The birth story series. Part 1.

I’ve come through it. It’s over, never to be repeated again. Thank God!
Birth number 2 is over with, and now I have a lifetime of enjoying our second daughter, Willow Alannah Hamilton.

I start out the birth story this way just to try to warn you. This is not a pretty piece of writing. 10 days into her little life and I’m already forgetting the sheer overwhelming ‘sensations’ of birth. Stupid hormones! No wonder we do this multiple times. We can thank God for his creation of oxytocin and other such blissful hormones created for us women in abundance during and following labour. Because I know that if I ever remembered the pain fully, then I’d definitely be reconsidering my “4 children, no less” policy that Craig is warming to. But I write this as a reminder to myself for next time to NEVER attempt this again without the most potent form of permissible drug administered by hospital staff and known to man.

See, my other two friends who birthed their second children just recently had some pretty decent birth experiences, as far as births go, anyway. So I was allowing myself to be hopeful, which is really all you can resign yourself to anyway, given that your body is again going to be thrown into the unrelenting and ever increasing pains of birth.

Unfortunately, even though this second child came faster than Avalon (8 instead of 16 hours of full-on labour) it was just as hard, and I think just as painful.

So- here’s the story from the start.

The days leading up to the birth were really difficult to live with. I felt as though my body was slowly shutting itself down, and with an active toddler now in my life, I felt that if Willow didn’t arrive soon, Craig would be off from work anyway, and I’d need bedrest until her arrival. My pelvis was in constant pain and my hip joints the same. I would get up from sitting down for no more than 5 minutes, and just breathe through the pain in my joints. Even though it was painful to stand, it was almost not worth having a rest to sit down, because of the agony that followed.

So I made a bold move. At my 39 week, 6 day appointment, I asked to be given a ‘cervical sweep’. This procedure was known to trigger labour by releasing natural hormones into your body to start it off. I won't go into details...

The midwife looked at me like I was crazy, but I begged her really and said that it worked for a friend of mine, and that I was in so much pain now, with constant prelabour and now this pelvis thing, that I wanted this precious gift out NOW (please). This was crazy painful for me, and I had to ask Craig to take the rest of the day off work, because I was useless to look after Avalon. I just wanted to collapse in a heap and moan softly to myself in self pity. Which I totally would have done, if I wasn't such a proud person.