I can see our restaurant from here
When CJ and I had been dating six months, we had outdone all our previous relationships by a lot, and we celebrated by going to the Telstra Tower revolving restaurant, Alto. It’s super expensive, but we really enjoyed it, and decided to go back someday, for some major occasion. “Like when I get published,” I said. “Or when we have a kid,” said CJ.
As you may have heard, we recently had a kid. We also recently had a three-year wedding anniversary. And I realised that, since Louisette is partly on formula, we could have her babysat for more than an hour at a time. And voila! We returned to the restaurant. We spent way too much money (sidebar: entry to the tower is $7.50, which must be paid in cash – so make sure you have enough change if you visit), and I had two cocktails (yep, that’s right – two). It was a perfect night.
One of the great things about the Alto restaurant is that, as you drive up the mountain you catch tantalising glimpses of the tower through the trees – and glimpses of the view below too.
In the restaurant, the view is constantly changing as the restaurant revolves, and it’s all beautiful. Canberra is a special city. Believe it or not, the restaurant is quite central (despite all the trees and water).
The food tends to appear as beautifully presented, rich, tiny servings. That’s my appletini on the right.
If you time it right (which we always do) you can also watch the sun set.
The drink on the left is a masquerade, which CJ drank (cream, butterscotch schnapps, and creme de cacao). On the right is mine, featuring Baileys and vanilla vodka.
MmmmmMMMMmmm.
(There are different schools of thought on breastfeeding and alcohol. The middle ground is, “Yeah, it’s okay to have a bit every so often – but try to drink just after a feed so it has time to get out of your system before you pass it on to the baby.”)
Man, Woman, Child: Who does what?
I have a friend whose husband is nervous about bathing their child – so she does it. He doesn’t have a single child-specific task that is just his. She plans and prepares the food (even on the days he stays at home and she works), cleans the house, and generally bears the weight of parental responsibility.
I have another friend who moved in with her boyfriend. They planned to always have one person cook and the other wash up, but when she cooked there were only a few dishes, neatly placed by the sink, and everything else was put away. When he cooked, the kitchen was left in chaos. One thing led to another, and now she cooks and washes up almost every night.
I have another friend whose partner does no chores – his job is earning a living, and doing the gardening. Nothing else. They have several children. When he comes home, he is at rest. She is never off duty – ever. They made this agreement before moving in together, and it is satisfactory to both parties.
When CJ and I first married, I felt the urge to create a 50s-style fantasy world where our home was always beautiful and peaceful and he never had to see and solve the dirty side of running a household. I resisted. I made sure our division of labour was (to my mind at least) fair, partly so I didn’t feel like CJ’s servant (it is difficult to respect someone when you pick up their dirty washing from the floor, place it in a basket three feet away, then wash it, dry it, and put it away for them), and partly so CJ didn’t ever get the impression that while he was out working hard, I was lounging about in a perpetually clean and happy fantasy. When a man cleans a house – even a little – it helps him to understand that there is more than one type of work. It also helps a woman to feel that she is married to an adult, not a child. To me, this is literally the most important element of a happy marriage.
When a child is born, everything changes. CJ and I are lucky: we live a very simple, introverted life that fits a baby comparatively well. My own work is writing (which is extremely flexible) and tutoring (a few hours in an afternoon, often from home – and I already know my remaining student’s parents are fine with Louisette being in the house during lessons). It was never very impressive financially (sidebar: if I’d been able to, I’d have worked more so I could contribute more money). The choice of who stays at home with the baby was never in doubt, and neither of us would want to switch places anyway.
Would you want to spend your day in an office, or with her?
I’m sure many of you WOULD rather work in an office than look after a baby, but luckily I feel differently. VERY luckily, since nature tends to defy feminism to a certain extent.
Louisette is taking a lot less formula now (to be specific, we’re giving her less formula, and seeing how she goes), which is extremely encouraging but also means she’s spending more time breastfeeding. There was a four-hour period today when she was breastfeeding for a total of two hours. It’s an unfortunate fact that everything about motherhood so far involves physical pain, illness, or both. Right now all my girl parts are aching.
To be fair, fatherhood so far mostly involves a whole lot of extra chores, two months of nausea (miraculously gone once Louisette was born, as CJ and I both suspected would happen), and a whole lot of poo and getting screamed at.
We’ve developed a pretty good system under the circumstances – I deal with nappies at night, so CJ can sleep, but he deals with almost all of them during the day. He also handles Louisette when she’s unhappy – and I often sleep during those times (particularly between dinner and midnight, which seems to be her worst time). Even when I’m having some awake time, grumpy Louisette is CJ’s Louisette just as hungry Louisette is mine.
CJ is doing more physical chores – dishes, grocery shopping – while I’m continuing to do most of the administrative jobs of the household – which at the moment are greater than usual, as we (I) deal with a multitude of forms. But the forms are nearly done and my physical pain is lessening. Parenthood is both extremely exciting and extremely draining at the moment. When I get tired I get jealous of CJ, who spends hours surfing the net and playing a computer game, while I have to carefully herd my spare time into the longest possible periods of sleep so I don’t go mad. On the other hand, breastfeeding is not difficult – I spend the time reading and eating lollies to stay cheerful/awake.
There is no doubt in my mind that being pregnant, giving birth, and breastfeeding are all difficult things and they all fall on the mother. I am lucky enough to have a husband who really does do everything I ask of him and more.
Nature has trapped us into our roles – I am physically bound to Louisette, and CJ bears the financial weight of three people virtually alone – but the woman’s role is the one I prefer (CJ’s ideal life is a job with a certain amount of flexibility, which he has). It is too great a priviledge for the physical cost to change my mind. I’ve always felt that way, and I still do.
How to get un-pregnant: A Labour Story (PG mildly medical)
Today is Louisette’s due date. So she came early, after all. I’m so glad she did. Being pregnant really sucked.
My pre-labour contractions (that is, contractions that were causing change in my body – I begged the midwife to do an internal exam so I’d know for certain, and was relieved to find out that at least something was happening – and that relief never completely went away) began thirteen days before established labour. For ten days it was like having an irritating child poke me in my (sore and nauseous) stomach every hour, and up to 15 times each hour). It didn’t quite hurt, but it was annoying, and sometimes it cost me many hours of sleep. (Once I’d had one internal examination – uncomfortable and personal but the information gained was always so very very worth it – I wasn’t nervous about having many more. In fact I deliberately rationed them out as rewards – a very good idea.)
Three days before established labour began, I had a pink show (a little like a period, and a great sign that labour will likely begin with 24 hours). The previous night I’d been unable to sleep more than 1.5 hours at a time, and I was exhausted.
That night, I barely slept (again). My contractions were painful (enough to make me gasp and stop whatever I was doing at the time) and usually about twenty minutes apart. They kept waking me up despite how tired I was.
The contractions continued on Saturday, picking up around 4pm to about ten minutes apart. Then in the evening they slowed down (without getting any less painful). The instant I tried to go to sleep, they started coming closer together. Lying down made them much more painful, but I was desperate to get some sleep. I took panadol (which I’d been taking every night, as per the midwife’s advice) and asked CJ to stay awake for a while and keep rubbing my back (which hurt a lot each time I had a contraction).
We got up and watched the end of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (part of my personal pain relief strategy, along with blogging – I always saw labour as a story in which I was the main character, and chose to hold on to that as a way of making myself behave more heroically – did I mention I’m a writer?) and began timing the contractions. (Sidebar: As you’ve probably guessed, all the updates past a certain point were dictated to either CJ or my sister.) Over the next eight hours they grew more painful, and closer together. I was hungry around 2am and managed to eat an English muffin (very very slowly). That was the last thing I ate. CJ’s back massages and general comforting presence was on a par with saying “OuchOuchOuchOuchOuch” (or juicier language), and he remained my primary source of pain relief for the entire labour. (I knew he’d be good, but I didn’t know he’d be THAT good.)
At 8am my contractions were going for two minutes each, three and a half minutes apart, and I called the midwife. My primary midwife doesn’t work weekends (this was Sunday morning) so I was passed on to another member of the four-member team (all of whom I’d met, because the Canberra Midwifery Program strongly believes that your best bet for a natural birth is a familiar midwife by your side). She wasn’t certain that I was in established labour (AAARRRGGG! By this time I was actually hallucinating with tiredness just because of lack of sleep – and tended to fall asleep between contractions, then wake up gasping and writhing in pain) so she came to my house and did an internal examination. Before she came, she said, “We’ll see whether we should be slowing this labour down or speeding it up.” “Slowing down” meant giving me morphine to make me sleep, which I really didn’t want but which was starting to sound desperately appealling. Was I going to get on drugs before my labour was even established? So much for my close-held hopes of a natural birth.
On the up side, I could finally stop timing the contractions. I immediately went and had a warm bath, and it drastically helped with the pain (so much so I told CJ to go to sleep for a bit). Unfortunately, it also drastically slowed the contractions (apparently a very common problem). This was a very very bad sign. . . but it was also SO good to get a bit of a break. My attitude of, “Come on pain! Let’s do this thing and get me all un-pregnant!” slid away, never to be seen again. Concerned over my sudden slowing down of labour, I forced myself to stand up every five minutes – since standing up gave me contractions.
The midwife came and did her examination thing around 9:30. As it turned out, I was 3-4 centimetres dilated. . . officially in labour.
Well, probably.
She told me to stay home until I was getting contractions at my current maximum pain level at least every five minutes for an hour. She also said to drink something, and to go for a walk. (I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the house – particularly the notion of going farther than the mailbox – but she said walking up and down the stairs would be fine.)
I managed to eat an icy pole, which took half an hour to eat and made me feel sicker for another hour. I was terrified of standing up at all, let alone walking – and of having contractions while standing up (even when I was standing up to make contractions come, I at down during each one). It took an extremely long time to build up the courage to move, and then the walking itself, though painful (as always in late pregnancy for me), actually didn’t seem to do much. But of course it did. Within another half an hour my contractions were much more severe – I was now clinging to CJ and yelling at the same time (I guarantee our near neighbours heard me). They were five minutes apart (interspersed with those lurching blackouts you get when you’re very tired but sitting up), so once an hour had passed we went to the hospital.
Driving to the hospital is always hard – my most comfortable chair was at home, there wasn’t really room for much foot-stamping or fist bashing, and CJ couldn’t even hold my hand. I had a contraction in the driveway (CJ stopped the car and helped), and managed to have another one at a red light. The movement of the car (especailly around corners) hurt, but we made it just fine. I hobbled inside the centre unsupported while CJ parked the car.
The new location immediately made me feel more positive and more awake, and I was cheerful and chatty between contractions (while obsessively asking for reassurance that I really was in labour – after almost two weeks of pre-labour contractions, can you blame me?) I didn’t even feel scared (except of the pushing stage, which I blocked out of my mind every time the thought of that painful future occured to me), not even during contractions. As I yelled, I knew I only had to hold on for about thirty seconds until I’d feel like myself again. CJ and the midwife tried to get me to eat or drink, and I had another icy pole.
The midwife asked if I wanted to summon my sister or have an internal exam, and I said no to both. I was rationing them (and also rationing my F-word usage until later, being aware of psych experiments saying that swear words are more effective in pain relief than ordinary words. . . hurrah for SCIENCE). She gave me a shot of antibiotics for Strep B (a common infection that has no real symptoms but can infect the baby on its way out if untreated), and tried to get me to drink more. When I said that I’d rather have a drip, the penny dropped and she went and got one straight away. Drinking water has been stupidly difficult all pregnancy, and the drip was a genuine treat.
When she checked Louisette’s heartbeat it was a little low, which can sometimes indicate quite a late stage in labour. She recommended an internal exam so I could be absolutely sure my sister wouldn’t end up missing the birth. I was certainly willing – and so she looked, and I was 5/6 centimetres dilated. That was about 1:30pm (so each centimetre had taken two hours). She said I should tell my sister to come on in, just in case. (They say each centimetre takes about an hour, but I now realise that’s an average – each centimetre tends to be faster than the one before, which is fair enough given the increasing pain.) From then on, I no longer needed reassurance that labour was happening: I was having a baby. That was also about when my nausea stopped (until then, it looked like I was on my way to throwing up – but I never did) – not that I particularly noticed at the time.
I was getting badly sleepy again (including mini hallucinations) when my sister arrived, but her arrival made me more awake again (and from then on the contractions were never far enough apart for me to fall asleep). It’s always nice chatting to her, and that still applied. The three of us carried on enjoyable conversation between my contractions. My sister pointed out that although normal pain feels wrong, labour pain actually feels natural and correct. It’s extremely odd I know, but it’s true. Even before CJ and I left home, the pain was like touching my hand to a hotplate for thirty seconds each contraction – the kind of pain that would leave a serious blister. But it was far more bearable than it should have been – because of the breaks between contractions, but also because the pain does actually feel completely different to normal, “something’s wrong make it stop” pain.
In a pretty short time, the benefit of my sister’s presence was outdone by the increasing pain, and I got in the birthing centre bath. Until that point, even in the middle of a contraction I was aware that all I had to do was wait a few seconds and I’d be myself again – but I was starting to struggle to hold on to that thought. Each contraction I buried my head in CJ’s chest and wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could.
Again, the warm water helped instantly, rewinding my pain levels by about two hours. I didn’t like the floating feeling of being in the water – I wanted to kick against something, and it just doesn’t work in a bath. But there was no way I was getting out without a good reason. The contractions continued to get worse, and were soon as bad as they were before the bath. Sobbing hurt worse because it shook me (and my poor belly), but I couldn’t help sobbing a bit. I was starting to feel like I couldn’t handle any more, so I released the F-word (moments after my sister had written a comment in her own notes that I was being amazingly polite – which, to be fair, I was. One of my concerns was that I’d be horrible to her or CJ while in labour, and I never was). It helped for perhaps fifteen minutes, then it just didn’t cut it. It was time to bring out the big gun of encouragement: the internal examination. The midwife offered to break my membranes (making the waters break) to help speed things up, and I said yes.
I got out of the bath with much assistance and lay down for the internal exam. An ominous new level of pain reared its head in the contraction that happened in the short time between bath and examination. I knew things would be more painful out of the water, but the extent of it still surprised me, and I screamed in pain for the first time in my life.
“You’re fully dilated,” the midwife said.
“What?!” I said. “Really?”
“Yes – just give me a moment while I scratch your membranes. It won’t be long now.”
CJ and my sister and I exclaimed at one another, thrilled to hear that only the pushing stage remained – a stage that usually takes two hours at most. My membranes popped and various fluids gushed out over the bed. (Things were pretty messy from then on.)
I was still myself, and I said, “It’s too late for an epidural now, right?” No-one answered me, because they all thought I was asking for an epidural – which I wasn’t. I wanted to know that the drug-taking window was now closed, and whatever level of weakness I reached, I was going to have a natural birth. It would be something to hold on to.
A few moments later, the midwife said she had some bad news. She really, really did. My fully dilated cervix had been held open by the bulging membranes. . . and the instant the membranes were broken, it shrank. By two centimetres.
“Oh, that’s nasty,” I thought. “It’ll definitely give this story better pathos when I tell it later.”
Which just goes to show that you are who you are, in labour or not.
I figured the two centimetres wouldn’t take long, since I’d already been open, however briefly. I was right; they only took about an hour. But because of my Strep B infection, I was not allowed back in the bath after my waters had broken.
So, pain.
With each contraction, I screamed uncontrollably, and kicked out vicously with my arms and legs (I was concerned at the time I’d jerk up my head suddenly and break CJ’s nose, because he always wrapped his arms around me and bowed his head protectively over mine). The midwife told me repeatedly to calm down, but I couldn’t. If someone had stood in the room with a bomb and told me that if I screamed again everyone in the room including myself and Louisette would be killed, I still would have screamed. If someone had offered to end the pain by causing Louisette to cease existence, I’m not 100% sure I would have refused. I THINK I would have. Even in the middle of that, I noticed the worst parts of the contractions were very short. But I’d come farther into pain than ever before, and all I wanted was to press pause and come back later. Now I think of it, the fact that I wanted to pause, not stop (I never actually wanted to stop having a baby), means I still cared more for Louisette’s life than for the pain I was going through. That’s a pretty amazing thing to know about myself. I definitely wouldn’t have predicted that.
My body began to seriously shut down. I was drenched in sweat and shivering violently (my teeth chattering). Temperature-wise I was fine (the midwife even checked) – it was sheer exhaustion. I was also so weak I couldn’t move except when I was kicking out and screaming.
And still my writing instincts stayed with me. I wanted so much to say, “I can’t do this any more” but. . . well, it’s such a cliche (so much so that it’s considered a sign that the pushing phase has begun – which also meant I’d be giving false hope to the others, and I knew I wasn’t about to push yet).
Besides, one mustn’t grumble. At least not in such an unoriginal way.
I held on about half an hour (still rationing myself), then went ahead and said it. Stupid support people thought it was a great sign, but I knew better. I begged for another internal exam, and I was nine centimetres. Everyone but me was impressed.
I was extremely concerned I’d get overenthusiastic and push too early – a problem that caused a close friend of mine to have four extra hours of labour due to the swelling that resulted. I repeatedly begged the midwife not to leave the room (she was setting up a crib in case Louisette had health issues), and to do another exam. She said she’d do another exam in an hour. I wasn’t impressed. My contractions were starting to feel a bit different, and I had no way of knowing if I should be “listening to my body” and pushing – or if I was fooling myself.
With each contraction, I wanted to get up and run from the room, or smash the windows in – but of course I was too weak to do any such thing. At some stage I slid from the bed to the floor, and pissed everywhere (nothing unusual, and no-one cared). The midwife kept telling me to relax and stop screaming. I ignored her. She wanted me to stand up and lean on a bench (so gravity would help) – yeah, right.
After asking permission and getting a grudging yes, my sister took this photo (CJ’s stomach is wet from when I was in the bath):
It was half an hour since my last internal exam, and I wanted another one. Should I be pushing or shouldn’t I? The midwife said, “Does it feel like you need to do a poo?” but I knew perfectly well that if I answered, “Yes” then she’d say I should go ahead and push – so I didn’t say yes. I didn’t know exactly what I felt.
If someone had offered me an epidural, I would have emphatically refused – for one simple reason: I’d have had to move. I simply didn’t have the time or the energy to have an epidural.
And then my screaming changed to a deep yelled moan. Was this the pushing thing or not? Why couldn’t I have an internal exam, NOW?! The midwife got down next to me and observed as I moaned. “I can see the head when you’re contracting,” she said. “That means you’re fully dilated.”
“Definitely?” I said. “You’re absolutely certain? It’s time to push now?”
“Yes.”
My sister was thrilled and moved around to get a better view (I had forbidden CJ to do likewise, despite his reassurance that, “I grew up on a farm.”)
You may remember I was scared of the pushing phase. It turned out (not that I cared at the time) the worst of the pain was over. But now I had to get off my arse (literally) and work for the first time, and that was by far the hardest part. If only babies would just get to a certain point and fall out (well, they sort of do, but not until after the mother has pushed out the head).
I’d learnt months earlier that giving birth on all fours tends to reduce tearing, so that’s what I’d said I wanted to do (despite the fact that I found the thought unpleasantly animalistic). It worked well for me to kneel on a mat at the end of the bed, leaning on the bed with my arms and head. Between contractions I buried my head in my arms and begged aloud for a break. No-one commented on that, which was good: I wasn’t talking to them. There were still breaks, but not enough for my liking.
Pushing correctly is a learned skill, and I wasn’t a fast learner. I could feel the head pressing against the exit and then falling back as contractions faded. It took more pushes than I care to calculate. But I could definitely feel the difference when the midwife told me I was doing it right – it felt right, too – I just couldn’t get it right every single time.
So, more contractions. I even had a tiny bit of choice about whether to push or not, and sometimes I just didn’t.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a birth canal is pretty small and a baby’s head is freaking enormous. It felt ridiculously large and weird. It was still going backwards between contractions, and the midwife enlisted CJ and my sister to count to ten aloud as I pushed, so I was making progress instead of just making the head yo-yo back and forth. The counting was excellent. Ten seconds of pushing was manageable, at least some of the time. Other times I didn’t last more than two seconds, and the contraction was wasted.
Somewhere in there, Louisette was far enough out that they said I could feel her head by reaching down. I did: it was like touching a slimy, squashed peach with hair. She wasn’t even slightly head-shaped. I suppose I was touching the place where the soft bones of her skull were overlapping.
The midwife kept listening for Louisette’s heartbeat, and I suspected something was wrong and she was carefully not telling me. I wasn’t afraid for Louisette: I’ve been oddly certain of her safety since I first knew of her existence. But something was wrong: I was taking too long, and Louisette needed to come out. Unsurprisingly, having one’s head squashed inside someone’s pelvis can be what medical personnel call “distressing”. The midwife told me so, rather sternly, and I tried to make my pushes take the full ten seconds – and to push in the right way.
So, more contractions.
Heads are so big. . . I felt the stinging, burning sensation just as all the books describe it.
And then the head was out. That was probably the weirdest feeling of the entire pregnancy, especially when the three assistants then hauled me up on to the bed ready to catch her as she slid out. I was dazed and shaking, but there was still more pushing to do.
And then, like a slimy little cthulhu, she slid out all in a rush. Three seconds later she was in my arms.
I might not look particularly over the moon here, but I was. Even knowing I still had to push out the afterbirth, all the various awfulnesses of pregnancy and labour were instantly irrelevant – as I had suspected they might be.
Thirty seconds later, CJ and my sister had helped me pull off my nightie so Louisette was skin on skin ready for her first breastfeed (it takes three or four days for milk to start happening, but the baby sucks down small quantities of pre-milk in the meantime).
The midwife gave me the “make the afterbirth hurry up” shot and with a bit of mild pushing it flolloped out (apparently it was very nice looking. “Would you like to see it?” the midwife said. “No thanks. Really.”)
I was still shaking, and my teeth were chattering, but it was time for the next challenge: breastfeeding. As instructed, I let Louisette muddle around until she started opening her mouth looking for a feed, then I helped her find my breast as well as I could. Since I was unable to move, getting her in position was a team effort. It took about half an hour. But she definitely knew to suck, and I gave her half an hour on each side, then passed her to CJ for his first cuddle.
In the meantime, my sister called our parents and CJ called his, letting them know they could come and see Louisette in two hours (which gave CJ and I just enough time to greet her ourselves and of course to breastfeed). And of course my sister also posted the blog entry and photo for the rest of the world.
I was surpised to find out that I had torn my girl parts and needed stitches – I hadn’t felt the tearing, and honestly my nether regions felt pretty okay under the circumstances (80% of women have tearing, and mine was a pretty normal amount – for the record, Louisette’s head circumference was 37cm). The rest of my body was shot – I could barely lift my head or arms. Others have described the post-labour feeling as being like a marathon runner after a race. Since I’m no runner, I’d describe it as the immediate aftemath of having thirty-three angry oompa loompas slap you with frozen herring all over. Later on, I discovered cuts on my right foot and bruises on my left arm and forehead (when did THAT happen?) but mostly my muscles just ached like crazy. I have just got to the point today where walking and turning over is on a par with the difficulty level of late pregnancy (but from here it gets better) – CJ is giving me lots of massages.
The shaking gradually subsided, but I asked if the stitches could wait for a few hours please. “The doctors will have to look to know if they can wait or not,” said the midwife, along with the info that the doctors had just come on shift and would certainly be around for a while.
Soon the doctors came in, and I was able to experience firsthand the drastic difference between midwifery and standard hospital practice. The doctors dismissed my request for a break by saying, “Let’s just get it over with” and made me immediately get up and move the few steps to their portable operating bed. This immediately restarted the shaking and teeth-chattering. (“Don’t worry,” they said. “We can work around it.”) It also caused my ruined muscles to cramp.
They strapped my feet into stirrups and pushed my aching legs apart, just like the old-style doctors used to do for all labouring women (a strategy clearly designed for the doctor’s convenience at the expense of the mother). The doctors were both women, which was nice (as was the portable bed, so I didn’t need to go into the main maternity ward), and they were polite – but I was a problem to be fixed, not a human being to help. They didn’t even pause to let the anasthetic take effect before they began stitching.
Meanwhile, my midwife held my hand and talked to me about pancakes.
That says it all, really.
The End.
So now labour is done – for my first child, at least – and, to my enormous pride and high-level surprise, I had a fully natural birth. The most effective pain relief for me was CJ, and the bath (although the first time in the bath was a tactical error – generally the bath should be saved until labour is at least half over). Having my sister there (knowing exactly what I wanted from her) meant I didn’t need to think about anything except what I wanted at the time – and all the well-wishers were being taken care of too. I’m still not taking visitors, and today I was very glad I’ve been so firm with everyone (day 3 and 4 are usually a nightmare; today is day 3 and it did suck a bit – my milk hasn’t come in yet and Louisette has had to have some formula to avoid dehydration).
My sister asked if labour was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and you know what? It wasn’t. I’m still getting PTSD-style flashbacks in which I remember screaming, or trying to push, or shaking so badly with exhaustion, but they’re already bleached clean of most of the emotion. Labour is hard and scary, but it’s a lot shorter than a lot of other hard and scary things in life – and the end result is easily worth it. One of the surprising things for me was that I didn’t feel like I lost my self or my humanity partway through. I even kept my sense of humour (although if anyone had made a joke at my expense I’d have assigned one of my helpers to kill them).
My heart goes out to all the women that have had difficult births – especially those who hoped to have a natural birth and weren’t able to for whatever reason. I was in established labour for eleven hours, which is pretty close to average, and nothing went wrong.
Here, by way of epilogue, is my sister’s family with Louisette:
Adorable Proof of Incompetent Parents
Before I start – I know there are three types of people reading this blog, so here are my messages for each of you:
1. Regular readers who are really not that interested in babies – never fear. In a week or two your normal schedule shall resume (in fact I’ll be posting the third Philip Reeve book review this Friday).
2. Friends and relatives who want to know what’s happening with CJ and I and baby Louisette – welcome! Wednesdays will be devoted to Louisette from now until several years into the future, so feel free to come back once a week (or whatever – there’s also a “baby talk” and a “parenthood” tag so you can find all Louisette’s entries fast – some entries aren’t tagged yet, but I’ll eventually go back and fix that). Also, please see two paragraphs below.
3. Regular readers who are loving the baby drama – you’re welcome. I haven’t actually read a single comment since I went into labour, but I’ll get there eventually, and enjoy them when I do (sidebar: I haven’t even dared log on to facebook, and have instead been sending updates from afar).
THANK YOU so much to. . . well, everyone I know and don’t know. . . for not visiting. I know some of you are finding it really hard not being allowed to drop by, or call, or even SMS, but it’s making a world of difference to CJ and Louisette and above all to me. I really can’t handle even receiving phone calls at the moment, and I’m loving the very special closeness between the three members of my family. Please don’t feel excluded, either – my own brother hasn’t seen Louisette yet, and my sister (who was there assisting at the birth!) did not even get to hold her for several hours. I will eventually let people in (bit by bit) so if you’re desperate to see Louisette ASAP please email me, and I’ll make sure you’re one of the first.
In the meantime, I’ll be blogging more details every day – hopefully that will prevent anyone worrying or feeling completely ignorant of what’s happening.
While I remember – Louisette weighed in at 4.15 kilos. No wonder any kind of late-pregnancy movement felt like someone was punching me in the stomach! Thank goodness I had no idea how big she was.
When I woke up this morning, this is what I saw:
She was so beautiful it took my breath away. (And yes, all you people who see nothing but a squidgy face with bags under the eyes – don’t panic: I’m still my cynical self and I’m perfectly aware that to you she’s mostly a poo-creating machine at present.) I’d like to title this picture “Adorable Proof of Parental Incompetence” for the following reasons:
1. See that cloth not quite obscuring her face? We put it in the cot to cover up a mild mess. This indicates more than mere laziness – it’s a suffocation hazard (what with it covering her face and all – I pushed it out of the way to take the photo). What bad, naughty parents we are.
2. See that arm completely not inside her white swaddling wrap? That’s because neither CJ nor I were ever able to wrap her up in the enclosed, womb-like way that newborns crave. Within minutes, she’d always have an arm out and flailing uncomfortably (we saw the midwife this morning and she re-taught us the right method, which is actually now working fine).
3. See how the arm is hanging wildly free of the bassinet? That’s because we placed her in the bassinet rather off-centre, so I could reach her more easily when she fussed in the night. Since the bassinet rocks, she slid slowly but surely down the slope until she landed up against the bars at a 45 degree angle. None of the baby books SPECIFICALLY prohibit sending one’s infant to sleep at peculiar angles, but I’m pretty sure it’s not recommended.
Before you start reassuring me with your tales of the time you accidentally stuck your three-day-old in the oven instead of their cot, don’t worry: Both CJ and I feel oddly peaceful and happy, and we’re not-so-secretly pretty damn pleased with ourselves as both people and parents. Save your reassurance for the child services man ringing your door bell right now.
Here’s Louisette meeting her cousin (my sister’s daughter, hence her privileged visitor status) for the first time:
I’m just about to start on tomorrow’s blog entry: the full story of how the labour went (told as gently as possible to keep my G/PG rating). There were some interesting moments (including the moment when the midwife took leave of her usual good sense to say, “This baby is going to be REALLY BIG!”)
Men Make Fix
I come from an academic family, so my father-in-law (trained as a carpenter) is quite an exotic creature to me, and I love to see him and CJ (also most definitely an academic first) working together. You may remember that part of our ceiling collapsed many many months ago. There were delays as tradesmen and insurance representatives ummed and ahhed. Finally my father-in-law couldn’t take it any more, and begged to be able to fix it (in a temporary-but-secure fashion). My landlady said yes, and CJ and his dad did their manly thing. I mostly kept out of their way, but I still enjoyed the whole experience.
Oddly enough, the finished result is curiously beautiful – like a mosaic. Best of all, the parts of the ceiling that hadn’t been temporarily fixed (and were thus ready to collapse at any time) are now secure.
Also, the wooden squares match our light fittings. Just saying.
PS No changes contraction-wise.
Go into labour
Heh. Just kidding.
OR AM I?????
Here’s what I wrote at 5am on Tuesday morning (yesterday) – keeping in mind that I’m using the normal-person’s definition of “labour” as including “pre-labour” (hours or even days of mild contractions – for my sister, it was fifteen hours, I was there, and it was fun for everyone, even her):
I seem to be in labour. Probably. Either that or it’s just one more really crappy night of pregnancy. But probably labour.
Last Thursday I thought I might be starting down the road of labour. I had a few cramps each hour from 2am until 11pm. That’s 21 hours. And I felt nauseous in between. Then. . . nothing.
One problem is that there’s been so much going on in my belly for so long that I hardly know what’s what. Is that painful stretching sensation the baby moving, or Braxton Hicks, or the beginning of the end?
I THINK I’ve got it figured out now. Cramps are just nausea or Louisette punching my innards. When my skin feels really stretched and has starbusts of mild pain (less painful than a slap on the hand), it’s either Louisette kicking outwards (which I can feel or see easily enough), or it’s a contraction. The only difference between real and false contractions is that real ones occur fairly regularly for hours, and get gradually worse. And contractions actually, you know, DO stuff (inside).
I reckon my accuracy is at around 85%. (Or somewhat less, if this is another false alarm.)
I’m using a contraction timer app on CJ’s iphone, and I seem to be having contractions of around 1 minute in length every 3 and a half minutes. This is the point at which I can call the hospital if I want – or I can choose not to. Given that it’s not yet 6 in the morning, and they rarely hurt at all, I’m going to wait a bit. I’m also not posting this – not yet. Not until I’m more sure.
I’ve had quite a lot of cramps yesterday and today. Yesterday I felt really nauseous too, and totally exhausted by sitting up (not that I could have fallen asleep if I’d tried – the fatigue is entirely hormonal). Around 6pm I was getting a few proper contractions, but not at all close together. From about 11pm I felt there was a strong pattern of contractions (not cramps) about ten minutes apart. I’ve tried to sleep a few times, and failed.
For most of the night, I felt pretty good between contractions (enough to think I’d imagined the whole thing). Now my stomach never stops being squoofley, but it’s only as bad as a normal day’s nausea. The contractions are still not very painful. Every half hour or so one will hurt for a second or two, and I think, “Ah! This IS real.” But I could still be wrong.
I intend to blog another time or two during labour, and shortly after Louisette is born (oh! what a delicious thought – having her in my arms instead of my belly!)
Don’t call me or CJ, even if you happen to have our number. We’ll be busy for a long time – probably another twenty hours from now. So sit tight.
Also, don’t call us for the first week after the birth – and DEFINITELY don’t drop by our house unless you’re invited. We will need time to recover (without getting woken up unexpectedly) and get a teensy bit used to Louisette. If you really want to know more, or see Louisette, and you’re someone we know in real life – email me. My address is fellissimo at hot mail dot com.
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It’s more than 24 hours later, and no baby. So here’s what happened next:
At 7am yesterday (same day as the above), I called the backup midwife (mine was on leave until 8am) hoping she’d tell me “Yes this is pre-labour. In a few hours you’ll be in real labour. Tell CJ to call his work and start his maternity leave.” (Nothing had changed since 5am, but I wanted to know whether CJ should go to work or not.) I’d called the midwife the previous Thursday as well, and she was a lot warmer and more sympathetic last time. Embarassingly, my contractions seemed to stop the instant I spoke to her. She said it didn’t sound like I was having contractions at all, but would I like my visit with my usual midwife to be moved onto Tuesday (that day) instead of the next day. I said yes.
CJ went to work (his first day after a holiday break); I went to bed. It’s been a long time since I felt that disappointed, or that stupid. I’d stayed up all night, quite uncomfortable, and all I’d been doing was psychosomatically giving myself imitation contractions – and apparently not very convincing ones at that. I know what a huge cliche it is for a pregnant woman to think she’s in labour over and over again, and basically act hysterical and stupid. I thought I was more rational, more self-aware, calmer, and just generally smarter than that. Apparently not.
I slept a bit, and couldn’t help noticing my contractions weren’t nearly so frequent, and were milder – now that I’d proven I was an idiot. Pathetic.
I timed the “contractions” again later and they were back to being one minute long every five minutes, which made me hopeful again (with a side order of annoyance that my hypochondria was apparently more tenacious that I’d thought). My sister reckoned I was in pre-labour, but the kind that goes for days rather than hours. I thought it was nice of her to say so.
Eventually my normal midwife came over (the parking at the hospital is so bad that home visits are quite common). I felt more dignified immediately when she exclaimed in concern at my giant feet. I’d pointed them out to her two weeks ago and she wasn’t that impressed then, but apparently they’ve grown quite a bit (and yes, the skin hurts a little with the stretching – no big deal). She poked them a bit, and noted that my blood pressure is still fine – but she asked me to do a urine protein test all the same. This was the first time I’ve ever seen her concerned, and it was terribly gratifying. (My protein is fine, as I thought it was.) I also managed to have a contraction or two while she was here, and she felt my stomach and said, “Yes, I can feel it stiffen” – a genuine sign of a contraction (or a false contraction, but at least it wasn’t imaginary).
The only way to know for certain if I’d had any real contractions was for her to do an internal examination. She didn’t want to do one, and warned me that (a) It could prove that absolutely nothing was happening internally, after all my hundreds of supposed contractions, and (b) If I asked for an internal exam every few days, she would refuse.
I had to know, so she did it. (Apart from anything else, this means I know what an internal exam feels like, which will be useful when I do go into labour – familiar unpleasantness is always less scary than new unpleasantness.)
Here’s what happens, in order, before real labour begins: The cervix moves forward, softens, shortens, then begins to dilate (open). It’s usually at about 3cm before you go to hospital. (Then it opens to 10cm, then the pushing starts.)
My midwife told me later that she hadn’t expected any change – she’d thought, based on my description, that my contractions were false. It turned out that my cervix had already moved forward and was in the process of softening (technically it had dilated about a millimetre, but in medical terms it is still 100% closed).
So yes, I’m in pre-labour. It’s official. I’m neither an idiot nor a hypochondriac – in fact, since it was my descriptions that made two midwifes believe nothing was happening, I’m actually calmer and more stoic than the norm. Excellent.
Best of all, these contractions DID STUFF. I’m at the beginning of the end.
The down side (which doesn’t matter to me at present, because I didn’t expect any better) is that it could still be two weeks or more before I give birth. This might be the end, but it’s like the end of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. . . it’s the end that keeps on giving.
Today (Wednesday morning) the contractions have basically stopped. It could be days before anything else happens. And that’s fine for now.
Interestingly, I’m still not scared of labour. I’m scared of further nausea and the depression that comes with it on bad days, and I’m mildly dreading the experience of breastfeeding (but I do expect it’ll be okay when it happens – I just wish I could start the attempt sooner rather than later).
The three main types of labour pain relief are (1) gas and air (which sounded like a lot of fun until I discovered the side effect can be nausea and vomiting – no thank you). (2) Morphine (which can diminish the baby’s sucking reflex, making breastfeeding harder – no thank you). (3) Epidural (which can make labour longer, and increase the likelihood of a C-section* – for me, this is the best option of the three, but of course I’ll be aiming to do things the hard/safer way).
*C-sections have a reputation for being the easy way out. They’re so not. They’re major surgery, involving seven layers of stitching up afterwards, and six weeks of recovery time (with “normal” birth, it’s more like two weeks, and even that two weeks is not as severe). They’re sometimes necessary, however, and that’s just the way it is.
Christmas (well duh)
This is what Christmas looks like at CJ’s parents’ house, where we spent our Christmas Day:
And this is what CJ and I look like three seconds after the last presents are unwrapped (CJ is reading the latest “Girl Genius” graphic novel, and I’m reading “Ember and Ash” by Pamela Freeman *double swoon*):
“On the whole, women are smarter than men”
I heard the phrase and was so shocked that I stared at the TV screen and replayed it in my head. No, I wasn’t hearing things. No, the speaker wasn’t joking. No, the speaker wasn’t attempting to impress anyone.
It was Clive James, aged seventy, talking to Andrew Denton on the latter’s “Elders” show.
It astonished me that any man would actually believe that. When I was fifteen, an intelligent older woman gently advised me that my own intelligence might be a barrier to romance – or, if you prefer, she told me that gentlemen prefer their women dumb.
This was quite shocking to me, since I’d always felt that intelligence was like money – the more you had, the more attractive you were. But unfortunately, statistics do reveal that women who are more intelligent are less likely to marry (those statistics don’t reveal whether it’s because they are too smart to marry – as a happily married woman, I think the statistics would indicate that men are too insecure to marry someone they recognise as smarter than themselves).
Whatever the truth of the matter, from the age of fifteen I learnt to sometimes bite my lip rather than speaking out (especially to correct an ignorant man), I threw a lot of poor grammar and clumsy phrasing into my everyday speech (the ironic use of poor grammar still amuses me hugely), and I developed that irritating habit of laughing when I make a joke – not because I’m so hilarious I can’t resist, but to make sure that people who don’t get it at least know that a joke has occured in the vicinity.
Some of you will find those changes stupid, and some tragic. I suspect those two groups will be divided largely along gender lines.
Personally, I think women are smarter and stronger (mentally and emotionally) than men. How could I not, when I so often find myself pretending to believe a man is smarter than me (I don’t do this with CJ, but I still do so with other men)? When I push past my natural preference for my own gender and try to be objectively rational, I think that men and women are differently intelligent, and we simply tend to value (and to notice) our own gender’s intelligence styles more readily than the other. Men are also more likely to base their self-esteem on intelligence (better than basing it on beauty, at least), which can make them inflexible when it comes to admitting they’re wrong or less intelligent than someone else. My own self-esteem is linked strongly to independence (particularly financial independence, which I equate with being an adult) and intelligence, both of which have been decimated by mental illness. This is a problem.
Different Folks
CJ and I have a lot in common, which is handy. But every so often one or both of us realises how different we are.
Guess what these books are?
That’s the books CJ is “currently reading” from the library. Which is to say, there are more library books by the front door ready to be taken back – and there are other books CJ is currently reading. I read one book at a time – maybe two, in unusual circumstances.
When we married, CJ owned about four hundred books* and two hundred DVDs. I owned about half a dozen books (having relied on the library system for many years), and a similar number of DVDs.
There are other differences between us, too.
Our TV set top box has just died. Fortunately, it was bought by C “buy reputable brands and pay extra for an extended warranty” J, rather than Louise “if you can’t fix it with gaffa tape, live without” Curtis – so it’s covered by warranty.
Insert your own conclusion here.
*not the only reason I married him
Felicity Banks 