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You breathed in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth as you went through yet another wave of intensive pain. You groaned as you felt the nausea wash over you again, and you threw up into the bucket on the floor next to the bed.
You heard the door to your apartment open and smiled weakly at your husband as he came rushing in.
“[Your name]! Are you okay?” Tom asked as he was trying to catch his breath. It was obvious that he had hurried home the moment he had heard from you.
“I’m okay,” you assured him and breathed in sharply as another wave of pain came over you. “There’s only a few minutes in between the waves of pain, so I think it might be time to go to the hospital now. I spoke to a midwife on the phone and she said they’ll be ready for us.”
“Okay!” Tom said and took a deep breath to compose himself. “So what do we need to bring with us?”
You smiled at your husband as he grabbed your hand in his. “The bag is packed,” you told him. “I think everything we’ll need is in there.”
“Right,” Tom said with a nervous smile and grabbed the bag from on top the chest of drawers. “We’re going to be parents!” he said excitedly and you laughed.
“We are,” you replied. You felt so worn and tired after having spent hours in reoccurring pain. It had started during the night, but you hadn’t told Tom about it since you knew from reading stories about giving birth that it may take several hours, sometimes even days from the first sting of pain until the moment your baby was being born. You had let Tom go to work in the morning as usual, assuring him that everything was fine. As the pain intensified during the day, you began to time the short periods of pain. They were quite regular, and began to become more current as the hours passed by.
“I’ll just get you a few bags, in case you need to throw up on our way there,” Tom said and went into the kitchen. He came back with the special vomit bags you had received from your midwife after she learned that your reaction to intense pain was to start vomiting. It had happened during migraines in the past and you had anticipated that giving birth would also involve vomiting on your part.
Tom helped you stand up from the bed and he held you close as you nearly fell from the lightheadedness you experienced. “Are you okay?” he asked with concern as you groaned at the stabbing pain in your abdomen and lower parts of your body.
“I just need a second,” you told him and squeezed his hand tightly as you endured yet another wave of pain. Tom patiently waited until you could walk again. It continued like that until you got into the car. A few minutes of walking followed by about a minute’s break as the pain washed over you again. It was a pain that you simply couldn’t move through, you had to wait it out.
As you finally reached the hospital, you walked like you had done before, taking breaks every few minutes to wait out the pain. As you neared the maternity ward, a midwife hurried up to you with a wheelchair. You felt relieved that you didn’t have to take another step.
As you reached a delivery room, you changed into a hospital gown and a midwife examined you.
“Is this your first?” she asked you with a smile and you nodded wearily at her. Tom was away parking the car. “You’re about four centimetres open, so it may take another few hours before you’re ready to push. You should be about ten centimetres open before you can push.”
“So I’m not even halfway there?” you asked and tears filled your eyes.
“The last few centimetres can happen faster than the first ones. It’s good that you came here now, because you’re dehydrated, so you’ll get some fluids and we can give you something for the pain,” the midwife informed you with a smile.
“Thank you,” you said and grimaced at the intensive pain coming over you.
“Would you like an epidural? It might slow down the process, but it will help you with the pain,” the midwife informed you.
“Are you saying it will take even longer before I give birth if I take the epidural?” you asked, just wanting it all to be over with.
“There’s a risk for that,” the midwife confirmed.
“Then I don’t want it. I don’t want this to take any longer than absolutely necessary,” you decided. You were fed up with being in pain and just wanted it all to be over. You wanted to finally see your baby.
Tom soon came back with all the things you had packed for the delivery and kissed the top of your head lovingly. He was by your side for the next couple of hours, doing his best to help you through the pain of going into labour. You began to feel the effects of the liquids you had received. It gave you more energy to not be dehydrated anymore and you felt strong as a lioness as you accepted the pain coming at you. You stopped trying to resist it and began to listen to your body, feeling like the pain was no longer your enemy, but just a natural part of what you were going through. You felt brave as you faced the waves of pain without fear and just rode them out. You were almost in a meditative state as you allowed yourself to experience the pain head on.
“You’re handling this greatly,” the midwife commended you as she went on to examine you once again. “Eight centimetres,” she informed you and you nodded at her. “We’re almost there!” she said encouragingly. “I think it’s time for some nitrous oxide,” she suggested and you nodded again, knowing that it would help alleviate some of the pain without slowing up the process of giving birth.
You felt a humming sensation in your lips after you breathed in the nitrous oxide for the first time. It took you a while to get into the right technique and pace in using the mask. But once you got a hold of it, the nitrous oxide was a great help for you to go through the waves of pain.
As you neared the end and were open ten centimetres, the pain had intensified, but your ability to deal with it had increased as well. You felt like a warrior as your body and the midwife told you to start pushing. You roared into the mask as the intense pain and quickly found the right pace to foresee the pain and began to breathe in the nitrous oxide a few seconds before the pain came and stopped breathing it in as the pain had begun to reach its peak. The nitrous oxide had a delayed effect and you felt pleased with yourself for having mastered optimising its effect.
It was a great relief to roar into the mask as you withstood the pain of labour. You no longer cared about holding back on your expression of pain for Tom’s sake. You were in pain and that was alright, you felt like he could handle it, even though his eyes were full of tears and concern as he looked at you. You even smiled between all the pushing and pain, because you knew it would soon be over. You would soon finally get to meet the little creature that had been growing inside of you.
“You’re almost there, I can see the head. Would you like to see it? I could get a mirror,” the midwife said excitedly.
You laughed with relief that it was almost over, but declined the offer of looking at the baby’s head as it came out of you. You were too scared of how the sight would affect you. What if you fainted?
Tom and you had agreed before the delivery that he would stay by your side near your head and not look at what was going on down below. As always, Tom respected your wish and he held your hand through the delivery of the baby, letting you squeeze it as tightly as you needed.
That’s when it happened. The magical moment you had been longing for. You heard the baby cry. Your baby, and it was quickly cleaned by the experienced midwife before she placed the tiny human being on your chest.
“Congratulations to your son,” the midwife told you smilingly and you began to cry, relieved that you finally got to meet your baby.
“Hello there, darling,” you said softly to the beautiful little creature who had already begun to peck at your breast. “Oh my God. Is he hungry?” you asked the midwife and looked at her in wonder.
“Give him your breast,” the woman said encouragingly and helped you adjust your baby into a better position for breastfeeding. You felt an odd sensation in your sore breast as the milk began to flow out of it.
“He’s eating,” you cried and looked at Tom. “He’s so beautiful and so perfect.”
Tom wiped tears from his face before gently touching the baby’s hand. Your son put his tiny fingers around your husband’s finger and you both smiled widely.
“Hello baby boy, it’s so great to finally meet you. I’m your dad and I promise I’ll take good care of you,” Tom said in a gentle voice. You could tell that he was very emotional and you felt the same way. Something had changed. You felt more love than you ever thought possible as you looked at your baby.
“I never knew you could love someone this much,” you told Tom as you both admired your baby.
“Me neither,” Tom replied and began to cry. You smiled at him and allowed yourself to cry too. It was tears of joy.