I had decided to pay the midwife a final visit at 36 weeks to grill her about the risks of a natural birth after a previous cesarean.
A friend had recently told me about a friend of hers whom attempted a home birth after cesarean and had a catastrophic uterine rupture around her cs scar, consequently losing her perfect little baby and ending up in icu with an emergency hysterectomy.
This obviously scared the bejewelledness out of me. On the other hand, this particular midwife had a 98% success rate with vbacs (vaginal birth after cesarean) and has never lost a patient or seen a uterine rupture. Surely she has some special magic to add to the mix?
I also liked that she worked with soft, natural light, calming music, aromatherapy and a team of doula's.
I mean if you are going this route, might as well do the airy fairy version, right? I had no intention of attempting a vbac on the flat of my back in a private hospital where no one seems even remotely capable of communicating coherently with you about what's going on. It took me years to piece together what actually happened with my firstborn.
Either way, she examined me and everything she said and did made me more relaxed and determined to do this naturally so I decided to commit.
She told me to start using evening primrose oil, which I did. She referred me to a chiropractor (very sceptical about them but hey) and I made an appointment.
On Monday I thanked my gyne for his wonderful services and relieved him of his duty as designated birth practitioner.
On Tuesday (yesterday) I went to the chiro and had myself "unlocked", "aligned" and "kafoofled" (jk). Then I went to Irene Dairy Farm with my little girl to celebrate our new found freedom on level 3 of lockdown.
This was not a simple move because somewhere between the trip to the chiro and home my car picked up car-Rona and refused to start again when we wanted to head out. I was so determined to go show my toddler some cows and other people, though, that husband and I managed to wiggle out his little car from behind my hulking shipwreck and off we went.
Being in the open air and seeing other people with little kids running around was fantastic. We ran into friends, we hugged even though we have been told repeatedly not to by Uncle Cyril. My little girl hugged a random strange lady and I allowed it. The sun shone and the breeze wafted gently over Autumn leaves. Life was lovely.
Came home, washed off the Rona, fed the little one and went to bed (I totally just made this process sound easy, which it isn't but don't get me started on that right now). Lying in bed I started having irritating Braxton Hicks pains but the baby has been pushing down on my cervix for a few weeks already and bh contractions have been par for the course. It ended up really bothering me so I took two paracetamol and drifted off to sleep.
At 23:00 I awoke to what felt like mild contractions. Having went into labour with my firstborn at exactly 36 weeks and 5 days, I had secretly been waiting for something to happen. A bloody show or ruptured membranes, perhaps. I wasn't too hurried, however, because it took me 21 hours to get to four centimetres with the first one so why rush it now?
I then had a bowel movement and thought maybe the pains will abate now but around half past I decided to phone the midwife just to be safe.
I could hear from her voice that she had been sleeping and was really hoping this cup will pass until morning. She said to take two paracetamol and get into a warm bath.
"When should I phone again?" I asked a bit desperately because I was convinced that I was starting to labour but felt guilty for waking her and like the polite thing to do was to be obedient to the trained professional and not to "stribbel tee".
"When contractions hurt so much you can't walk or talk and they are spaced five minutes apart and about one minute long".
Okee doke, into the bath, down with the pills. Downloaded a contraction timer on my phone and started asking questions on WhatsApp and Facebook groups.
It seemed like the whole world was asleep where normally they would be bothering me with messages and jokes when I wanted to rest.
Thanks Murphy. 'Ol Murph. Murph-Meister, how's it hangin'.
After an hour and a half of steady contractions getting more and more painful I got out of the tub and rang the midwife again.
"There is blood now", I say hopefully.
"Send a photo", she replies sceptically.
By the time she received the photos, minutes later, I was screaming.
Contractions came about every two minutes and lasted about 50 seconds and hurt like seven shits. I was no longer quiet and the toddler woke up and started demanding answers. During all this time I had been pottering around, brushing and flossing my teeth (and remember kids; if I can do it during early labour, you have no excuse not to. Oral hygiene is important dammit), and packing a few extra things.
When contractions got to noise level 6 out of 10 I could no longer focus on tasks at hand and decided to phone my mom.
I had wanted to phone her for hours but I knew that she would just worry and send me into a panic, which I was managing to do all by myself quite nicely, thank you very much.
I had to hang up the first time because I needed to scream a little bit during a contraction. Somehow in this time I ended up on the phone with both my midwife and my mom and every time I thought I was talking to the professional, going: "OOOOOOOOOW IT HURTS! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!" my poor worried mother would be on the other side going: "Oh dear...I have no idea...perhaps the hospital would be best?".
I finally decided to get the hell out of Dodge now because this was not funny or romantic or a bowel movement anymore.
"Husband!" I bark, a hair's breadth away from snapping my fingers at him, where he is busy leisurely making coffee and contemplating having a poop and a shower, "get in the car."
"What about Dita?"
"She can come along"
"What should I bring?"
*Screaming a bit and then answering breathlessly and irritatedly*
"The shit I've been trying to pack all month and also this evening"
I manage to get outside where the moon is illuminating everything in a dull white glow. The car has locked itself again and another biggie is approaching.
Not wanting to scare the scheister out of the security guard stationed right outside our house by yelling loudly into the night without warning, I limp back into the house to yell at the wall and staircase, scaring the scheister out of my little girl.
Meanwhile Tommie is lugging miscellaneous pieces of baggage into the car and I start making my way back outside. The very second I get into the backseat I feel the need to stand on my hands and knees and roar like a trained circus lion, which I do with gusto, sending all the dogs in the neighbourhood mad.
Happily this inspires my family to finally start getting a move on, I mean which part of "HOOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLL ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!" don't you understand?
Beloved husband and daughter gets into car and immediately starts asking darling little questions, like:
"Are you okay?"
*Scream-roar!*
"Mamma eina?"
*Roar roar whimper*
"What's happening?"
*Quick Roar* "THE BABY'S COMING OUT!" *gag*.
"Where are we going?"
"TAKE ME TO HOSPITAL, I AM DYING!"
"Which hospital?"
Really?
"THE CLOSEST ONE! PRETORIA EAST...DYING!" *cry and pray pitifully into the backrest*.
Car finally starts pulling away and I envision being injected with large amounts of morphine before passing away peacefully. I vaguely hear husband talking to midwife and being instructed to take me to her and not the hospital. I am too busy roaring, crying and praying to argue.
The trip to the birthing house took approximately one lifetime (later confirmed to have been 18 minutes) during which I clung to the backseat wishing for oblivion, grinding my teeth to a fine dust and pushing with all my might into an adult diaper.
There was a ladybird sitting on the felt hatchback cover, like the tiniest little doula in existence, going: "You can do this! I'm good luck, maybe some people believe!"
On the way home I realised she was dead, though...
At some point something that felt like a water balloon shot out of me with an almost audible sploosh and another hard, t-shaped thing got stuck in its place.
When we finally stopped at the birthing house, doors opened, hands grabbed at me and people were asking me to get out of the car, which was not going to happen because I was contracting almost constantly and needed to focus all my energy on roaring.
"Elmien, time to get out of the car"
"Une momentito, mon pepito! Having a tiny spot of bother over here and what-have-you, (roar?)"
Gentle hands helped me out of the car-of-doom and into a lovely, softly lit room-of-doom where I continued my song. Three pairs of hands quickly stripped me of my outfit and ushered me into a lovely, warm bathtub-of-doom where my pain suddenly dropped about 50%, promoting the bathtub to Bathtub-of-only-tentative-mewling, which was a monumental step up, ohmywerd.
My hands and knees were grabbed and my cervix unceremoniously frisked and I was ordered NOT to push which threw me off for a bit but then I was ordered to PUSH and the lovely doula was telling me how amazing and powerful I was and how far I've come and how close my baby was.
"Is everything fine? Is the baby okay?" I doubtfully asked the midwife and she said, as calmly as can be: "Of course!"
Everyone looked wide awake and ready to birth about twenty babies and I felt a massive surge of gratitude to these people, leaving their lovely warm beds at 03:00 in the morning so I can roar loudly into their ears for a bit.
The pushing continued, accompanied by me still plaintively roaring (trying very hard to use my "indoor roar") and the team giving weird instructions like push out your navel, into your bum and make a seal with your mouth.
When the baby started grinding down my coccyx I tried to explain to them that I have now changed my mind and would like to close my legs and go home, please, they would have none of it and roped in my traitorous husband to help keep my knees far apart so baby can continue her coccyx destroying little dance.
"The head is coming!"
"You should see your little one's face!"
(Which little one I am still not sure, the toddler gaping into the birthing tub or the baby playing peekaboo in my special place).
"Looks like a blondie!"
BLOOP! PLONKS.
I suddenly had a tiny baby on my chest. She was covered in butter and if she had subtitles, they would read "wtf is this?".
I stared in slack-jawed amazement at this little person that ended up being alive and not killing me in her birthing process, either.
"Hallo klein Danté! Dankie dat jy uitgekom het! Jammer mamma het so gebrul. Dit was bietjie seer" I said, or at least would have said if I weren't too busy blubbering like all the ladies in all the birthing videos I have ever watched.
The midwife, who have now been elevated to status Saint, allowed the umbilical chord to pump the very last of its riches into my little child before handing hubby a pair of special scissors to cut it with.
She then approached the baby and me with a syringe and needle and thinking she meant to inject the baby I gave an indignant little squawk as she jammed it into my thigh.
"Just to bring the placenta out"
So, I had to push a little more and she ended up putting her hand back into me and manually removing a little bit of the placenta that was not detaching and this hurt again but was over quickly at least.
I had torn a little and needed four stitches that were also not fun to endure but honestly, once you've delivered a child in any way, you know that none of it is particularly pleasant or dignified.
The team spent the rest of the morning monitoring me and the baby and gently taking some colostrum from me and syringe feeding it to her when she didn't have the suckling reflex yet. I was fed mini bar ones, jelly beans and Energade and constantly asked if I need anything else.
These people earned every penny they made today and still did it with so much more care, patience and compassion than the arrogant fat cats that delivered my first born at thrice the price.
As the city headed to work and the sun climbed slowly at a winter's angle, we headed home, now the proud parents of two beautiful little princesses.
Hear us roar.
