Christian Parenting on a Budget
Sorry about the overblown nature of the title of this page - I couldn't think of anything else for it I'm afraid, especially as I am a Christian parent on a budget! Ages and ages ago a friend and I had a great money spinning idea for a book that every parent would need. Unfortunately my friend then decided to move away to Worcester (boohoo), so The Budget Baby was never born. However this page rises from its ashes. I apologise for being an opinionated big mouth - please leave comments to let me know your experiences too! Anyway to start off with, here is the obligatory horrific birth story (Senara is now two and a bit, so it wasn't written recently). Ultimately the point of this is remind myself that if there ever is another baby, writing a birth plan will be a complete waste of time!
Awaiting Deliverance
It all started at 11am on Christmas Eve, when my waters broke.
Hang on a minute, for me it started at 7am in Asda, when the pain began. Or did it start at 3am when I woke up and couldn’t understand why?
I guess really it didn’t matter when it started, what mattered most was THE PAIN.
Who has ever relished the prospect of giving birth? Definitely not me. For all my life it has left me cold. It seems an unnecessarily horrific punishment doled out to mothers (as if eventually having teenagers wasn’t enough). So finding I was pregnant was both utterly fantastic and unspeakable at the same time.
I guess probably Asda was where I thought it started. We got there early on Christmas Eve, before they sold out of everything. My husband, Winston went off to get eggs and other things whilst I experienced the most painful Braxton Hicks I’d had so far. Previously they’d felt like period pain, which I could live with, but this was much more intense. Stumbling towards the chocolate I decided that I didn’t want real contractions if these were the practise ones. I wasn’t 100% sure how I was going to avoid them though…
Given that child birth filled me with more dread than being pricked by burning needles, obviously the most sensible thing to do was to listen to the birthing horror stories of my nearest and dearest in order to scare myself witless before the great day. If you are terrified of something, you don’t want it to a) be anticipated too long, b) last too long or c) be worse than you expect. As such finding out that one of my colleagues had been in labour long enough to cook three meals and entertain guests was hardly reassuring, even if she felt comfortable enough to watch ‘Bad Girls’ before going into hospital. Labour did not appeal.
We got home from Asda and put away the food. I say we, but I guess really Winston did it all whilst I felt sorry for myself and rubbed my belly. Next on our list of things to do was get a Christmas tree. The Braxton Hicks were continuing, but there didn’t seem to be a pattern to them, so I knew I wasn’t really in labour. And anyway I still had five weeks to go until my baby was due to be born. Nevertheless in Homebase the pains were causing me to lurch in a strange style. Heaven only knows what the shop assistants made of this drunk-looking orca whale terrorising the other shoppers.
My friend Ellen had been overdue, and had hated it. Eventually she resorted to jumping up and down and poking her belly, shouting “Come out! Come out!” to try and induce labour (n.b. this didn’t work and is not an alternative to hospital induction). Waiting too long for my baby to decide to appear didn’t sound like a good alternative either. Going overdue was like waiting for Christmas when you were little, except that when you got to 25th December you found that the date had been changed, but no one knew exactly when to.
Having been properly consulted on the type and size of tree, and having got it home, I abandoned my husband for the bath. When I was a teenager and had bad periods, baths made the pain seem less intense so that seemed like a good idea now. I sat in it for ages until I felt less sore, then got out and got dressed. I still had the Braxton Hicks, but they seemed to be getting more bearable. Should be gone soon, so I could get on with decorating the tree and such like things. I went downstairs.
Claire, another friend, had coped with labour by planning it in detail. Hating hospitals, she opted for a home birth and decided that water would help. For weeks before the birth she had a hired tank full of water sitting in her front room waiting to be used. She knew what she would do when her waters broke and didn’t care about pain relief. When her labour started everything was great and the water really helped. She started to dilate, and was getting ready to push. Then the midwife realised that she was not dilating properly. She was rushed into hospital and had to have a caesarian, then stay in for four days until she was given the all clear. It left her and her husband disappointed, not living up to the happier expectations they had had.
And finally I had found something that terrified me more than labour. Being cut open seemed a very last resort.
Going downstairs was a big mistake. Getting out of the bath was a big mistake. My waters broke in a big gush onto my clean carpet. I went into Basil Fawlty mode, panicking and ordering Winston around in equal measure. He phoned the hospital whilst I had another bath and stuffed a few things into a bag (five weeks early for goodness sake, it would be my baby).
So what was I expecting of my labour? If I’m honest I was trying to expect the worst because the only thing all the horror stories had shown me was that nothing is predictable. Whatever my birth plan said would be ignored if my medical needs said otherwise. So I was hoping for the best, but trying to expect the worst.
In spite of a hair raising journey we made it to the hospital in one piece and were ushered into a labour ward by an unhurried midwife. At this point the contractions (I knew they were contractions now) were very painful and the best way that I could find for coping with them was shouting “Ow OW OW OW!” very loudly, which was scaring the other women on the ward. I was moved into a delivery suite.
In the delivery suite the midwives found out that my baby was now in a breech position having been head down throughout the pregnancy. This would normally automatically come with a caesarian, but my baby had moved down so low that they were unwilling to perform one and would rather wait half an hour to see if I could deliver normally. I was scared.
Okay, the pressure was on and I was on gas and air, having been too far gone to be allowed anything else. I’d had my legs put in stirrups and my vagina shown to more people than I ever thought necessary. I’d had needles stuck into various places in order to have blood taken and for possible epidurals in case of caesarian. I had midwives shouting at me, and several just staring because they’d never seen a breech birth before. I’d had an episiotomy and I didn’t care. I was on a sort of fuzzy planet, trying to get rid of the discomfort. And really, nothing mattered except having my baby safe and healthy in my arms.
It seemed like ages, but she came out at 1.06pm, about two hours after my waters had broken. Winston said she wasn’t happy about missing Christmas. She weighed 6lb 8oz and looked ridiculous in the newborn clothes that we had for her. And she was lovely. We called her Senara.
And now, six weeks on, I don’t really remember the pain. I don’t actually remember much of the detail at all. She’s much more interesting.
And you know what? I’d willingly do it again.
My mum nearly gave birth to me on the steps of our local hospital. My sister came so quickly she didn’t make it to hospital. But she reckoned that having us was easy. That sounds better. I wish that those of you reading this expecting your own deliverance await something similar.
