True stories about birth and giving birth

Day 811. A completely different way

Posted on 2012. Dec. 24.

In medias res: when I was expectant with my fourth baby on one day early in the morning I wrote the story of my first baby’s birth (Day 810. Ground down). Then I went to bed. I was half asleep when I heard a pop. I suspected what would happen, but still I tried to sleep. I started to have a terrible trembling. I think it might have been because I had just thought over my first childbirth… Some minutes passed, I got calm and it was gone… I wasn’t afraid anymore.

I was thinking again if I could write something else about homebirth than I had written before (Day 368. A glass of water). A lot of people have misunderstood my metaphor with water, they thought I was saying delivery is as easy as drinking water, however I was not talking about how easy it is but how natural and how essential it seems for those being present at a childbirth. (I’m sure it can be misunderstood again, that is why I used this picture, because words cannot explain what I want to say.) And that is the reason why I want to write after my first birth story about my fourth one. It is a completely different story, a completely different picture. I was there with my terrifying memories and then I experienced something totally new with is naturalness and security.

So let’s start the fourth one, from the beginning. I mean almost from the middle, because I didn’t know (I didn’t want to know?) that there was somebody inside again. I didn’t plan to have the next one yet, I thought the previous one was still too young… I was still breastfeeding, I didn’t have my period yet. And my abdomen wasn’t getting round… I started to become suspicious as I had backaches. That kind of backache tortured me only when… And then the familiar feeling of not being able to endure the other kid on my tits. And then I went to Ági’s for an examination. After that I had to accept it, I couldn’t deny it any more to myself. We guessed it might have been a 16-week pregnancy.

Then time passed. I started to become more and more globular. I tried to count a date for the birth, just to have one. (In the end it stressed me a bit.) We lived our life happily; the kids were growing outside and inside, too. I went to have the tests I thought to be important. Everything happened in the usual, ordinary way.

Meanwhile I couldn’t forget about the “uncertainty factor”. I counted another date, too. I went for an ultrasound test, where I was told a third, even later due time. I thought that completely impossible. So when finally I went past the first two due dates I had to take a not-stress test every second day. Luckily everything was all right.

Then the big morning arrived. I could hear the pop. I started to feel afraid. Then it was gone and the contractions came soon. But fears had been far away by then. I could feel that whatever was happening I didn’t want and I couldn’t turn back. It was quick. About 90 minutes after the pop. And the fourth baby landed in his dad’s arms.

No signs of being overdue, beautiful pink little creature. Later on the placenta showed that it really wasn’t overdue. “How long would they have been waiting following a routine protocol  at hospital?” I contemplated. If we take the first guessed due date as the correct one, it was already week 43. Would they have been able to trust and wait? Or would I have been forced into a “premature birth” as such by their intolerance.

Talking about the speed of the event: if I had been given birth in a taxi halfway to the “official obstetric institute” the media would have had a fantastic story praising the taxi driver’s cool behaviour. No one would have even thought of crying killer of anyone saying how irresponsible it was and using all the other hackneyed expressions I have heard or read before.

I would like my grandchildren to be born they way a little human deserves… Wherever they could be at the time…

J. R.

Véletlenül kiválasztott mesék.

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