The Things They Don’t Tell You at School: Babies

When I left school, I was left thinking I knew how to handle the outside world on my own.

I mean I’d learnt the ins and outs of all the cells in a plant, I’d learnt how to dissect a pigs heart. Heck I even learnt how to speak like Shakespeare!

But what I didn’t learn was:

• How to find a job
• How to smash an interview
• How to cook proper meal (and not just a fruit salad from what I learned in my Food Technology class)
• How to use the simpliest of transports like busses, trains, aeroplanes
• How to pay bills and how many there actually were!

There so many things schools don’t teach you and you have to figure out the hard way.

So on the 23rd of December 2017 I found out I was pregnant with my very first baby! I had been waiting nine months to see that second line on the test.

The pregnancy for me was actually okay! I was waiting for the morning sickness and the terrible heartburn. But that’s the first thing I learnt! Our bodies are all so different, I didn’t suffer from any pregnancy symptoms except for the weight gain!

And then it came to a weight scan at 38 weeks. My baby was predicted to be 10 lb+!!

Now I’m only 5’2 with quite a small frame. I was told I wouldn’t deliver a big baby safely and needed to make the decision to delivery natural and have the risks of Shoulder Dystocia OR to go for a major abdominal surgery and have a caesarean.

Well that’s the last thing I wanted to do! I didn’t want to feel like I’d failed the last bit, I didn’t want a big scar on my body and I definitely didn’t want all the needles that came with it!

But I went ahead with the caesarean.

So Thursday the 30th of August 2018 at 8 AM I was sat at the Kings Mill Hospital Labour Ward. Completely aware of what I was about to put my body through.

This was all planned ahead, so I didn’t go into labour, I didn’t get contractions and I didn’t get the feeling of my waters breaking.

Instead, I got the feeling of freezing spray to numb all the areas for where I was going to have my Hand Canula and my General Anesthetic and my Spinal Injection. My first biggest fear.

Nobody have told me how I would feel in the operation room, sat with nothing but a surgical gown only covering my front. Nobody prepared me for how scared I was going to be.

But it wasn’t that bad, everyone was so calm and SO nice! I expected it to be very stern and serious but we all had a laugh still!

After all the needles had been done, I felt my bum going warm. I told everyone in the room I had p***ed myself! They all started laughing. Apparently that was the numbness kicking in, yet another thing nobody told me.

As I’m laid down on the operating table, there’s huge lights shining above me and there’s now 10 people stood around me while I’m now having a catheter put in my vagina. Well there’s me thinking I chose the Caesarean and I still have to show my dignity to the whole world to see!

Another thing! My legs were numb but how the hell did my knees get in front of my face, for this I’ll never know! It was weird and I don’t think I was mentally prepared to see my own legs move without me controlling them!

Within a couple of minutes the surgeon had opened me up and I could hear suction! I thought I was at the dentist!! But apparently my waters had been broken and they were getting rid of the fluid.

The next thing I hear is this little gasp of air followed by a very loud cry! Everyone tells you the minute you hear the first cry, there’s not a moment in the world like it! And I can agree, my partner looked me and I’ve never felt so much love at once! The love I had for my partner for all the help, the love I had for these 10 people around for, and also the love I now had for this little human being. We both cried.

Whilst they cleaned her up I was also being cleaned up, and I could see cloth after cloth clearing all the blood away from me. I felt like a murder victim! There was blood everywhere! These surgeons do a good job but my God they are so messy!

After a while someone (I can’t remember who) plonked this tiny screaming human on my chest. I’m laid down on a bed with my feeling from armpit down, and I’m being suffocated my this human squishing me and falling onto my neck. I kindly asked my partner to take her for a proper cuddle until I could sit up again and actually hold her!

But that’s one life lesson I will never forget!

Life’s all about lesson and we actually go through lessons each day!