That time I got de gooched

Today is D- Day. Naturally I’m writing this after, believe me if you manage to write a blog post during labour you’re a better woman than I am.

So me, hubby and my mum all traipse off to the induction ward at the arse crack of dawn. The midwife puts the pessary in and then we wait. Obviously overwhelmed by the focus on my under-crackers the husband decides he’s going off into town to do a bit of shopping….. which actually worked out well- despite all my obsessive packing of my baby bag, I discover I’ve only brought jeans to labour in. So he gets sent off to buy me something that isn’t jeans to wear. The day part was pretty peaceful to be honest. The hospital food didn’t look great so we sent Ste to Wok’n’Go on his way back from town and we all sat in my cubicle scoffing Chinese food and generally having a lovely old time. Ste managed to spill his all over himself, which sent him into a spiral of madness over grease stains. Naturally he scarpered off to clean it and came back looking like he’d vomited all over himself.

Obviously Chinese food and labour are incompatible because about an hour after eating my contractions started ramping up. The midwife had (as I saw it) the barefaced cheek to offer me two paracetamol. No love, I want gas and air- this whole time I’ve been promised the good painkillers and now I’m being fobbed off. Muuuum tell her.

When my pains got to two minutes apart the lad in the cubicle next to me made the fatal mistake of ringing his mum about his, also labouring partner. “Her contractions are every 15 minutes and she’s doing so well” I accept that it was probably out of order for me to loudly hiss “we all know they’re every 15 minutes from the pants and wails”.  It was at this point they decided to transfer me to the labour ward- probably to stop me being lynched for making snide comments about Moaning Myrtle next door.

The delivery midwife introduces herself as Pam- this has bearing on my story later. Pam offers me an epidural but sweet summer child that I am I insist that gas and air is more than sufficient for my pain. Of course it was Dannielle you fucking imbecile, you’re only 1cm in. So I’m happy chuffing away on my gas and air and all is right with the world. Now since Pam very first said her name I’ve had the song “black betty- pam balam” going through my drug addled mind.

Halfway through Coronation Street Pam decides she’s going on her lunch. My uterus decides that now would be an opportune time for all fucking hell to break loose. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone in labour but the pain reached a level where my body was so outraged I lost the ability to even think. That might explain me roaring at my mother to “get Betty and her magic glove in here, I need an epidural”.  Sadly the nurse who answered my dulcet bellow wasn’t Pam. She was however far too cheerful to be allowed in the room, so I made my poor mum throw her out.

Unnamed nurse- I sincerely apologise.

Pam decided to bring in what must have been the world’s most nervy anaesthetist because I swear every time I huffed that gas and air he jumped. Epidural goes in and some semblance of calm is restored.

 Ste decides he’s sleepy and needs a nap to fortify himself for the long night ahead. So off he goes to sleep in the car….returning about 30 minutes later declaring he’s frozen. So he took himself off to the bathroom. I drop off to sleep to be woken up by my mum and two nurses howling laughing at my husband, asleep on a pile of bags on the toilet floor wearing….wait for it….an eye mask.

Ladies and gentlemen- my husband, phantom of the labour ward.

I don’t know whether to be genuinely impressed at the level of forethought that went into bringing an eye mask into his child’s birth, or terrified at what the display of such evil genius holds for my future.

Post eye mask the rest of delivery was a blur of blood and howling (mostly mine) and my husband came out of it with the thousand yard stare of a veteran of a dreadful battle, for quite some time afterwards. When questioned on the worst bit he says the episiotomy  “the sound- it was like when you cut the head off a fish” obviously the savage de-gooching had an effect on both of us.

Welcome to the world baby girl! 6lb 4oz of love. Sorry you don't have a name yet because your dad want's to name you after the woman in the Alien films.