When Ann, a friend who had just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on 1st Ramadhan, asked me about my birth experience, I asked her to read my blog.
“Why? Are you trying to discourage people from pregnancy?” Ann asked me.
I was flabbergasted. Why would I want to do such thing?
“Well, if I were to blog my own experience, I think my story will discourage people from getting pregnant..My sister certainly thinks so,” Ann added.
I pled her to tell me more.
In what she described as a surreal experience, Ann first thought she was going to have a normal vaginal birth. She started feeling some contraction at 7.00 in the morning, but only went into labour room at about 10.00 a.m. She was given epidural but when she stopped dilating at 6cm after more than 2 hours, and the baby’s heartbeat slowed down during contractions, the doctor decided to do a c-section.
Like a whirlwind they had her signing some papers consenting the surgery and wheeled her to the operating theatre, bumping the cart along the way. She was feeling so very hungry, but of course as it was the first day of the fasting month, she had not eaten anything that morning. And when she pled with the nurses for some water, they said no. Upon reaching the operation theatre, the nurse asked whether or not she had eaten and of course the answer was a weak no and she could not help noticing the gleam on the nurses’ faces. She knew then and there that they had been unhelpful just to make sure that if c-section became necessary, it would be easier to operate on her as she had been fasting all along.
She trembled in the freezing room throughout the operation. They even put her on the laughing gas mask. After about 15 minutes, plop, the 2.6kg baby came out. And then, for the next 1 ½ hours, they started stitching all her internals which she could actually felt and heard, and really bothered her. And then the doctor sprayed something on her wound, so basically she had just one neat line appearing in the end.
“But surely meeting and holding your baby makes all the pain in the world worth it?” I asked further.
“I beg to differ,” Ann said, “I didn’t feel that wondrous feeling everybody told me about. When they gave him for me to hold, I could still feel some abdominal pain. And I was drowsy from all the painkillers and laughing gas, so I was afraid to hold him for long in case I drop him by accident.”
And that, dear all, is a real life experience. Different people go through different kind of birth experiences. While I sincerely hope that Ann’s story would not scare people off pregnancy and giving birth, I certainly hope sharing her story will educate more about the process and the medical interventions involved in labour and giving birth.
After missing that wondrous feel at birth, here’s hoping that Ann and her newfound joy, Ahmad Muizz will share a lot of wonderful years together.
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