Natural birth with epidural

At the age of 42, I gave birth to a little being that scrambled any semblance of emotional matter-of-factness. I can’t really remember the exact course of events, but Tom and I had been together for two-and-a-half years and a wedding ceremony was being discussed. A future together a certainty, we contemplated parenting. I was 41, Tom a year older and we fell squarely into the it-might-be-difficult-to-fall-pregnant category. So we were astonished when a short while later I discovered I was pregnant.

When the eight-week scan showed no heartbeat, I was taken in for “an evacuation”. My gynae, knowing how I deal with things, reminded me to take it easy and “to be nice to Tom, you’re both going to feel dreadful”.

I took a day off and went back to work. I can’t say I was devastated, fragile “yes”, but a “feeling”, one that was completely new to me, started welling deep within. Motherhood? Now there’s a thought.

Along with finding the pregnancy “not viable”, blood tests showed that I had no immunity to German measles, so I was sent for a jab. “Wait six weeks and try again,” advised the gynae. A lot happened in those following weeks. We set a wedding date, I accepted a new job and Tom unexpectedly needed to go to London for two months to see his terminally-ill mother. The last thing on our minds was a baby. “Next year. We’ll try again next year,” we decided.

But two months later, three weeks into my new job and four days after Tom had left for London, I knew I was pregnant. This time, the little being jiggled and beeped at the first scan and swelled with each subsequent one. Apart from a few bad migraines in the first trimester, I felt fantastic. I joined an early-morning swimming squad, went for lazy runs and my body spontaneously rejected unhealthy food, particularly my two favourite indulgences: red wine smelt like petrol and dark chocolate made me gag. I obsessed about fresh fruit and devoured tomatoes in every form. I rekindled my childhood love of hot porridge and ate enormous over-stuffed sandwiches for lunch. And yet, I carried compactly and barely put on any weight.

We were married when I was 16 weeks, I swam the Fish Hoek mile at five-and-a-half months and still you could hardly tell I was pregnant. I worked until a week before my due date and all along had this feeling that the “Blip” – we didn’t want to know the sex – would arrive on time. The day before my due date, I awoke with the feeling that “something” was happening. I can’t say my waters broke, more like slow dripping. We finally saw the gynae mid-afternoon, but were sent home with the instruction to report back to hospital the following morning.

We’d had many discussions about the birth and my two wishes were for spontaneous labour and natural childbirth. The gynae was enthusiastically supportive but warned that, due to my age, he wasn’t going to deliberate too long if a Caesarean was needed.

The birth itself

By midnight the contractions had started. By 3am we’d made a decision to head for the hospital. By 6am the gynae had arrived and I was experiencing serious pain. I’d always considered myself tough with a high pain threshold, but after six hours I was only three centimetres dilated and it looked like it was going to be a long and uncomfortable day. All the Pethidine jab did was induce appalling nausea, so when I was given the option of an epidural I didn’t hesitate.

The hours that followed were uneventful and I felt somewhat disassociated from the blipping monitors attached to my bulging midriff. Eventually, at about 2pm I was dilated enough for the gynae to decide The Blip needed some assistance getting out. And so it was that – with much concentrated pushing on my part and the help of labour-ward plumbing equipment – little Hannah was sucked into the world after exactly 40 weeks.

There’s nothing matter-of-fact about experiencing your baby’s first suckle nor seeing your newborn lying in your husband’s arms. Seven months down the line, I am an unashamedly obsessed mom. I find myself daydreaming about her little two-tooth grin and I love being woken in the morning by her gurgling monologue. That first sight of her makes the colours of my day shine brighter.

And the only hard part: going back to work. I cried for the last week of my maternity leave and every day for the first two weeks of work. I didn’t know I had it in me to be such a drama queen, but then I had no idea I had the capacity to love so enormously. Nothing prepared me for the heart-churning experience that is motherhood and at the not-so-tender age of 42, I truly feel like life, our life, has only just begun.