Momsicles 102

Birth. The miracle of life. For some people, they have their first look at their child and suddenly life makes sense. Some people feel love for the baby and strength for having delivered the baby. Me, I looked at my baby and I thought, “she has a big forehead. She is giving me a zap sign; she hates me already. Say something nice.”

We gave my obstetrician a vast sum of money in exchange for his experience and influence over the midwives on D-day. He returned the favour with the following instructions on my hospital notes: “Low pain threshold. Give epidural.”

And yes, I got my epidural right from the start. The contractions were painful enough to hold my breath and perhaps let out a squeak once or twice but not as painful as the lady down the hall who was screaming. (The midwife said she was just getting started.)

The anesthetist came in with a large needle, swabbed my back and told me to hold still. A contraction came the same time as he jabbed me and instead of saying, “faaaaacckkkkkk” (I thought it instead), I said “ahhhh”. I hope the midwives and anesthetist appreciated how polite I was.

I lay there, blissfully unaware of the contractions and I wanted to go to sleep. Baby wasn’t progressing down according to plan so after some discussions and some hours they took me down to the theatre for a cesarean. My lovely anesthetist friend came and topped up my numbing dose. I just wanted to close my eyes for a few minutes. By some stroke of luck, my obstetrician checked me, saw I was fully dilated and changed plans again for a vaginal delivery. It was 1:30ish AM, I was high as a kite from the epidural and I really just wanted a little bit of sleep.

My body was telling my mind to shut down, my mind was thinking, “this is the birth of your baby, the most important day of your life! You cant go to sleep!” and the obstetrician was saying “push! Push! Push!”

Thea came out; they cleaned her up, took some photos, wrapped her up and gave her to me. I held her with my left hand because my right hand was still paralyzed from the epidural. I looked at her face, studied her features and said, “Amma’s little jelly bean. Because you look like a jelly bean.”

Momsicles 101

Some people say the birth of your child is the happiest day of your life. (Before that it was when you got married. Before marriage it was when you used your paycheck for greater good.)  So, first child is being born, it’s a day to remember because the miracle of the baby is much more stronger and lasting than the excruciating pain of pushing out a watermelon via a hole that does NOT accept a watermelon sized dick.

Finding out I was pregnant meant changing a lot of plans for the year – including a big relocation to the other side of the world. It took me some time to accept this diversion in the path, along with the new assumption by other people that I now have invalid status. Can't carry suitcases, can't run around the airport, can't eat NY cheesecake (because I thought I could only have hard cheeses), slept a lot, always got a seat – all because of this tadpole sized baby inside of me. A baby I couldn’t feel or see or touch but it completely took over my life from the start.

The first scan to see the tadpole and hear the heartbeat made it real.  I spent the next week scrutinizing the ultrasound, trying to find features on the baby. I also spent a lot of time thinking, “I am going to be a mother. For fucks sake, I am going to be a mother. I don’t even know what to do!”

I was indifferent to the baby for the first few months of my pregnancy. Then the belly started showing and I started feeling some kicks. I could make baby kick on command, with bop-bop here and a bop-bop back.

At about 7 months, I found out that the religious Bio Oil massaging I did every night was an absolute waste of time and oil. I developed stretch marks on my hips. I looked at my naked self in the mirror and saw I had stretch marks under my belly (and promptly yelled at my husband for not telling me about the stretch marks). I was lying in bed one afternoon feeling up my body and discovered stretch marks on my inner thighs. By 9 months I wanted this baby out because that’s when I saw two stretch marks on my right and left biceps (from all the massaging, I guess.) I wanted baby to come out before she caused more scars on my body. And yes, I also wanted to meet this tiny watermelon human and see her face and know her personality.