/Cont'd....
Then it wrenched through my body again. I have no idea how I did it, but somehow I managed to lift her into the play pen. Then, an inch at a time, I crawled back towards the front door. Now there was only a second or two between contractions, I could not move, and I was alone in the house with a toddler. Terrified, I yanked the telephone off the wall by its cord and tried to ring for an ambulance, but as I couldn�t speak for the pain I gave up trying after a few minutes. I just wasn�t getting long enough to even take a breath. In determined desperation I pulled myself up high enough to unlatch the door, but could not open it properly. �Help.� I tried to sob through the letterbox, but all that came out was a groan. I don�t know how long I was there, on all fours, in too much pain to even cry, thinking I would pass out and the baby would be born dead because there was no-one there to deliver it, then all of a sudden a pair of arms was around me, half lifting, half dragging me to a red car. In the car I closed my eyes and thanked God that my Dad had found me. Mum had gone into the house to look after my two year old.
How I coped with the pain in the car I will never know, but later I did notice I had actually bitten into my bottom lip enough to draw blood.
Five minutes later I was bundled into a wheelchair then hoisted onto a table. Someone put a mask over my face and all of a sudden the voices in the room began to echo amongst the white noise I could hear. Then I realised that I was in the delivery room surrounded by midwives who were pulling off my trousers and everything was going to be all right. I couldn�t distinguish what they looked like, or what they were saying, but one or two were smiling so I relaxed and let my body take over the work completely. I pushed once, then stopped for a few seconds, felt my legs get wet then pushed again. The pain stopped. Completely. I looked up in stunned relief and smiled to see several rather surprised looking midwives grinning from ear to ear, one holding a bawling baby girl. Handing my new daughter to me, she said �You didn�t want to hang about, did you?�
My husband and my dad came in a few minutes later to find me sitting up in bed happily feeding baby Jess with one leg of my trousers still on. I found out later that her time of birth was 1.57pm, just over an hour after that first, mild contraction outside the chemists! I am led to believe it is one of the fastest deliveries ever seen in this hospital.
And you would think that would be enough for me to forget about more babies, wouldn�t you? Oh no, as I am writing this, I am in the final week of my third pregnancy and might go at any minute. This time, though, I think I had better go straight in, don�t you?
Copywright S A Owens March 1998 - Edited Version Published in 'Take A Break' Magazine May 1998 |
