Day Like These I Guess Mother Really Does Know Best by Heather Brown
Technically my story takes place overnight, but since it all happened in a twenty-four hour period I think it counts
Let me set the scene for you. Between the heartburn and the fact that I have the bladder retention of a soggy tea bag I haven’t had a full night sleep in weeks. I only know I have on matching shoes because I asked my husband to check before I left the house. I feel huge and uncomfortable, swollen and sweaty, in part due to the heat in the hospital waiting room. In short I am nine months pregnant with my third baby and impatiently waiting to see the duty midwife to tell her I’m in labour.
The room they move my mum and I to wait in is clean and utterly devoid of any personality or warmth. The door opens and in walks a sight no heavily pregnant woman should ever be subjected to - the Midwife, the ridiculously skinny midwife with nary a hair out of place, perfectly made up face and immaculately pressed uniform. I force myself to swallow my irrational hatred of her just because she has a waistline and begin to answer her questions. (Honestly why do they bother making you carry about your notes if they are going to ask you the same questions every time.)
After question time Skinny straps me down to the foetal heart monitor for twenty long boring minutes. (For anyone who has never been exposed to this particular torture device, it consists of two pads that are placed on your baby bump to monitor the baby’s heart beat and any contractions. They are held on by straps made out of the same stuff they make car seatbelts out of. (I say held on, but the grip is tenuous at best which means that should you move more than is required to breathe they will become dislodged and you will have to start the whole monitoring period all over again.)
After twenty minutes of staring at the very blank walls I am finally released from the belts. Skinny glances at the test results being printed out and then turns to me in her most sugary sweet patronising voice said,
“Really Mrs Brown just because tomorrow is your due date doesn’t mean baby will come out on time. I’m sending you home!”
“Mrs Brown, of course you will have time to get back here when you are properly in labour, you are being a bit hysterical” At this point I better explain why I am now so angry at her that I am grinding my teeth down to bloody stumps as she continues to talk over mine and my mothers protests. My labour with baby number two was induced in the hospital and they still nearly missed the birth. I’m serious, it went some thing like this;
7pm doctor says we are going to have to induce me all over again because nothing is happening.
7:30pm my waters break spontaneously
7:45pm I ask for gas and air and I am told by the midwife “ Don’t be silly! Its not nearly time for that yet!” (Of course I still think that decision has more to do with the fact that she is finishing in fifteen minutes and wants to get away on time than anything else.)
8:10pm my husband drags the first midwife of the new shift that goes past the door into our room and she realises that baby is crowning.
8:30pm baby is out, fed, dressed and named. The paperwork is done and the midwife has evaporated into the night. For most women labour is a marathon, it turns out I am more of a sprinter.
If Skinny had read my notes at all, she would know this, she would also realise I live a good half hour away from the hospital. I have told her in no uncertain terms at some point in the next few hours baby number three will be arriving. swiftly. But what do I know, its only my body! All I am asking for is the chance to sit in the waiting room so that when my body changes gears I am within shouting distance of medical assistance. Skinny is losing patience with me now, I can tell because the sugary tones of her voice have gone a bit sour and she isn’t looking at me when she is talking to me, but at the door. The supercilious twit grudgingly explains to us what to if baby arrives in the house, only because we refuse to leave without knowing and then all but frog marches us to the exit. Giving up trying to get her listen to me, I shake my head at her in disgust and go home.
Some hours later I feel the telltale shift of my body getting into gear. I phone mum to take me back to the hospital but by the time I hang up the phone I know it’s too late to move. My husband phones for an ambulance and is told it will be five minutes. I really don’t want to give birth in the house, Its going to be messy and I am scared. I don’t want my children to see or hear me in this state and I am scared. My mum arrives minutes before the ambulance and takes charge of the kids. The ambulance man barely has time to tell me his name before my waters break at his feet. (my eldest spends the next week telling anyone that will listen that his mummy pee’d on the living room carpet, guess I don’t have to worry anymore about him being traumatised by the sight.) Forty minutes after calling the ambulance I am being wheeled into the hospital right past Skinny’s slack-jawed face with my beautiful new daughter in my arms. I look pointedly at her, I hope she gets the message. On days like these I guess mother really does know best.
