on Wednesday, 19th of January (week 39), we had just been at the midwife for a checkup. I hadn’t gotten any hints our baby girl was ready yet and was super fed up with being pregnant. The midwife was telling us “but it could all happen at once before you know it though..!” and I was like “suuure it can”, getting ready for another 2-3 weeks of pregnancy…. Little did I know she would let us know that it was time later that evening and arrive 2 days later.
We went home and had a very chill evening with a nice big dinner. As I was about to brush my teeth I had a pretty solid contraction so I sat down, moved my hips around and took my regular deep breaths. It didn’t last too long so I moved on, but then felt a light stream down my leg when I stood up. I called on Karolos “uhh, I think my water is breaking?!” and as the words came out of my mouth, my water broke, A LOT…. Like in-the-movies-a lot. I kept shaking (being excited, nervous and in shock), saying “but I was gonna go to bed…! I didn’t think it would happen NOW”. We then called the hospital and they told us to come in. From the moment my water broke I felt an increase in my contractions. It had started, for real. And off we went.
It was midnight and we had to drive in slowmotion because of the snowstorm that night. The contractions were increasing in strength and duration by the minute, but were by this time still managable for me. After the first check they had detected a bit of poo from the baby in the water, so we got admitted and ready to see her.
The contractions got worse and freakishly strong by the minute. By this time I was struggling. The midwives said it could be because of the water breaking (which meant stronger, faster and more intense contractions). I couldn’t sleep or eat that night. When I moved it got worse. The contractions came quick and often. I could barely catch a break. And I’ve always managed a lot of pain without too much complaining, even as a kid, but this was new and scary and I wondered how bad it could get as it kept getting worse embracing my whole body. To our disappointment, I had only opened about 1,5 cm and we still had a long way to go…
The hours felt like days to me and the next morning we switched rooms. Karolos was doing his best trying to feed me, talk to me, hold me and give me comfort. I could see how upset he was that he couldn’t help me with my pain, but just having him by my side was everything. We arrived in a room where we thought it would happen, where we thought we would meet our girl… We met new midwives, new techniques and more painkillers. I had already received one or two injections to help me sleep by this time, which did help, for about 30 min before the pain came back.
I lost track of time and every hour felt like a day. I was still opening, but slow. Too slow, in relation to the pain. When I got up to pee, it got worse. At one point I almost passed out. We tried movement, acupuncture, gas, other injections, pills etc. But nothing helped. I threw up and my energy was constantly declining.
Originally, I didn’t want to have the epidural, but in this situation I would have taken anything they could give me for the pain and enough was enough. On the first try with the epidural, something went wrong. The doctor had to call another doctor to help. I was closing my eyes, squeezing Karolos’s hand and crying while trying not to move as the contractions kept coming… Another doctor came and they tried again. Eventually they got it right and eventually I got a moment to breathe without the pain… I immediately fell asleep. I was still opening and was now around 8 cm. Things were looking up, so we thought.
New midwives arrived when Karolos and I were sleeping. They asked me questions and tried making sense of what I said. Karolos woke up and looked at me with a scared face, asking me if I knew who he was and asked me to spell his last name. I was confused why everyone was looking at me the way they did… I had been talking about how the hospital blankets were shipped to our mailboxes and mentioned a garlic press. But eventually I got back to reality and Karolos and the midwives could breathe out as I didn’t have brain damage after all.
The epidural started wearing off at some point later in the evening and I had the worst 15-20 min of my delivery. I had been put on oxytocin to try and speed up the process along with the contractions, which in turn made the contractions stronger (and they were already pretty damn strong). We tried changing positions, gas, more injections…. but nothing helped. I held on to Karolos and only remember pain, crying and constantly zoning out. I remember a woman, before my delivery, saying “they say it will feel like you’re going to die, but it doesn’t! It doesn’t have to be that bad”… But during those 15-20 min I really did feel like I was going to die. As if I had an inner demon torturing me and no one could do anything to help… Eventually the massive pain stopped and I got more pain medication before I zoned out completely. Karolos, my pillar, was my biggest support in all this and I couldn’t have done any of it without him.
Finally I was open 10 cm. I got another epidural, as the first one had worn off, and they adjusted the first one. I had lost feeling of my left leg and the first epidural was potentially put too much to one side. We had different anesthesiologists come in and eventually got the second one. It helped, before it started to wear off again. I started to feel the pain creep up on me again.
At some point in the night we had another doctor come in and had an ultrasound. We could see our little girl had twisted her head a bit, which was a possible reason for her not dropping down despite me being open 10 cm. More doctors came and went and gave their opinion, talking to us about options. She was coming, they said, and it was all going in the right direction. I was opening up, but it could take more time. And we had been working hard for about 36 hours. Our girl wasn’t dropping. I had not been able to eat anything (other than small bits of light food and candies that Karolos gently forced me to have). I had been put on every possible medicine and my body was screaming for some kind of release. I just wanted her out, now. And I couldn’t bear the pain creeping up on me again. Like that inner demon was whispering it was coming back for more. In all of this pain and work, I had even lost the thought of actually holding a baby in my arms. I was so focused on constantly surviving and getting through the next step…. So we had a chat and finally decided; if there was a possibility that it would take longer than 4 hours more- we would go for the C section. Enough was enough. 37 hours had passed and we got rolled up for surgery. Now minutes away from meeting our baby.
I was put on every possible monitor, got checked and carried everywhere, and then got the spinal injection. They said the epidural was good, but they wanted it to be perfect. I was sitting crunched up, always holding Karolos’s hand. The injection took a long time and I remember seeing Karolos grow frustrated. The first injection failed and the needle bent (Karolos told me afterwards), another doctor came in and finally we were good to go. (I’m glad I didn’t see any of this).
I was then talking to Karolos and the two wonderful male nurses behind the curtain. We were chatting about where we were all from and making small talk. One of the guys was from Germany, he said… And all of a sudden, there was a loud scream. A baby! Our baby girl. I got pulled away from my work-process-mentality and exhaled as I was reminded that there was an end game to all this after all. We fell into tears. Karolos said “see, I cry for more than chicken” (which made me laugh – story for another time (inside joke))… And they carried her over, weighed her and put her close to my face. She cuddled up under my neck and I kept saying “it’s real, she’s real!” while tears were streaming down my face. Karolos said she had my lips and I said she had his eyelashes. We both said “she’s got hair!!” (this was always a guess during my pregnancy)… No matter all the little things and the crazy journey we had just been through… SHE was here, a person, and she was wonderful. On the 21st of January, at 14.14, she arrived. 50 cm and 3,466 kg of love. Everything else could wait.