning I lay in bed, feeding my child and feeling the familiar stirrings of an oncoming panic-attack. Trying to smother the alarm that always accompanies the increased heart-rate and
blurry vision that marks these episodes, I tried to talk myself down and amazingly succeeded.
This really is nothing short of a miracle and I was limp with relief as it subsided.

The days and nights passed me by like I was on a merry-go-round, spinning and spinning, feed, burp, change, rock, feed, burp, change, argue with husband, rock.
And then suddenly one day these things didn't work any longer. Baby got bored.
This marked the beginning of dark times for me.

Dita wanted to be walked around the house and garden, always in the upright position, never sitting down or standing still. It was in the middle of summer and very hot so I found myself
wandering our garden in my hideous feeding bra and granny panty, trying not to get a glimpse of my flabby body in the hallway mirror as I passed it.
Saggy ass, floppy belly, black circles around the eyes, wrinkles everywhere, spots, oily hair.
I was the very picture of misery.

Every dog-turd I encountered on the lawn grated at my already flailing sense of serenity and frustration built up inside of me at not being able to just quickly pick it all up and throw it
away so we can walk around a droppings-free lawn.
To top it all off, three massive Hadedas frequented our yard and shat giant pools of disgustingness everywhere.
These excretions were too big to ignore and too small to pick up with the poop-scoop and I had to frantically talk myself down from hysteria every time I had to side step a Hadeda bomb.
They were also attracted to the dog-food on the patio and continued in their poop-shooting ways onto the wooden deck.

And I haven't even mentioned my psychologically scarred cat that literally defecates and urinates all over the house, including to my absolute horror, the bed.
Every morning I would wake, exhausted from not really sleeping, to cat poop at the foot of the bed, cat pee at the door to the nursery and bathroom, dog turds in the living room because
he has incontinence from his spinal stroke still and sleeps in the house, dog turds on the lawn and Hadeda kak on the patio.
Shit everywhere.
Not to mention diapers, which were really the least of my frustrations since I at least got to look at adorable little baby butt cheeks while changing those.

Time stopped altogether and I found myself frozen in a kind of baby-swaying, shit-dodging limbo. Every minute felt like an eternity.
I tried watching tv shows whilst walking up and down with the baby but nothing really kept my interest.
Everything was excruciatingly, mind-bogglingly boring and tedious.
I couldn't believe I still had to brush my teeth every day and finding the time and energy to do it properly was a challenge indeed.
The bed needed to be made every day and with my OCD tendencies this was no simple task. It had to be aired very vigourously to get all the cat hair and dust from the previous night
off the duvet, sheets and head pillows. This was a small workout for me since it took some thorough shaking of everything to get this out.
I also lugged the industrial strength fan to the other side of the room to help blow all the debris coming off the bed out of the open windows and into the garden where they
can't cause allergic rhinitis to anyone in my household.

Apart from brushing teeth and shaking out the bed, I felt that I should be the perfect housewife, since I was not bringing in any money or contributing to any of the finances in any way
so cooking and cleaning became an obsession.
These things were almost impossible, though.
Having a strong-willed baby that wants to be held all day everyday meant I had to do tasks when she was napping, which almost never happened, or so it felt anyway.
She would take sporadic, five minute naps but mostly latched firmly to the breast rendering me incapable of doing anything except maybe play a soul-crushing game of Candy Crush on my phone
or scroll morbidly through my Facebook feed, wishing the ceiling fan would crash down onto my head causing momentary euphoria but somehow missing the baby.

My thoughts started becoming extremely dark very quickly. I envisioned horrible things happening to my baby and husband and myself. I even pictured myself doing hurtful things to them,
kind of like someone in a Stephen King book just suddenly snapping and tearing a love one's eyeball out.
This I found to be super alarming.
Was I losing my mind?
Was I perhaps a Dexter-like serial killer in the making?
Was I about to feature in Huisgenoot?

I started worrying about my mental well-being with gusto and tried talking to people about it without really letting on how bad it was getting.
I mean, at night when I closed my eyes, my sweet pink little tot far away in dreamland next to me, flashes of horrible events would play like a movie behind my eyelids.
To top it all off, the neighbours had thieves break into their house one day not too long ago and they tied up the poor wife that was home and took almost all their possessions.
This catapulted me into full-on crazy paranoia.
What if these evil people came into my house when I was home alone with my tiny daughter? Or what if husband were home with me and they shot him?
People are heinous creatures who do horrible things to good people.
And I was starting to think that I might not even be such a good person after all, what with all these violent thoughts running through my head all day and night.
I started losing all faith in the basic goodness of humanity.
I started believing everyone out there were somehow against me and actively coming for me.

Car accidents were rampant on the news and I worried myself sick about my husband, praying obsessively all day for his safe return from work, wondering how to best barter with God to
ensure the most favourable outcome.

Worst of all was the mind-blowing tininess of my child and the total trust in her little eyes when she looked at me.
You are Mother, they said.
You are the most important person in my life, they alluded.
You are totally in charge of what happens to my minuscule body and mind, they tittered.
How was I supposed to not go completely apeshit with this mountain of responsibility now crashing down squarely on my previously unburdened shoulders?
Not to mention the fact that she was growing very quickly (even though time stood still and nothing ever happened) and I was painfully aware of the fact that one day my little chubby-bum
was going to go out into the world and have life happen to her, where I would no longer be in full control of what happened to her.

Life didn't seem kind in the least anymore.
People were assholes, plotting against each other, living for revenge and money and selfishness.
Time was just something mercilessly driving us towards one tragedy or another.
Sooner or later someone close to us will die and we'll never recover from it.
At any point our own bodies could turn against us and pop a vital artery in our brains, killing us instantly without the chance to say goodbye or make amends or come to terms.
Every long day I hid in my house, not even going into the possibly brimming-with-burglars garden anymore, with my little girl in my arms, trying not to envision all the horribleness of it all.
Trying, trying and trying not to be crushed by the weight of all the wrongness and evil and ugly of the world, life and everything.
Where is God?
Does he even exist at all?

Thankfully, my good friend and fellow baby-mama invited me to go for breakfast at the gorgeous Irene Dairy Farm one morning and I valiantly fought through the blind panic to join her and
act like a normal person for once.
It was here she told me that she kept seeing herself accidentally reversing over her baby in the driveway and couldn't deal with anxious thoughts like this anymore so she went to the
doctor and got some antidepressants and was feeling much better.
This was God speaking directly to me.
Hello God, where have you been? But thanks, hey, message received loud and clear.

I felt a little bad about becoming that medicated person again.
I was kind of hoping to be a nice normal mommy now, a woman like all the other women, just going through life, maybe getting a bonsai tree in the process, doing dumb little things to
pass the time and chat to other chicks about.
But listen, when all meaning and joy drain out of your life you pretty much get to a point where taking one small blue pill every night doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

Two weeks after my nice new shrink (my beloved Polish Gypsey shrink had retired) gave me the small blue pill, I was taking my daily desperate walk around the neighbourhood,
Dita cooing away in her pram when suddenly shit seemed much more interesting than previously.
The house at the bottom of Stompdoring street seemed ominously abandoned. As I gazed at it wondering who used to live there and what happened to this mansion to make it seem so dilapidated
and forlorn, I imagined one of the curtains twitch and felt a little prickle as the hairs in the back of my neck stood up.
I should write a story about this house, I thought to myself dreamily.
This, my friend, is called inspiration.
I was struck dumb by the power of this realisation because I haven't felt the least bit inspired to even comb my hair in the mornings in at least a month, never mind writing.

I continued my little walk and found myself noticing how many cats were lounging around outside their houses. One of them even walked up to us and gave a friendly mew as it sniffed the pram.
Different dogs stared balefully from their courtyards at us as we passed, occasionally letting out varied woofs, yelps and barks. Some side-streets had teenagers playing soccer or
basketball in them. Families were braaiing in their gardens and driveways as we strolled past. A light breeze cooled the perspiration on my brow and suddenly everything was beautiful.
There were still good people out there. Normal, Joe publics, doing their thing, going to work, raising their families, eating their Simba chippies. Birds were chirping, the seasons were
changing, leaves were turning golden, brown and orange and drifting down to the streets in lazy S's.

My little child looked up at me from her pram and staring into her eyes I felt love and hope and anticipation rather than crippling fear.

"Let's go watch an episode of Rupaul's Drag Race and eat a marshmallow Easter egg, my sweetie", I murmur to her and she smiles at me as if she understood every word and thought I was
the silliest mommy on the planet.

Three Trimesters, a Paralysed Dog and a Baby (Part 2)

The Dr had massive hands with pudgy fingers. I had never noticed this before. Only now as he strapped on a latex glove and stood back in order to take a running leap at my poor cervix did I see it. The next thing I knew, it felt like he had plunged into me all the way up to the elbow.

Why had no-one ever described this feeling as really, really painful? Why did women describe such things as “uncomfortable” or “not so nice”?
Read my lips bitches; that manoeuvre hurt like seven shits.

“You’re not dilating, we’ll have to apply some gel that will help speed up the process” he says matter-of-factly.

*whimper*

He takes a few more steps back to apply the gel at a run.
But it turns out the gel thingy is much thinner and more vagina-friendly than Dr Franz Liszt here.

*Side-note; Franz Liszt was a classical pianist and composer and had extraordinarily large hands. Allegedly he would have a prop piano that would disintegrate at the end of his concerts as a little joke about his meaty paws. He is also my favourite composer. If you like piano concertos, listen to Hungarian Rhapsody #2, it’s hauntingly beautiful.
End of nerdy side-note.

When the Dr left, the little nurse on duty sniffed and said: “I don’t know why they apply the gel when a woman’s water has already broken, it just doesn’t make sense. I mean it will just wash away now wouldn’t it?”
She turned to leave and I sat there dumbfounded at my sudden lack of trust in the medical professionals looking after me in this hospital.

This, however, was really only the beginning.
By the end of this day I would be bawling my eyes out and begging three different doctors for mercy.
But I digress…

After a few hours and a few less painful but still quite sore vag-explorations by my very sweet and pro-natural birth nurse, the dilation was still not there and the Dr was once again called.

In this time I was also starting to worry about my poor paralysed dog at home. I had been away from him for twelve hours now and concerned that the cleaner might have put him on the patio where he would lay in the hot sun unable to move himself when it got too much.
A quick message to her confirmed my fear but she assured me that they would move him immediately. I don’t know it they did but I simply had to trust the process.

Husband had by now of course re-joined me at the hospital and was surveying the manhandling of my privates with narrowed, gimlet eyes.

“Excuse me, Melanie…” I began as the little nurse returned to my room.

“Yes?”

“I…*ahem*, I heard that when a person gives birth *cough* certain bodily functions happens too and I am slightly worried about it as I wouldn’t want anyone to be uncomfortable…do you think I could ask for an enema?”
Please note that when I asked for an enema I thought it would be that little bulb thingy and that only a polite amount of water would be inserted discreetly into my backside but when she returned, muttering about the previous night’s nurse being responsible for this, she was carrying something that looked like a garden hose and something that resembled a tea-kettle.
She warned me beforehand that “this will be extremely uncomfortable” and I steeled myself for the agony that awaited which turned out to be nothing compared to Dr Death-to-Vaginas’s exploration of a few hours ago.
What followed the procedure, however, could be described as verging on extremely uncomfortable.
She advised me to try as long as possible to not go to the bathroom, just to let the water do its job. I swear it wasn’t a full minute before I simply had to relieve myself.
The thing is I have always had very sensitive intestines, landing in the emergency room often with a spastic colon and such but wow nothing could quite prepare me for the cramps I started getting as I hobbled, crossed-legged to the loo.
When the nurse came back I told her about the debilitating stomach cramps I was having and she informed me that those were contractions, my dear, not cramps.
As if they weren’t bad enough, she told me about the drip I was about to get and how it contained Pitocin that would speed up my labour quite a bit.

“Okay, is that really necessary? Aren’t I in labour now? It sure feels like it”

“Doctor’s orders”

Okee dokee. The drip hurt more than the enema. She pushed it into my hand with what felt like slow deliberateness. I think I remember her starting the Pitocin at 50 somethings, which sounded high as she explained they usually start at 15 or something like that but they are really trying to get this baby out now.

“Doesn’t Pitocin usually end up making it worse and then the woman has to have an emergency c-section?” I asked uncertainly.

It seemed that way whenever I watched shows like The Midwives, One Born Every Minute and 16 and Pregnant (my girl is getting a Mirena at 13, already decided).

“I actually think it helps to avoid that outcome”

Well alright then.

In went the Pitocin and if I thought the contractions were bad before, they were now quite intense. I have read the description “the pain was exquisite” in books before and only now I saw a rare opportunity to describe my own as such.

“I want the epidural, yes please, when can I have one of those babies” I gasped between contractions which were now coming in strong and at twenty second apart. I didn’t know it was legal for them to follow each other so closely.

Okay, the anaesthesiologist is on his way, he’ll be here in about 30 minutes.
This was around 18:00 on the 7’th of November.
Of course, everyone felt the need to keep sticking their hands into me at random intervals as if the contractions weren’t bad enough already.
“3 cm”
“What?! I should be 30 cm with this pain!”
“Sorry”
*moaning loudly*

Husband was there and did everything I asked him to do in fevered whispers.

“Press my hips together quick! Okay, hold my arm! Now go jump in a lake!”

Okay that last one he didn’t do but I’m pretty sure he thought I was kidding (I wasn’t).

Finally, after what seemed like gallons of more amniotic fluid came streaming out of me with every contraction, the guy with the epidural showed up and tried explaining things to me.
It was very hard to concentrate but I tried my level best and sat in the akward, bent-over position on the bed he requested of me.
The fact that I was contracting painfully every twenty second made everything so much worse. He kept stopping whenever I had one because he said I moved, even though I thought I stayed perfectly still.
He asked me to bend even more forward which was impossible but I tried.
After twenty minutes of me moaning loudly and him expressing the fact that he “keeps hitting bone” so frequently I felt like throwing up, I was ordered to lie down on my side and as I did my legs started going numb and the pain miraculously disappeared.

Sweet, sweet relief flooded over me and I almost immediately started drifting off to sleep.
Everything was going to be okay now. Eighteen hours of painful procedures and contractions and I was finally on the home-stretch.

Uh, no.

In barged a nurse I hadn’t met and slammed the door at her back.

“I am Melody and I’ll be taking over from Melanie here, let’s see how far along you are”

Luckily, I couldn’t feel these horrible VP’s as the medical personnel referred to them, anymore because she also took a running shove at me.
When she retracted her hand, her latex glove was completely covered in blood.

“Between three and four centimeters”

She looked beadily at the monitor and barged back out, once again slamming the door loudly on her way out.
Upon re-entry she proclaimed that we are to do a C-section immediately.

“What?! Why?! I’m going to be able to do this!”

“The doctor said so. The baby’s heartbeat has dropped”

*Burst into noisy, snotty tears*

“It’s okay! It’s only a small cut, a bikini cut, you won’t even be able to see it!”

“I’m not worried about the look of the cut! I just went through hell and now I’m going to be cut anyway I mean what’s the bleeding point of it all? I knew this would happen but no one would listen to me! Can’t we wait just five more minutes?” I cried bitterly.

“The baby is tired and if we wait she will only get more tired and then when you have to start pushing she will be exhausted”

“It’s not like she has to do anything, though is it?”

But it was too late, I was already being wheeled into a cold surgical room where a new anaesthesiologist came up to me.

“Okay, so you’ve had an epidural but that is not ideal for a c-section as it numbs only partly. We could offer you a spinal, how would you feel about that?”

“That would be fine, then I can still experience the birth of my child”

“Exactly, so it’s settled then”

In storms the gynaecologist who I haven’t seen since the morning.

“Right, let’s get this baby out, can you feel this?” he asked pinching my abdomen.

“Yes”

“You’re supposed to feel pressure”

“I don’t feel pressure, I feel everything. I feel your nails on my skin”

Away he storms.
Back comes the anaesthesiologist.

“Okay, we’re doing general anaesthesia now”

“What? Why?”

“Because your doctor said so”

“Why can’t I have the spinal? You said I could have a spinal and be awake?!”

“I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place now…” he trailed off and I saw that this fight was already lost.

I started getting worried that the general anaesthesia was only the back up if I really did feel when he cut me. In my mind’s eye the gynae was sharpening his scalpel on a strip of leather like an old-fashioned barber getting ready for a shave.

“Please don’t let him cut me while I am awake” I pleaded with the anaesthesiologist.

The gynae stormed back up to my bed.

“You won’t feel it, you only think you have feeling in your lower body but you don’t. Don’t worry”

“What? No! I feel everything, I FEEL EVERYTHING!” but he had already turned his back on me.

I started crying in earnest indeed because now I really did understand that I was going to be cut into live like something out of a horror movie.
Luckily the anaesthesiologist recognised my mounting hysteria and started pushing needles into my stomach to check if I could tell and I whimpered in response every time he did so.
Finally, he beckoned the gynae over and the gynae begrudgingly told him to put me under.
I mean fuck, right?!

I did the counting backward thing and when I woke up;

“You have a beautiful little girl, Mrs Grove”

I opened my eyes slowly, crusty from the tears I cried before the birth.

“Where is she?”

“She is in the maternity ward with your husband”

“Oh”

The nurse who I didn’t know from Eve was scribbling into a file and didn’t look at me once.
There wasn’t anyone else around and I decided to lay there as patient as possible.
The Patient Patient.
That’ll be the title of my novel. A story about a woman killing everyone in a hospital after giving birth to her first child via C-section.
After a while another lady was wheeled next to me. She had her baby on her chest and was lazily smirking at it as I watched.
Lucky bitch and bitchlet.

I had yet to meet my child and about half an hour had passed since I woke up.
As I scanned the room I realised there were three other nurses in the far corner of the large recovery room. They seemed to be arguing. In storms another, obviously senior nurse.

“If none of you are willing to take her up then I guess I will just have to do it!” she said loudly and picked up a nearby phone.

“I have phoned twice for someone to take Mrs Grove to the maternity ward but nobody seems willing so now I am bringing her, what room is she in?”

She listened for a while and then put down the phone.
A slow-burning rage was building deep inside my chest as I realised these bitches were arguing about whose job it is to wheel me up two floors to meet my precious child who I have carried inside me for eight and a half months and was just dying to see.
The senior sister came to get me.

“Oh, they cut your baby when they took her out by mistake”

And just like that I was off.
The words that came out of my mouth were those of a drunken sailor.
I told the nurse exactly where she could get off and that she and everyone else at Femina and their families should thank their lucky stars that I was still paralysed from the epidural because they would have not known what hit them. Only that the thing that had hit them was wearing a green hospital gown with her ass hanging out.

At long last, I was in my own room and still swearing at anybody who came near me. A tiny pink bundle was dumped unceremoniously into my arms. I was shocked to at last look into the cloudy blue eyes of my new-born daughter.
She was a beautiful little stranger.

“Pleased to meet you, little Dita” I said formally.

She gurgled in response and I decided that meant “likewise” in new-born language.

The poor nurse who was still hovering nervously just out of punching distance suggested timidly that I might like to try putting her to the breast if I am ready.
Scowling darkly at her I exposed my breast and pressed the baby to it where she suctioned onto it exactly the way a squid might stick to a slippery rock. A peculiar feeling of extreme thirst washed over me, mixed with a feeling akin to anticipation and a tinge of angst.
I frowned at the cut on the side of her head just in time to ruin the first photograph ever taken of the two of us together. Please see picture attached.

“So, what do you think?” husband asked me.

“She’s growing on me” I answered with the first smile in hours.

Unfortunately, I was also in quite a bit of pain. Nobody ever told me how sore a c-section is, although it might be because I had feeling in my abdomen and woke up with the pain, not mercifully numb and getting back feeling systematically and being able to cope with it in sections.

“Wait a minute, I read that I would be given a pain-pump? Where is my pain pump?”

A new nurse had entered the room and gave me a sour look.

“No, you should have asked for one if you wanted one, before the procedure”

“I still have the epidural thing in my back, I can feel it there”

She stopped short and stared at me.

“They were supposed to remove that under the anaesthesia”

“Oh. Well what now?”

“The doctor will remove it tomorrow. Sir, it’s time for you to go”

And so, it was at about half past ten on the night of the seventh of November 2017 that I was left alone with my sweet little child and in extreme pain.
After about half an hour of just staring at her and drooling on myself a little, yet another nurse came in and told me she was taking her to the nursery.

“Can’t she stay here with me?”

“No, not the first night. The first night we take her and you rest”.

I didn’t like the way she said it and didn’t like the way she looked at me as she did. It was like everyone on staff that night was angry with me for causing them all to fight about whose job it is to wheel patients from recovery to maternity.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you opt for general anaesthesia with her birth?”

“I didn’t! I had no choice whatsoever!”

She looked appropriately chastised and went away before I could formulate any further responses.
Were they all talking about the selfish bitch who just had to choose general anaesthesia just to mess with them? Again, I wished that my legs worked so I could fuck them up but they were not budging.
Another nurse came in with some pethidine and gave me a shot in the ass. She did it rather forcefully but the jokes on her because I didn’t feel a thing. Thank you Mr epidural, thank you very much.
As she left she flipped off the light-switch and I was left in the semi-dark room with only my thoughts to keep me company.

What if I died suddenly?
Didn’t my mom say something about blood-clots after abdominal surgery?
They hadn’t given me any special compression stockings or the Clexane shots I was told I would get and I was starting to worry big time.
The pain was still just barely bearable even after the pethidine and I hardly slept that night.
Morning came and my sweetie was brought back to my side. I was so happy to see her, my heart soared.

“Aw, thank you for bringing her back. I was so sad when the other nurse told me I wasn’t allowed to keep her here last night”

“Who told you that? She wasn’t allowed to say you are not allowed”

“Oh. I don’t know who it was” I stopped short of saying all nurses look the same to me.

After breakfast things really took off. A million different medical professionals came to my room where I would have to hastily cover up my exposed boob where my little girl was latched so they can examine her/me/us.
When the gynae finally showed up I was too in love with my baby to scream at him but I did ask him rather pointedly if perhaps maybe he could remove my epidural catheter now, thank you very much and why haven’t I received Clexane?

“Do you have pain in either of your legs?”

“No”

“Do you have a history of thrombosis?”

“No, but-”
“Then we don’t have to worry”.

He removed the epidural catheter, prodded at my extremely sensitive stomach and left quickly, obviously aware of the fact that he has treated me with substandard professionalism.
After about fifteen minutes a nurse came in with a Clexane shot and said he had changed his mind.
What an asshole.

Okay, what have I forgotten?
It all seems quite blurry, all of a sudden.
Oh yes, oooh weee, the first night I was left alone with my screaming child!
What a night.

The first day in the hospital after the crazy birth of my little girl passed in a blur. Husband came to visit all day, more tired than I was from working on the baby room right through the night.
My family came, doctors, audiologists, paediatricians and dietitians came. Dita sucked my nipples raw and still it seemed to me like nothing came out even though I kept reading on the La Leche League Facebook Page that I can rest assured colostrum is there and feeding my baby.
Night fell, everyone left and seemingly so did the nurses.

Dita was unceremoniously dumped in my room and I didn’t see one single nurse from sun-down until sun-up even though it felt like my baby was screaming the whole time.
I had to change five (5) diapers. Not ordinary diapers, no, no. MECONIUM diapers. Meconium is the stuff that gathers in a baby’s intestines during pregnancy. It is tar-like in consistency and very difficult to remove from a tiny little bum that you’ve only just met and are desperately afraid of injuring.
I suspect this stuff burned my little girl’s butt because she roared at me like a tiny train until I removed the offending diaper and basically washed her miniscule buttocks with a warm face-cloth before she stopped.

All this sounds easy, no doubt, but I found it extremely difficult to move around the room and get in and out of bed with my wound. It hurt like mad, stretching and stinging every time I tried anything. Functioning with a baby swearing at you in baby-language is also a mighty challenge.
Eventually she settled down after I figured out she basically constantly wants to be at the (ever-increasingly raw and sore) breast.

When the sun came out and I was brought breakfast I was happy to see the nurse, oh so happy. Amazing how lonely one can feel during a long- oh-so-long night. I was even happier when I saw the delicious Pethidine syringe she was carrying alongside my meal. Ah sweet, sweet drugs. How I long for thee.
Even though the shots had started to sting a bit because obviously the epidural had long gone, I welcomed that pinprick with open, trembling arms…and legs.
Even more people visited that day and I was so tired and zonked out from the pain-meds I think I looked severely drugged and cross-eyed to all of them, but what can you do.
Husband came again and complained bitterly about his fatigue which momentarily made me want to hit him over the head with a newborn.

The second night was better because I was moved to a bigger room with an en suite shower. Just another thing I had to fight with a bunch of nurses about. How the hell am I supposed to lower myself into a bathtub if I can barely walk? Also, the doctor said no soaking the wound, so how now brown cow?

As I gingerly stepped out of the shower I noticed with growing alarm how my feet were swelling up right in front of my unbelieving eyes.  My ankles looked like they had had their wisdom teeth out.
Apart from being disgusting, at least this new condition wasn’t painful and I managed to cope with the baby relatively well.

Unexpectedly where the previous night’s nurses didn’t give a flying hoot about me and my crying baby, this night’s nurse was overly involved, I felt. Whenever Dita cried for more than a minute she was there asking me why my baby was crying and I felt like yelling at her BECAUSE SHE IS A BABY YOU DUMB COW NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!

At some point in the wee hours of the morning she asked if she could take the child and let me sleep for a bit and I conceded reluctantly because I was very tired indeed.
Unfortunately, this resulted in Dita’s blood-sugar testing low the next morning and everyone trying desperately to give her formula to help stabilise it.
Now, I don’t know about you but I was led to believe that formula is basically poison and should never be given to a baby and if you do everyone you love will die and your milk will dry up immediately and Armageddon will happen, so I refused and became quite hysterical the more they tried.

“Your baby could get brain damage from low blood sugar!”

“Then bring her to me so I can feed her for Pete’s sake!”

They brought her, all sleepy and floppy and I pressed her to my breast where it felt like the cutest tiny piranha fish was chomping away at my nipple.
The next time they tested she was fine (and according to the new nurse was fine all along, anyway) and I felt like flinging my empty breakfast plate at someone’s head for creating so much drama for what turned out to be nothing.

Either way, my hospital stay came to an end and we were sent on our way, clumsily strapping our miniature person into her miniature car-seat and driving home at five kilometres an hour.

We were now parents, hear us roar.

Three Trimesters, a Paralysed Dog and a Baby (Part 1)

My little girl is taking a lovely, long mid-morning nap as I write this.

What a wonderful sentence. Could there be a more wonderful sentence than this?

I certainly don’t think so.

Let me tell you how I came to be a mother. Not the birds and the bees stuff, no no, my mom reads this blog for crying out loud.
The *shudder* birth.

*Cue sound of men leaving*

It was a long pregnancy.

Probably no longer than any other but still the fact that we had been told that we would never conceive a baby naturally meant that every day of a healthy pregnancy counted in my mind as a miracle. And as a low-level pessimist I was loath to just sit back and enjoy the “glow” of pregnancy.
No, I had to go obsessing wildly into the night.

What if something goes wrong? Lots of stuff went wrong in pregnancy, loads of horrible things have happened to other people that my friends, family and acquaintance have told me about throughout the years.
These horror stories kept flooding back into my conscious mind as I recalled every vivid detail that the storyteller offered with the misty-eyed zeal of the sensationalist.

First it was the first trimester.
There is no way of skipping this trimester, that is the name of the trimester. Numba one. First. Begin here. Do not skip and collect any money or whatever.
If you have been trying to conceive for a while and have endured all the tracking, testing, pill-popping fun of it, you probably would also find out relatively early in the pregnancy that you are in fact pregnant.
This is inevitable as some of us spend months taking fifteen pregnancy tests a day, resulting in bankruptcy, depression and water intoxication. This last one sounds like fun but is way less interesting than say alcohol intoxication.
Having done it this way, I found out I was pregnant the very second the sperm penetrated the ova.

*Sound of more men scurrying uncomfortably from the room*

This meant I was obsessing obsessively for as much of the pregnancy as is conceivably obsessable.

You see, the first trimester is the time in pregnancy when most miscarriages happen, for whatever reason. Even for no reason at all. This scared the living shit out of me. Well not literally of course, I mean I kind of wish it did because the first trimester also brings with it the backhanded reminder of how much labour will suck by giving you crippling constipation.
And the nausea. Oh the nausea! I felt like I had been on the piss for weeks and suffering from a severe babelas, which I then aptly renamed “baba-las”.

On the plus side, I dropped two kilograms in this here lovely little trimester and felt pretty good apart from all the other stuff happening.

Eventually, this first and most dreaded of the trimesters passed and I entered the proverbial “honeymoon phase” of pregnancy. The second trimester.
In this trimester I was slightly less worried about something going wrong with the baby and massively more worried about money.
Having had a bit of a melt-down and resigning from my job in a fit of hormone-encouraged rage, I was now unemployed and living off of my savings, which were not great in numbers.
This is a difficult thing for someone like me:
• trust issues; check
• emotional about money; check
• thinks money equals your worth as a person especially as a woman; check
• thinks asking a man for money is total failure to succeed in life especially as a woman; check.

Add in hormonal insanity and Bob’s your uncle.
No really, as a result of all of us originally coming from Africa, Robert Mugabe is somehow all of our uncle, removed to the whatever’th degree, of course.

Where was I?

Oh yes, I was knocking being knocked up.
Well don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, I always say, hahaha, except cocaine…don’t try cocaine. Just knock it straight out of the gate. That stuff is way too powerful to be toyed with.

Where was I again…

Okay, okay, so finally one sunny day in the third and final trimester (the one where you are allowed to complain non-stop about your back/hips/head/pick-a-body part), I was lounging in bed feeling guilty about not bringing in any finances when I heard a strange cat in the yard, terrifying my kitties.
So I got up and opened the door for the dog to chase it off, as he relishes it so much.

He scarcely touched the ground as he flew out of the house in hot pursuit of the intruder but as he rounded the corner he suddenly started wailing like a banshee. I hurried after him to see what was the matter. Well I say hurried, which was in fact quite slow for a woman in the third trimester.

Three weeks before my due date, I would have made a sloth blur in comparison.
When I got to the dog, he was paralyzed from the waist down.
What the hell happened, you ask.
Was he bit by a snake?
I glanced around but didn’t see any snakes slithering about.
Was he shot, poisoned, stabbed, kicked, run over?
None of the above, it seemed.

I didn’t know what the hell to do. My belly was so huge there was no way I could lift this Alsatian-size dog into my car.

I called Bull security, who first asked me annoying questions like was I a member. No, sir, I am an ADT subscriber but felt too bad to call them.
Of course I am a member, asshole, now get your butt over here and put my dog into my car.

Am I in any physical danger?
Yes, of having a coronary from irritation.

I sat on the ground next to my poor dog, still mewling softly and petted his big head. Bull took about five minutes to arrive but it felt like an eternity.
When the guy got out of his car and saw the state of me his eyes immediately softened and he asked me how far along I am to which I stuttered: “Three weeks”.
He looked amazed.
“Three weeks to go, I mean. Thirty seven weeks.”

And on that note promptly started crying, which he politely ignored and got on with wrestling my dog into the car.

As I backed out of my driveway I saw him still parked outside, idling his car, presumably waiting for me to safely leave the house and close the gate and what-not without getting hi-jacked or burgled or ramming my car into someone else’s car/house/child; as is the custom of my pregnant people.
Thank the good Lord for kind people in these circumstances.

At the vet I cried the whole time, without one second passing tearlessly.
The poor vet, another young guy, looked pretty uncomfortable. I was such a wreck.
I was wearing a long sundress, the first thing I found that fit my large heavily pregnant body. No makeup, hair unbrushed and crazy wild. I probably didn’t even smell very good as I hadn’t had time to brush my teeth or shower that morning when all hell broke loose.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to do an MRI if we are to make a certain diagnosis” he said.

“How much will this cost?” I brayed.

“Around R4000”

“Oh…care to warrant a guess?”

“I think it’s a slipped disc but I’ve never seen that in a large dog, only in dachshunds”

“Okay, then how do we fix it?”

“Well, in the case of a slipped disc, he will need surgery which will cost quite a bit. You’re looking at between 15 and 20 thousand”

*Drooling on myself whilst ugly-crying*

“I can see that you are very upset but I also want to suggest the possibility of euthanasia”

*Drooling on myself while crying even uglierer than a minute ago*

“Okay, I’m going to phone my husband and discuss this with him quickly before making a decision”

He left me to it so I phoned T with trembling fingers and the minute he picked up wailed loudly into the phone. I’m pretty sure he thought I was having the baby but I quickly explained the situation.
I had to run all this by him because I had no money to my name and if we were to do the MRI, he would have to fund it.

“Okay so R 4000 is a bit of money but I think let’s do the MRI and see what they say.”
I wanted to kiss him for not saying kill the dog right off the bat.

The vet called the specialists that do the MRI’s and they said to bring the dog.
After paying the vet consultation fee, and having him carry the dog to my car, off we went to the specialist vets. The specialist was actually a bit more knowledgeable and much less uncomfortable with my seeping face. Possibly because of being a woman and all.
Us girls grow up with cray-cray emotions and are usually quite happy to be in the presence of a sobbing woman. Sobbing men are a whole new ball game but other sobbing women – piece of cake.

“Okay, if I can make an informed guess; it’s either a spinal stroke embolism or a slipped disc. Most probably an embolism because of his size but we can’t know for sure unless we do the MRI which costs R7000”

“The other guy said R4000”

“Nope it’s R7000. We use Wilgers hospital’s MRI machine. But we don’t have to. I can see you are expecting a baby and I would understand if you don’t want to do the MRI, Lord knows I don’t have R7000 to spend on my dog right now and that’s just for the diagnosis. The problem is, if it is a slipped disc we need to operate asap and if we don’t he’ll just get worse and we’ll have to give him a mercy death”

That’s the phrase she used; "mercy death".

In the end after much deliberation and guilt, I decided against the MRI and to go ahead with treatment for an FCE (spinal stroke embolism) which is really no treatment whatsoever.
He stayed at the animal hospital for three days where some physiotherapist allegedly did things with him to help him walk again.
They also administered corticosteroids and vitamin E which supposedly helps nerve-regeneration.
I visited him every day and cried noisily every time.

He showed no improvement whatsoever and I was getting even more scared.
After three days my money was done and we went to go fetch our poor four-legged child from the hospital.
It was very challenging having him home because he could not walk or even crawl to go outside and do his business. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that he had business that needed to be done.
We would constantly have to move him to clean up the pool of waste he would suddenly find himself in. He seemed extremely depressed and obviously didn’t understand what was happening to him. It broke my heart into pieces seeing him like that because he has always been such a lively, active animal with a huge lust for life.

The whole incident happened on Wednesday the first of November 2017.

On Monday the 6’th I went to the bathroom and discovered blood in my underwear.

*Sound of last man scarpering*

Upon phoning the gynaecologist my suspicions were confirmed that yes it was probably a “Bloody Show” and we should expect the baby to come in the next two days or so.

Quick side-note; the baby room was in shambles. I don’t mean just “not ready” or a “bit haphazard”. No, I mean full of raw cement and building materials and paint.
You see, my dear, dear husband and soon to be baby-daddy has weighed the previously perfectly fine room and found it lacking. So, he ripped up the wooden floor, tore down the curtains and the railings and yanked out the cupboard.

I started referring to him as Shiva the Destroyer and often tried communicating my extreme displeasure by jokingly asking him to rather behave like Vishnu the Maintainer but no can do.

This happens often to people. They think; how hard can DIY projects be? I’ll lay my own perfect cement floor, stain it beautifully, seal it impeccably and then our baby will have a beautiful floor and will grow up to be rich and powerful and happy.
It was chaos. Cement everywhere. My father in law, presumably heavily prodded and poked into helping by my Mother in law, came and helped as much as he could but really it felt like just utter three-stoogery to me.
So, having taken eight months to get any real work done and still not satisfied with the quality of the cement floor he and his father has poured, “Shiva” continued to destroy and destroy and destroy. Gone were my dreams of lazily getting the room ready and beautiful and lounging around in it, maybe hanging a fluffy heart here and there, folding little clothes, while stroking my growing belly.
I had gotten tired of hinting at the fact that I needed the room finished by dropping jokes about him rather embodying Vishnu the Maintainer and not so much Shiva the destroyer, but they were falling on deaf ears, alas.

Looking into his eyes as the news that we would be parents in about two days dawned on him was a sight to see.
First, awe, then raw panic.
We made a list of everything we still needed to do and buy and divided it up.
I still had all the self-beautifying treatments I had been planning to do in the last three weeks of pregnancy and hastily made appointments for the next day.
Then I rushed into the shops and spent mounds of money on baby stuff we still needed, like a pram.

Finally, the day was done and I spent the better part of an hour doing physio exercises with my dog and watching the sun go down.
Life was good. The next day I would have my hair and toe nails done and all will be well with the world once again.
I was super exhausted so I went to bed around eight o-clock that night.
Husband, who was still in a mad dash to try and finish the baby room in two days, only came to bed at around half past eleven, at which point my water promptly broke, soaking both of us, all three our cats and the bed.

“Are you sure it’s not pee?” he pleadingly asked me with red-rimmed eyes.

“I haven’t had this kind of bladder capacity in months, it’s definitely not pee” I replied.

“Oh fuck”

Yep, fuck indeed.

So, around midnight we found ourselves driving to Femina hospital. We went there because our medical aid only covered certain hospitals and they had such a good reputation.
All the way there my mind kept boggling at the wonder of this actually happening. Of course, I was also painfully aware that pain was coming. There could be no truly painless birth no matter what you did. And I was hell bent on having a natural delivery.
Once I was checked in and everything was signed and stamped and paid, the nurse gently checked my dilation and declared that in fact I was not dilated at all and that this could still take a while, I might as well send husband home to rest.
He did go home but not to sleep, to fix the baby’s room of course.

Vishnu has finally arrived and sent Shiva packing.

I lay around trying to sleep but too excited and starting to feel tiny fluttery cramps much like period pains. At some point I did manage to sleep some and morning came.
I was served a lovely breakfast, which I ate with gusto, thinking this will be the fuel I need to push my baby out like the woman of steel I am. Little did I know that my idea of how this birth will go was so way off I am now very grateful for not being able to see into the future because I would have promptly lost that delicious breakfast into the waste basket next to the bed.
To be continued…