Aidan: A birth story, part 1

My birth plan was simple: to avoid all interventions unless absolutely necessary; to be allowed to labour and deliver naturally; and to only have a Caesarean as my very last resort.

Since Murphy is my best friend, of course nothing would go the way I planned. Here is Aidan’s birth story.

Friday, March 2
We had our 37th week ultrasound at Dr Y’s clinic and the nugget was happily in the right position for birth, with the cord nowhere near his neck. During that visit, I mentioned the lower posterior pain that had crept up over the past few days. He suggested doing a vaginal exam to see if the discomfort was caused by my cervix opening up and I agreed.

URGHS.

VEs are STUPID. MEDIEVAL. BAD. Surely with technology, you would think that there is an easier way of measuring dilation. During the exam, Dr Y asked if I was certain I didn’t want an epidural during labour because this was how VEs would feel like and I swear I could have killed him then and there. The VE also caused me to spot quite heavily for the rest of the day.

Anyway, it turned out that I was about 1cm dilated and my cervix was indeed soft and ready for birth. Dr Y predicted that I would definitely be delivering within the next two weeks and won’t hit 40 weeks. Oops! But then again, the number had no impact on me because you can be 5cm dilated and still not have the baby for yonks.

Saturday, March 3
I woke up bright and early (for a Saturday, that is) and decided that it was time to tie up any loose ends we had for the bubs. First, we had to settle the cot problem because our kid’s bed had still not been delivered.

To cut a long story short, we popped over to the shop in Ubi to demand an explanation and was told that we could have the cot that we had ordered BUT the latex mattress would be delayed. The lady boss assured us that she would “loan” us a new foam mattress should the nugget pop out before the mattress arrived. Mmmkay.

Next stop was back to the Mothercare annual sale at Harbourfront because I hadn’t gotten a discount that I should have received on a product. We dove into the madness, got our money back and picked up a fabric book that I had been searching high and low for, for the longest time. Yay!

Feeling accomplished, we headed back home where I proceeded to put together the nugget’s room, folded and sorted out his clothes and yelled at the cats for jumping into his clothes hamper.

All this while, I continued spotting, and I blamed it on the VE. Bloody hell.

To be continued…