written 5 weeks after giving birth, and still recovering from the experience:
so i guess the question on most people´s lips will be ´how was the birth?´ well, let´s just say that more than a month has passed, and i´m still getting over it. after a day of on-again-off-again contractions, and 5 hours of increasingly intense ones, i woke marcelo close to 5 in the morning to make the trip to the hospital. the admitting doctor and nurse were impressed by my zen-ness saying that some women were already complaining by 2cm dilation, whilst i was already at 7cm. they put me in bed B of the ´labour room´ - basically a waiting space for women in labour, who weren´t yet 10cm dilated, and where all the relevant medical staff met up to chat about the latest hospital gossip and bicker about whose turn it was to get coffee for the team. until i started to push at 10.15am, i passed the time by answering all the curious questions of the staff (how do you say your name, where are you from, why are you here in ecuador, etc), and concentrating on the woman next to me´s grimaces so that i could be distracted from my own pain. i was slightly alarmed by the incompetence shown when one doctor ordered an ultrasound for me, and they wheeled the other woman out instead, not realising their mistake until it was too late and i was already close to 10cm. but by that time, i was already surprised by so much of the standard procedure that i really shouldn´t have been worried. for example, marcelo wasn´t allowed in to keep me company, none of the staff introduced themselves to me, or explained what they were doing or what i was to expect, the preparatory enema was administered without explanation and so deftly that i didn´t quite understand what it was until i had to go to the toilet - thank god i was observing wide-eyed what they were doing to Bed A so i had a rough idea what i was meant to do.
a bit before they decided i was ripe and ready, the pain had already reached the level where i was asking what type of drugs were available. the nurse raised an eyebrow at me, and shook her head sympathetically: they don´t give any pain relief for natural births; ´it´s better for the baby´. screw the baby, i thought, i want the drugs! they got me pushing on the same bed (yes, with all the other staff still standing 2 metres away talking about their plans for the weekend), then standing up next to the bed, then on the bed again. all the while, the obstetrician kept sighing, rolling her eyes, and saying to no one in particular ´this one isn´t pushing right´. at the second or third push, i was already crying with the pain and effort, when she said (quite heartlessly, i thought), ´stop your complaining and just push´. if looks could kill, i swear i would have given her an experience to make the Saw movies seem like a stroll in the park. when i started screaming ´i can´t do this´, they made me walk about 10 metres (10 LONG metres) to a proper delivery room. i was the only woman giving birth at that moment, and the staff must´ve all been a bit bored because there were about 7 of them all standing there like they were at the movies, watching my bits. at one stage, when i was gasping throuh tearless cries, i told them i wanted a cesarian, (´just cut him out of me!´), making them all laugh. (unintentionally of course, i meant it in all seriousness.) when noah eventually popped out at 10.59am, i was so light-headed and floaty that the next 30 minutes of getting me cleaned up seemed like a dream.
even without being exhausted and slightly high from the delivery, you have to admit that there´s something quite surreal about having a total stranger with a needle between your legs, while the 6 or 7 other staff come in and out to have a look-see and comment on his stitches. it´s strange to think that i´d never seen a single one of them prior to entering the ward, and i´ll never see any of them again, yet they shared 45 of the most intense minutes of my life. i wish i could say that my histrionics were my tongue-in-cheek attempt to make fun of the birth scenes in movies, but the truth is, those 45 minutes of pushing were the most painful, traumatic thing that i´ve gone through. forget suffering a week-long fever alone in my tent, struggling up the Andes on my bike, or getting my hands burnt by sleety sub-zero winds... giving birth is one tough, and very humbling experience. when i got out of the hospital, one of the first thing i did was send an email to my aunts and my mum, saluting them for having gone through it, and i do the same here for every mother who reads this. it really doesn´t surprise me that without medical assistance, so many women die in childbirth, and if it weren´t for the fact that i had complete faith that ´if others can do it, so can i´, i would´ve been ready to give up after just a few pushes. as it is, so many tell me that i had ´an easy delivery´, or ´a short labour´, that i take my hat off to all the women who have had complications, long labours or large babies. noah was a slimy bundle of only 2.23kg and i found the process difficult - i don´t even want to imagine what giving birth to a 4kg baby would be like!
the next 24 hours left me even more bemused. since i was in a public hospital, and maternity care was free, i guess they just don´t have the personal attention that most would expect. i was only wheeled outside an hour after noah was born, meaning that marcelo had been waiting anxiously for almost 6 hours, not knowing what was going on, if our son had been born, or if i was ok. even in the post-natal ward, he was only allowed to stay for a short while until visiting hours were up, and then i had noah all to myself. afterwards, i learnt that in most hospitals (at least, in australia), they take the baby away to a nursery so that the mother can get some much-deserved rest, only bringing the bub to her when she asks for him/her, or when he/she needs a feed. but in this hospital, i had my tiny baby with me the whole time, with no guidance on what to do nor how to do it. i know it´s meant to be all basic and instinctual, but it´s still quite intimidating the first time you breastfeed, or when your baby starts crying and you don´t know why. the whole time, you´re exhausted and want to sleep, but are scared of accidentally squashing your baby if you do. i remember the first time i needed to go to the toilet and didn´t know if i should leave noah in the bed, or take him with me. or when i got out of bed to change his nappy for the first time, with blood from my stitches running down my legs. after a very long and almost sleepless night, i was then bombarded by a bunch of advice in rapid spanish concerning how to look after myself and noah when i got home, when i needed to go back for check-ups or vaccinations, and so on. too bloody exhausted from repeating ´spanish isn´t my first language, can you please speak slower?´, i eventually just nodded to everything, leaving it up to marcelo (the best partner and father i could ask for!) to ask for all the information when he went back to the hospital the next day. all i wanted when they eventually gave me the green light to go home, was a quick shower and a long, long sleep.
not that i got that luxury, with the little tyke asking for milk every few hours. ...
just a quick thank you then to jane, jac and 4yi for their invaluable support and advice in the first couple of weeks of noah´s little life. more photos in the ´oh baby, oh baby´ gallery...
