Guess what!? I’m back… Yes I know ive said this a thousand times before! But trust me this time it’s for real… I missed blogging like I missed drinking unlimited quantities of Pepsi Max during my pregnancy! So im back for good and im not going anywhere… I actually have a really good excuse this time for being gone though! I was heavily pregnant the last months and couldn’t do much apart from sleep, eat, watch tv and once in a while squeeze my huge belly into the shower!
I left Egypt at the beginning of July, around 2 months before my due date, which was 3rd September. It was a very boring 2 months because everything was difficult… My belly was huge, and my asthma was terrible so walking from the sofa to the bathroom was like running a marathon (in total it was like 7 meters). I spent most of the 2 months sweating like the Niagara falls! As soon as I lifted a finger the sweat would start running down my face… There was a constant super heavy feeling in my uterus, every time I walked anywhere… It was like someone had parked a truck in the lower part of my uterus! But… apart from that my pregnancy was fine! It was so boring though that the baby decided to come early…
Do you know how long we planned to make sure my husband was here during the birth!? We spent hours and hours discussing when the best time would be for him to come, and ended up booking his ticket for the 29th August. We researched like crazy from family due date history to facts and figures on the internet and came to the conclusion that I would probably be going past my due date. So just to make sure we planned for him to come a few days before and then stay for 2 weeks, so if I was induced a week after the due date, he would still be able to make the birth…
So guess when the baby decided to come?! Yes just TWO days before my husband arrives… So much for our planning skills.. No I shall not be opening a planning business in the near future!
So lets talk about the birth! I know everyone is interested in reading a little (or a lot, as I never write short posts!) about my birthing experience… Well if you don’t want to know the gross details then stop reading right now and go watch some tv!
It was late night the 25th August and I felt something weird was going on with my body, and I couldn’t sleep… At about 1 am I went to the bathroom and on the way there there was suddenly a waterfall in my room! Now in movies you see women water breaking and its like a small waterfall and then it stops… Well this was Niagara falls and the River Nile mixed together and x10! I was totally in denial.. My water was not going to break and I was not going to give birth before my husband arrived, and that was in 2 days…
I went to the bathroom and went back to bed… I mean seriously I WASNT going to give birth without my husband… Maybe if I ignored the waterfall and went back to sleep nothing would happen! Well that plan didn’t work… The waterfall continued so instead I sat down and cried… I thought id add to all the water flowing out of my body! I mean I couldn’t give birth now, my husband wasnt here!!! For 9 months we had planned for him to be there… and TWO days short my water breaks!
Anyways I soon realised that the only thing happening was my room was getting soaking wet from tears and birth water! So I gathered my thoughts and called the hospital… They told me to come as soon as possible! Hold your horses, I live 2 hours away, so ill be there in about 2 hours (which technically is as soon as possible!). I then called my husband and apologized to him and told him to start looking for tickets, because there was NO WAY I was giving birth without him!
2am I wake my mum up and we start our journey to the hospital… The water did not stop flowing! Trust me there is so much stuff that nobody tells you about that happens before, during and after birth…
People say it’s the most beautiful thing ever, but let’s be honest people, ITS NOT! The outcome is a beautiful baby, but the process is definitely not beautiful but rather gross actually… AND VERY PAINFUL!
The question I was asked most during my pregnancy was: What are your feelings and plans for the birth? My answer was always that its better not to think about it nor plan anything, because you can’t plan what will happen during the birth… The ONLY thing I was going to plan was to have my husband there! You can’t really plan your birth, I mean you never know how or when it will happen…
Well anyways I arrived at the hospital at about 4am… They hooked me up to a monitor and gave me a bed… I had not started having any contractions at this point… The contractions started at about 7am… I was probably the first person checking flights for her husband during the contractions! But they hurt, trust me… I never really thought about how painful giving birth could get, I was more in the ‘ill deal with the pain when it happens’ kinda person! And I have had seriously bad period pains before, and I have 8 tattoos, so ive felt pain before! I liked to believe that I have a high tolerance for pain… So when the contractions started I thought ‘okey this is seriously painful, but I can deal with it’… Then it got stronger and more painful… And I thought okey, I can still deal with it, even though this is bordering on super extreme pain… Then it would get even stronger… And I still thought I could deal with it but there is NO WAY it will get more painful, because this pain was intense… Guess what… IT got stronger and more painful! The pain was like the strongest pain you could feel without dying (literally just dying of extreme pain!)… Seriously there is no way you can imagine this limit of pain… So I was not allowed an epidural (pain medication) as I was not in active labour yet… To be in active labour you have to be 4cm open… The contractions had been getting stronger and stronger for the last 10 hours… And all I could do was breathe through them!
At about 9pm the midwife on duty told me that nothing would happen tonight so I should just get a good night sleep and prepare for tomorrow and the labour… CRAZY woman, did she not see how much pain I was in?! She was going to give me a pain injection, so it wouldn’t hurt so much! Where THE HELL was that injection 12 hours ago!?!? So the next midwife on duty comes to check-up on me… By this time id been at the hospital for so long that 4 midwives had finished their shifts… The midwife says I can’t get a pain injection because im now in active labour! Great, give me that freaking epidural, the pain is killing me slowly! I got a shot of antibiotics because my water had been broken for more than 24 hours and then I was moved to the birthing room and given an epidural… The epidural worked for a few hours but slowed down the labour… So they gave me medicine to start labour again and reduced the amount of epidural… Great more pain! Wohooo!
Honestly after this point most of it was a blur…. I had been in labour (and pain!!!) for more than 24 hours and not slept much…. All I remember was the pain got stronger and stronger until I had to start pushing the baby out! And this was probably the peak of pain! Im not going to go into details but you can probably imagine (actually nobody can imagine the amount of pain, unless they have been through it!)… Yeah it was painful… The worst was having to push when I had not slept and had nooo energy to even breathe! After a painful few hours of contractions and then some pushing the baby was out!
This moment is the only thing you probably want to remember from giving birth… Everything else is painful and gross! It was so unreal that this living thing had been inside me and with all this pain I managed to push it out…
After the baby is born you still have to push out the ‘rest’… And then you probably have to get stitched up… Yepp this is something nobody tells you about… You will probably rip and then need stitches… And then you will bleed, yepp for about 4 weeks, maybe more! That is punishment for being period free for 9 months… Slap in the face with a long 4 week period…
So lets not fool ourself people, giving birth is something that includes a lot of pain, blood and other gross situations… Your dignity is thrown out the window when you lie on a bed with your legs spread and a spotlight lighting up everything… There is nothing beautiful about birth…. You can’t sit for several days, yeah no the pain doesn’t stop after giving birth!
BUT let me tell you it was definitely worth it, because now I have a beautiful baby boy! Dont ask me if I would do it again, the memory is still too fresh in my mind.. Maybe in two years when ive forgotten how painful the experience was! And no my husband did not make the birth but my mum was there… After seeing how disgusting birth really is, and how much pain there is, I don’t think my husband would have been able to deal with it! But I had my mum there, who was the worlds best supporter! I wouldn’t want anyone else there, she was amazing to have next to me!
Baby Yousef was born at 07:02 on the 27 August 2014… (Without my husband)
Here are a few photos from the hospital, and first photos of Yousef.
Femieshe 