What they don't tell you about pregnancy...

By HH

Photo: http://naturalalternativesacupuncture.com/?page_id=33

So they say its nine months, but when you do the math, it’s an endurance testing 10 months. Have you noticed how the doctor or midwife only talks to you in ‘weeks’? So your given your due date, you calculate the stages of the pregnancy, and then you realize there’s more to it than you were led to believe.
One more month.
Just when you thought you were ready to push, you’ve got to ‘keep your legs crossed for thirty more days’. That’s 720 hours. Which is 43,200 minutes. Or to be more precise, 2.592 million seconds of not only further but also increased fatigue, swelling and that little bit of incontinence every time you cough. Staring back at you in the mirror is something that once resembled your body, but it has now morphed into whale bearing proportions.
The last nine months you have been inundated with many decisions. Whether your choice of venue be a hospital (public or private) birthing centre, home or water birth, all those agonizing months of waiting to see what your baby looks like; you know will be worth it.
Now you’re down to the business end of the pregnancy:
• You’ve gone over the birth plan with your doctor, tick.
• You’ve decided the ‘perfect’ birth experience, tick
• You’ve filled out the questionnaires, tick, tick, tick
• Now you wait, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock …
Until my water breaks at 35 weeks.
I’m rushed to the hospital
I haven’t packed my bags
I haven’t showered
I haven’t waxed my bikini line
I haven’t got baby’s room ready
And the baby car seat!
I’m told that baby is in breech
‘What the F is breech?’
Feet first
There goes The Plan
Out the window
With the bathwater
Emergency c-section
NOW
What
Happened
To
The
One
Whole
Extra
Month?
Oh the horror, the horror!
We screech to a grinding halt under the ‘Emergency’ sign, which should really read ‘leave your dignity at the door’.
The nurses take good care of me and prepare me for my c-section.
I have more forms to sign as they explain the procedure and spinal block to me. I am wheeled into a cold theatre room, naked underneath a hospital gown three sizes too small for me.
My partner is left outside waiting until I am appropriately anesthetized.
He may be waiting a while…