Dear Thumper,
Hi. This is Mom.
And I guess it’s time to call you by your real name. Which, after much ado (and I do mean A-DO) is Milla Emme Janks. I’m going to call you Mimi, I think.
[Ed – In practice, this hasn’t happened. I call you Miellie. Not as elegant, but whatever.)
Welcome, poppet.
You’re here!
And you’re so beautiful. Dad and I are loving getting to know you and working out how to make you happy, full and satisfied.
More on that later.
First: your birth story.
I was in the bath around 7pm or so, and got a message from Auntie Claudia to say that her baby had arrived. By then you were 40 weeks and 5 days cooked, I was getting a bit desperate and there was a Monday morning induction looming on 4 April. Also, Clau had been due two weeks after me, so I was a bit sad that you’d still not come…
Dad and I ate toasted sarmies for dinner and settled on the couch to watch The Wire (incidentally, the second best TV show of all time). On top of the usual radical BHCs, with accompanying pain and timing, I kept feeling funny ‘leaking’ sensations, but as this is a fairly regular feature of pregnancy – if you’ll excuse the TMI – I wasn’t too fazed.
And it was minor. More like dribbling, in fact, if we’re being completely honest.
After a very short time, however, I got uncomfortable and missioned up the stairs to check it all out (and to make wee #276 of the day) and guess what? Pink fluid! Amniotic fluid! Yay! I shrieked down the stairs to Dad, all pleased with myself, and we were in business.
Within minutes, the dribbling was running, the fluid was blood, I was a bit concerned and Marilyn was texted for advice (the first of many such text messages over the course of the next few hours). We were told to hang tight (‘try to get some rest’ – yes, that’s likely), time the contractions and get back to her in a couple of hours with more info. So, we did.
The contractions came on quite quickly and shocked me because they were nothing like the BHCs I’d had for the previous three or four weeks. Nothing. A totally different story.
Different area. Differing type of pain. Different duration, accumulation and sensation. They’re right, you know: when you’re in real labour, you just know. But anyway…
Dad and I were doing a pretty good job of pain management, I thought. Lots of swaying, and walking around, and bending over the bed (best position ever), and trying the ball and abandoning the ball, and gasping, and being smartly told not to hold my breath.
But, considering how painful it all was, I really think we were handling well. We got packed up and sorted, I had a shower and washed my hair (though I only shampooed once), and we planned to meet Marilyn at the Parklane at 1.45am. I felt sorry for her because she’d only just finished with Claudia’s delivery around 5pm – but what can you do?
The ride to the clinic (at 2am, a ghost town) wasn’t too bad – tho it did feel endless – and by the time we got there the contractions were pretty close together; three minutes or so.
We headed for the active birthing unit, which is a red-white-and-hospital-patterned monstrosity only slightly less awful than a normal birthing room. It has a huge king-size bed instead of a hospital cot, and a birthing pool, but the bathroom lights didn’t work and neither did the lamps, and I wasn’t very impressed in general. Hid it well, though.
Marilyn did an internal. Yowza. It was excruciating. Especially when I realised that, at only 2cm dilated, I’d have approximately eight more internals over the coming hours…
Within an hour or two I’d dilated only 3cm in total and was in agony. Apparently I was having a ‘back labour’ – when the baby is in a posterior position with the back of its head pressing against the mother’s sacrum – and these are much more painful than usual.
Anyway, end result – I asked for an epidural. I felt a bit wimpy about it. Okay, a lot wimpy. But I couldn’t see how I’d have enough energy after 10 hours of that pain to push you out, even with your small head, and I figured I could blame the wimpishness on the back labour.
Problem #1? You can’t have an epidural in the active birthing unit. You need a proper hospital delivery room, complete with drip, catheter, medical equipment and all that jazz. No water, no squatting, no standing, no walking. It’s lying down all the way. Yuk.
But I decided to do it anyway. Goodbye, water. Goodbye, dolphin baby. Hello, blue gown.
Rudolph, the anaethetist, arrived, and he and Marilyn got me hooked up and sorted out. He explained the risks, which I largely laughed off, including the all-important fact that 90% of people respond brilliantly to epidurals and 10% don’t. This gets important later…
Then I got a needle in my spine and waited for the blissful numbness to descend.
Nothing.
The right went numb. The left felt the same. The contractions were really sore on the left still, tho I felt nothing on the right and worse, I had to use a bedpan – because we needed both sides to be numb before we could insert the catheter… Skaam, skaam, skaam.
(Btw, if I thought that was skaam, I had no idea what was coming. Dignity at the door.)
About an hour later Rudolph decided to do another epidural, as the first wasn’t working and wasn’t going to work – again, he explained the risks, which grow with every attempt. But guess what, baby girl? No luck. Numb on the right. Nothing on the left. Except pain.
Enter pethidine. Such a disgusting substance, that effed me up so badly, that I won’t deign to give it coverage beyond the fact that I hated it, and it hated me, and I regret taking it.
Marilyn did a second internal and broke the bad news. I was still only 3cm dilated, after 10 hours of labour, two failed epidurals and a cloud of bloody evil pethidine. What’s worse, you’d turned and were face-up and after all our efforts, your head was starting to swell. (This, despite your being in the most texbookly perfect position for most of 41 weeks…)
We had to get you out. I had to have a Caesar. Birth plan demolished. New plan in play.
Oh, and before I forget, Jivvy the Genius was away. For the weekend. There was a locum.
By this time Veronica was with us. And I was just shy of hysterical with disappointment, fear and no small measure of guilt. Was it the epidurals (the wimpishness) that had halted labour, made you turn or made your head swell? Or did that happen all by itself?
[Ed: Holy crap. The last time I looked at this page was a week ago. Jesus. They weren’t kidding about not having time to get shit done… I manage to bath daily, wee when needed and occasionally put some lip stuff on, but that’s it, china. Anyways, onwards…]
I was shaved, suited and schlepped into theatre where I encountered a very crosspatch face among several others: Dr Bothner’s. Jivvy’s OB locum, Bothner had apparently been called in last-minute and she was NOT best pleased. She had a bat mitzvah to get to (and treated it with all of the urgency of a gentile who doesn’t really understand a) reform bat mitzvahs or b) Jewish time) and was noticeably pissed off at having been called in ‘late’.
She crapped all over poor Veronica, avoided making eye contact with me and without so much as a ‘Hello, I’m Dr Bothner. Let’s get started.’, told the theatre staff they had 15 minutes to ‘get this done’. I was blubbing my eyes out, as a result of being very, very stoned and sad about the Caesar, Dan was out of the room temporarily and the lovely Rudolph was holding my hand. Soon Dad came back in and the Caesar began.
Thanks to the spinal block – which, thank Gd, worked – I felt little except some pulling, pushing and shoving. And within minutes, there you were, on my chest for some skin-on-skin, covered in vernix and so pink and perfect. I cried. Dad howled. It was very sweet.
I must have ‘sobered up’ for that brief moment, because I remember that bit clearly, but the before and most of the after are a large blur. One thing I do recall is saying ‘Shir Ha Ma’alot’ in my head – weirdness deluxe - and thinking about Granny Fraida almost constantly from when you came out to when they took you away for weighing, etc.
Bothner finished up, sewed me up and effed off. No goodbye, no good luck. And I turned to Veronica and loudly pointed out that the doc had the bedside manner of Hitler. I am quoting here. No flies on me. Pity she’s German, tho, as that’s quite a bad joke…
But, moving on…
As I’ve said, much of what followed was drug-induced haze, but you did latch nicely (at first) in the recovery room and I couldn’t feel a thing, including my legs and feet… We were moved to our (thank Gd) private room in Ward 1, and then our life together really began…
Mom, Hil and John came in at some point – no-one cried, which disappointed me a bit – and I have absolutely no idea what happened next. In fact, much of what followed was a mix of hospital indignity (tho the Parklane maternity staff are divine, divine, divine), blood, gore, and lots and lots of medical professionals popping in to poke and prod us…
Caesars are damn sore and I did, at some stage, promise Dad that I’d never, ever have more children. But two weeks down the line, and almost altogether recovered (amazing, that), I’m over it and I’d certainly do it again. At 38 weeks. Civilised, like. With nice hair, nice nails, a wax, and a pre-determined date that suits everyone – including Jivkov.
There’s so much more I want to tell you. About your first few days and weeks. And what we’re learning about you and how super-cool you are. But I’ll get to it. Eventually.
Let me just say that while all the planning got cocked up completely, you were more than worth it. And meeting you was amazing, and getting to know you is beautiful, and I cannot get over how exquisite you are, that Dad and I made you and that you came out of me.
You’re here. We love you. Thank you for being pink, perfect and so, so, so pretty!
Love Mom x
