The Birth Plan

When I visited the maternity ward at the hospital, the nurse told me that I should get a birth plan onto paper. "Um, a what?" I asked, feeling stupid that I had already had a child and had no clue what that was. The first time around was very difficult (you can read about that here) and so I guess I just expected things to go the same way. As I left the hospital I began to think of things that I wanted to have happen this time around. A) I wanted my mom there, because she wasn't allowed to be in the room in France. And B) I wanted an epidural. Oh no, I am not a martyr, I am not a hero, and so Mother and Epidural were the only two things on my birth plan.

I suppose I could have also added August Baby to the list, but with a due date of Aug 31st, and Charlotte who was 2 weeks late, I had pretty much resigned myself to having a September baby. Julien would just laugh at me about my explanations as to why an August baby would be so much better than a September baby, and chalked it up to me being hormonal and being sick of being pregnant. I, however, thought they were legitimate. August, for me, feels like summer. Relaxed. Calm. Sunny. When I hear September, I feel crazy busy and can only think of school starting, school zones where traffic backs up, homework, and pulling out the winter clothes as the weather gets cooler.

And so, with everything ready for the baby and my simple birth plan written out and put into my suitcase, the wait was on. I worked my last shift at 38.5 weeks pregnant, went home, and unpacked some boxes at our new place. I did my best during that 39Th week to get the baby to come. Acupuncture. Chinese food. Spicy food. Exercise ball. Lifting and unpacking more boxes. Running up and down stairs. Jumping in the bouncy castle. Quality time with Julien. All of this, and only braxton hicks to show for it.

August 31st came along, and I had pretty much resigned myself to having a September baby. I was also sure that I would go way over due, seeing as how I'd had my membrances stripped twice and nothing was happening. Where I ripped my groin muscle because of my pelvic displasia. Yes, a big fat tear in the muscle causing a lot of bruising, swelling, and worst of all, leaving me unable to move my leg. How are you supposed to give birth when you cant separate your legs?

After having a laser therapy treatment on my torn muscle to try and reduce swelling, I wasn't feeling very good. I left the clinic and went to my mom's, thinking that I just needed to rest. At about 8pm I headed for home to put Charlotte to bed and try and get some rest myself, because what I thought to be braxton hicks were getting pretty regular and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would have a baby in the next 48 hours.

Arriving home around 9, Julien plopped Charlotte in the bath while I got ready to lie down. It was a short lived bath for Charlotte, because as soon as I went to the loo, I noticed an awful lot of bloody show. And then contractions. Intense contractions, 5 minutes apart. The kind where you can't talk and you forget to breathe. And so off to the hospital we went, calling my mom and sister in law en route to meet us there. The 45 minute drive seemed to take forever, and I was hanging on to that holy crap handle in the car for dear life. And every 4 minutes now, intense pain.

Arriving at the hospital at 10pm, I waited for the nurse to check me. Charlotte's Auntie came and picked her up to take her away for the night. After being checked, the nurse threatened to send me home. "You're only 3 cm", she said, "and it's much too early for an epidural. You could stay that way for quite some time. But since you live 45 minutes away, why don't you walk for an hour, and then well see. If theres no progress, then you can go home and get some sleep."

And walk I did, with my mom and Julien at my side. All the while, the contractions were getting closer and closer together. By the time 11pm rolled around, I was contracting every 2 minutes and I was begging for the epidural. I was checked by the OBGYN as promised, and was at 6cm. He decided to break my waters and called the anaesthetist up. At around 11:30pm, they started to put in the epidural. But when I sat up to put it in, I could barely sit still. I felt like throwing up, like my insides were exploding, and like I needed to go to the bathroom for the big commission, as they say in French.

When the nurse heard that, she checked and was surprised to see that I was fully dilated and ready to push. Epidural not effective, the nurse called the specialist and the paediatrician (my waters had meconium in it) to come stat. They helped me get into position, taking care not to hurt my bad leg.

I remember saying, "I am soooooooo never doing this again!!!!!" after an insane contraction, and I remember the burning. Oh, the burning. I was crying, and then apologizing for crying, but I couldnt help myself. It just hurt so badly. I hadn't prepared myself at all for an eventual natural birth, and had no idea what I was supposed to do, or how to breathe through the contractions. With every contraction I felt myself floating away, and then the doctor would coax me gently back to earth.

And when I thought I couldnt handle any more pain, the doctor told me, "Come on Becky, the head is out, just one more push and you'll have your August baby!" I looked up at the clock. It was 11:56pm. And so push I did, with every last bit of strength I had left. I felt a rush of relief as I have never felt in my life, and my little Elowenn Rose was born August 31st at 11:59pm.

As I got stitched up, I looked at the new little one in my arms and fell in love. She was perfect in every way. I relished the absence of the most intense pain I've ever felt. I was able to breathe again. My mom and Julien were both there to look at our new precious bundle.

And then I tried to prepare for what I knew would be a terrible experience: nursing my new little one. With Charlotte, I would have rather given birth again than nurse 50 times a day. Every time that little babe latched on it was excruciatingly painful. For 19 months I had trooped on with her, enduring the bleeding blisters, abcesses, monthly bouts of mastitis, and pain. And I expected that this time it would be the same.

But I nursed Elowenn and was so surprised that for the very first time in my life as a mother, it didn't hurt. It was then that it dawned on me that I had endured 19 friggin months of bleeding nipples,infections and severe pain because Charlotte had a bad latch, and since I didn't have any support with breast feeding in Europe, I didn't know that this was the problem.

My recovery was pretty speedy this time around, and as I reflected on how things had gone, I realized that having a birth plan in place didn't prepare me at all for how things were going to go. It did, however, convince me that if ever there's a next time, I will definitely just go with the flow, and do the research for every type of delivery ;-)