Tomorrow is Baby Taylor’s first birthday. My baby, my tiny
little burrito bean, is turning one. I don’t even know how we got here. The
first three months felt like an endless battle. I thought we would never get to
this point. I thought I would have long since lost my mind by the time this day
came around. This is all coming out in broken, staccato sentences, but the
truth is that that is how I feel about it. When I think about everything we’ve
been through over the last 52 weeks, I can hardly form a coherent thought in my
head. So, instead of writing a blog about tomorrow, I’m going to write a blog
about the day Baby Taylor came into the world.
It was a Thursday and it was my due date. I can’t remember
what the weather was like. I can remember that I was tired and huge and fed up.
I’d had SPD for about four weeks by this point and I was sick of being in pain
and collapsing in public. I felt cumbersome and awkward and completely fucking
ridiculous.
That morning we took Toddler Taylor to a soft play centre
and I will never forget the look on the face of a father relaxing at one of the
nearby tables when I landed at the bottom of the huge, bumpy slide right in
front of him. He was clearly, hilariously horrified. I remember that I wanted
to laugh and joke with him, “Don’t worry; nothing is happening today!” How
wrong I was.
On the way home, we decided to get cake ingredients and bake
cupcakes, but it was time for Toddler Taylor’s nap by the time we got back and
my husband left for work not long after. About half an hour after he left and
just before I was due to get Toddler Taylor up from his nap, I had my first
contraction. I didn’t think that was actually what it was, so I ignored it and
went to wake up Toddler Taylor. As I was changing his nappy on his bedroom
floor, I had another contraction and started to wonder if I might actually be
going into labour. So I set up the contraction timer app on my phone and
settled down in a kneeling position on the floor with my forearms resting on
the sofa. I had about six contractions in this position before I realised it
was probably time to call for reinforcements, so I rang my mother, still not entirely
convinced that I was actually in labour and not wanting to bring my husband
home from work for no reason.
By the time she arrived, I had moved from the sofa to the
birthing ball and was rocking backwards and forwards on my knees, still using
the timer app and trying to breathe calmly through the contractions and not
scare Toddler Taylor, who had no fucking idea what was going on and kept
bringing me cuddly toys to make me feel better. Bless him. After about half an
hour, my mum insisted that she call my husband while I called the labour ward.
They didn’t actually believe that I was very far along, but they told me to go
in anyway and my husband arrived home shortly afterwards, grabbed my bag from upstairs
and helped me into the car.
The drive was awful. I’m a dreadful passenger at the best of
times, but that was made so much worse by being in labour and being in the
passenger seat of my own car. Between contractions I texted my mother-in-law
(who works as a discharge liaison nurse) saying we were on our way in. I can’t
even remember if I told her why. I think she probably guessed. My husband
dropped me off at the main entrance and as I hobbled towards the doors, I had a
huge contraction that had me clinging to the lamp post right next to the bus
stop. I may have startled a few people, but even then it struck me as odd that
none of them offered to help when I was clearly in labour and needed physical support
in getting through the fucking doors. Anyway. I made it and my mother-in-law
found me clinging to a wall and ran to get me a wheelchair.
Most of what happened afterwards is a blur. A few things
stood out though.
I hated the room I was in. It was bright and sterile and I
wanted to move around but I was wired up to a fucking monitor and no one would
let me. It was a stark contrast to the peaceful, holistic birth experience I’d had with Toddler Taylor.
The midwife didn’t believe that I knew my own body. I told
her the baby was coming soon, more or less right after she broke my waters. She
said I hadn’t been in labour for long enough and that I could expect at least
another couple of hours of it before Baby Taylor was born. On that basis, when
she offered me pain relief, I’m ashamed to say that I took it. I was in so much
pain and I was exhausted from looking after a rambunctious toddler all day. But
I should have known in the 15 minutes that she was out of the room preparing my
shot of pethidine that she was wrong. To this day I don’t know why I didn’t say
anything. I suppose I was just in the zone, I was focused on the labour. I don’t
say much of anything when I’m in labour. I certainly don’t shout and swear. I've never felt like it would be helpful.
Weirdly, the midwife came back, injected me and then said, “I
don’t think that’s going to have time to work before you push him out. Do you
feel like you need to push?” I nodded and tried to roll over onto my front so I
could get up on all fours, but I’d torn a muscle in my abdomen quite early in
the pregnancy and it had never had chance to heal, so I couldn’t do it on my
own. My husband could see that I wanted to change position and he could see
that no one was helping, so he shouted, “Will you please help me here? She
obviously wants to turn over!” By this point there was another midwife in the
room and they all helped me get into the position I wanted to be in, then I
didn’t even have to try to push because my body did it all for me. Baby
Taylor made his entrance within five minutes, but because of the pethidine he
didn’t want to breathe for himself, so the midwives gave him some oxygen after
I’d had a quick cuddle with him and then I snuggled down in the bed with him
and he latched straight on for a feed.
We were allowed to go home that same night and everything
seemed to be perfect until his problems began to become apparent when he was
around two weeks old. And, to be perfectly honest, most of that is a blur now
too. It feels like it happened a lifetime ago, or like it happened to somebody
else.
All things considered, it hasn’t been a bad year. It has
been a privilege to watch him grow and turn into this beautiful, happy little
boy who is full of mischief and character. I am unendingly proud of him for how
adaptable and strong and brave he has been. He is truly and honestly my hero.
So I don’t know how we got here... But I wouldn’t change it
for the world.
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