It has been exactly three weeks since our little angel has arrived and yet I remember the events as it happened as if it was yesterday. Our saga started on the 16th of November. I knew honey would arrive home at around 3pm so I decided to wait for him to have lunch so we ended lunching at around 3:30 pm so that night I decided not to have dinner coz I was still full from the very late lunch. I was happily re-reading new moon in anticipation of watching the movie in a couple of days when I remembered to bug honey to buy our tickets online for the coming Thursday (19th of November) which was the first day of showing of New Moon here in the Netherlands. He ended up buying the tickets at around 10 pm while telling me to stop reading and to go to bed.
I was still reading at around 11pm when all of a sudden, a gush of liquid came out of me. My water broke! I immediately called honey and told him “honey, I don’t think we’ll be able to use those tickets after all, my water just broke.” My general practitioner instructed us that in case my water broke late at night or very early morning, I should sleep and call them in the morning, so I tried to sleep. However, the contractions started, at first mild but were gaining strength by the hour then at around 4 am, when I went to the toilet, there were traces of blood in my undies and so I told honey to call the midwife. When the midwife and the assistant arrived, they told us that they we’re not sure if it was really water or pee that came out of me so they said I should rest coz I might not even give birth any time soon.
So I tried to rest but no avail, the contractions started to get stronger. At around 9 am I told honey to contact the GP again and when they arrived, they checked me and told me that I was 2 cm dilated, they told me that I should just wait a while and they will come back to check on my status after a couple of hours.
At around 3pm, the GPs arrived and checked on me again. At this time I was really exhausted and I haven't eaten except for 2 pieces of bread that honey insisted I eat. After checking on me, the GPs told me that I was only 3 cm dilated so it was going really slowly. They suggested that we go to the hospital already so that I could be given morphine for the pain so that I could rest coz the labour process could be long.
Honey and I arrived at the hospital at around 4pm and when we arrived, the doctor explained to me the options for medication but that time, the pain subsided so I decided not to have any medications. However, around 8pm, the pain was already too much and I was too tired from the long labour, not to mention lack of food coz I was not able to eat anything at all (I tell you labor messes with your appetite), so I asked for medication. However, since I’m already 7cm dilated, epidural was out of the question, I was given morphine, but the medication didn’t have any effect on me so it was a long and painful labour. Honey was starting to worry about me as I writhe in bed with agony. Now I know why they call it such.
After what seemed to be an eternity of torturous pain and squishing honey’s hand that would definitely require him to undergo therapy, the doctor finally said that I was fully dilated and should push when I felt the pushing contractions come. Within half an hour of pushing, the doctor told me that I was pushing well but the heartbeat of the baby rises each time I push so they would need to make the delivery quicker by using a clamp. With a few more pushes and through the help of the clamp, our little angel was out, finally. The moment they placed her on my chest, all the pain seemed to have vanished. Honey cut her umbilical cord and he told me it was a really strange feeling, good kind of strange.
Giving birth to our little Charlie is something that I would remember for the rest of my life. I have experienced pain that I have never experienced in my whole life. But in spite of the exquisite pain, I would go through it all again just to have Charlie in our lives.
