I just read Wanjiku Wanderi's post on her child birth. http://www.judywanderi.com/2015/02/waiting-to-exhale-my-childbirth.html Her description of the whole event was so real, so much like mine. I thought I would take her direction and tell my story.
According to the scans and the doctors meager knowledge on statistics in probability, my EDD (Expected Delivery Date) was 14th of August. Being the second born in our family and the only girl, my mother and I had never really had what can be called a great relationship. As such, I had run away from her two months before the EDD and was staying with my grandparents. I had taken one of the rooms in my grandparents huge home, and had done all it took to make it very welcoming for my child. As it turns out, early preparations are on point, because on the night of 22nd July, my baby decided he couldn't wait to emerge.
That night, (22nd), I felt what could only be described as mild labour. Something close to menstrual cramps only not really. Unlike Wanjiku, I had only a vague idea of the kind of pain that characterizes labour, made worse because by my impatience. I could not wait to see this baby, who, as I forgot to mention earlier, I was sure was a girl. Thanks to the doc who did the gender identity scan, I had enough dresses and my room was hugely pink. So when that strange feeling came in the middle of the night, I rushed to wake my grandma up, labour was here. Now, my grandma has had 9 kids, one look at me and she ordered I go back to sleep. 'You are not in labour', she said.
I did go to sleep, though the 'strange' feeling persisted. I could feel the labour - or what I perceived to be labour - from far inside me. At around 6.00 am on 23rd, my grandma came to my door and asked if I still felt that thing. At that point, I was barely feeling it, and said so, though she insisted that I go to hospital anyway. My aunt, who lived in a rented house a few metres away was called to accompany me.
I could not see my doctor as she had not arrived. I also could not call her because I was not really sure that I was in labour. Instead, I went straight to the pre-natal clinic. The nurses conducted what I see Wanjiku calling VE (Vaginal Examination). According to them, I had dilated 1cm, which could not be ignored. But I had to wait for my doc to make the final judgement.
She came in at 9.00 am, and did the same test again. (I have to mention that the various times I have had this kind of thing happen to me, it is the most uncomfortable thing ever. It is not painful, but damn me if I ever do it willingly!).This time round, I had dilated 3 cm. She ordered that I be accorded room in what they called stage 1 labour ward. There was stage 2 and finally delivery room. She promised to come back later and left me in the hands of very capable midwives. I say capable because they practically delivered every baby that was delivered during that time I was in there without the assistance of a doctor, and yes the baby were quite a number, as you will find out.
For some strange reason, most babies are born at night!. So it was normal that only one more person was in stage 1, and no one in stage 2. This lady, it emerged, had been in that ward for the past 2 weeks. She apparently had high blood pressure which endangered both her and the baby - We should thank God for good health. I noticed that the midwives would check her pressure and heart beat after every 15 seconds. Her husband would also appear after every few hours.
As if on cue, after the check by the doctor, my contractions became quite painful. A jet of pain would start from near my ribs and move down towards my vagina. My aunt left shortly after I was admitted and promised to be back. A midwife came in shortly after I had been shown my bed, and requested that I lie down on my left side. This was the proper position, as he called it. I expressed my concern that this labour was become quite painful and he laughed. Actually what he told me was, you have no idea how painful labour is, the pain now is on the front, the real pain is usually felt by the spinal cord, and the intervals are so close to each other you will barely sit. Just be patient. He then advised that I start walking immediately so as to quicken the progress. That was around 11.00 am, I set outside and started the walk around that hospital, and trust me, it's huge. I would walk for about 5 minutes and when the jab of pain came, I would hold on to whatever was in sight or sit on the nearest bench. I was determined to get this baby out, I did not even go for lunch.
My determination held up until about 3.00 pm, at that point, the pain had worsened and the frequency increased. I could barely walk for 2 minutes without the jab. So I went back to the ward. It was also the same time my doctor came back and did another VE, I was at ...guess what, 3cm! damn! After all the walking and increased pains! I also got back to find a new entrant in the ward, this one was looking at me clinge like she was watching a damn movie. She was not in any pain whatsoever. Apparently she had been brought in because she had outdone her due date by close to 3 weeks! By that time, I was so tired, my feet were swollen and for some reason, I could not lie down because doing so increased my pain. So I would sit on my bunk and and stand after every one minute, no position was comfortable.
At around 5.00 pm, a new entrant into stage 1. When she went for a VE, she was 3cm! I actually thought that maybe this was a standard size for all stage 1 candidates! but for her, her pain kept worsening, at about 6.00 pm, she was vomiting badly. The unignorable pain still wrecking havoc in my body, it was my turn to watch her like an hawk! I couldn't imagine someone possibly feeling worse. But she was crying and growling and I wasn't, which meant that either her pain was worse or my threshold for pain was much better. Afterall, I believed I was psychologically prepared as my grandma had so lovingly advised me to 'vumilia kiume', this was no task for a weak person and whether you cry or not, there won't be any help, you just have to go through it, or so she had said.
7.00 pm, and there were screams allover. Even the lady who had exceeded her due date was now screaming, clearly the baby had sensed it's presence in a labour ward. We went for a VE at that point, my vomiting friend was at 7cm, the lady with the exceeded EDD was at 3cm and I was at.. you guessed right, 3 cm! This was going badly. At 8.00 pm, I could not sit, the midwives had a hard time taking the child's heart beat, coz lying down on my left wast complete drama. At 9.00 pm, another VE, the vomiting lady, 9cm, the other lady, 5cm, Ladybird, 3cm! clearly there was some force seriously acting against me. The lady who had dilated 9cm skipped stage 2 and was taken to the delivery room. We remained in stage 1, I couldn't sit, my spinal cord was on fire, the frequency was like every minute, my feet were too swollen from the walk during the day for me to stand, yet sitting was not an option. During my pregnancy, I had prayed a lot that my child come in July, during the cold season so that the cold could numb out my pain, it numbed out my feet instead, the rest of my body was on fire; I was 84 kgs and had spent hours on end standing, I'm not sure you feel me. 11.00 pm, a baby was born in the labour ward, I had dilated 3cm and the other lady was at 7cm. By that time I was screaming so bad, at one point I told the midwives to take me to the c-section. I think that made her realize what I was going through because at that point, she made a point of trying to massage my belly as she took the baby's heart beat, something that didn't help. The words that came out of that room were crazy, we would laugh with the lady much later when I reminded her of her vow to God to never have sex again if only He would let her live through this.
At 3.00 am, she also gave birth to her child, and I was left with the lady who had stayed for two weeks and who was soundly asleep, amid all the noise. Just to give you a clue at how bad things were, I wanted to pee at around 4.00am, and on going to the loo, I could not bend or squat, so I lifted my dress, chucked my panties and watched helplessly as I peed on myself! Now I was all alone with the cries. I begged a nurse to allow me to see go to the delivery room but she wouldn't, I was just too far off. at around 6.00 am though, she allowed me to stand near an electric heater she had lit for warmth, though she held me the entire time. My aunt came in quite early too and when she didn't find me at my bunk and heard a baby cry, she was all smiles. that was until she saw me all teary, seriously messed up and fully pregnant being held by a nurse infront of a heater. It was about 28 hours since my labour had started, it was bad.
My doctor came in at 8.00 am, one look at me and you could see the alarm on her face. A quick assembling of midwives and an instruction given to inject me with some medicine which would quicken the process, and from there I experienced what I would call real labour. I was getting about 5 contractions per minute. My son (yes son) was born at 1.45 pm on 24th of July, and unlike Wanjiku, I was too weak to see my poop. I still remember the boy, too wrinkly and tiny. Still my source of joy 5 years later.
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