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  Shit.

  I felt scared but also freaked out that I’d been so spot-on about my own body and how I was feeling. He told me that I could still work, but that I would have to work from home. Driving the long distance to work every day would bring on more contractions. So I agreed to stay put and set about working from home and taking it easy.

  A week later, sat in the kitchen working from home (as promised), I was taken over by an overwhelming wave of pain. It took my breath away and filled me with a cold and prickly fear. A fear of realisation that this pain meant something. Jamie was in the lounge next door and I sat in the kitchen letting these waves of pain wash over me, whilst I took deep heavy breaths, not daring to voice my fears in case it made them real. I stayed exactly where I was, silent and thinking through the excruciating waves of pain for about five minutes. When my mind started screaming to me: ‘You need to get to hospital’, I called Jamie into the kitchen.

  ‘We need to go to hospital,’ I said calm as anything.

  ‘What, what, what do you mean, what’s wrong? Are you OK?’

  ‘No, I’m in a lot of pain and have been for about five minutes.’

  ‘Oh my God. Do you think they are labour pains? How painful are they?’

  ‘Hmm, well I can’t stand up.’

  ‘Shit, right, I’ll get the bags and the car.’

  It was the middle of December in the Alps, and it was snowing (of course!). We lived up a mountain. The hospital was down the mountain and along lots of windy mountain roads. None of these facts were lost on me as I sat in our kitchen, unable to stand due to the pain I was in and watching the snow fall thick and fast outside. By the time Jamie had managed to get me into the car, I was doubled over in pain and panic was setting in. The baby was only thirty-three weeks, I could not give birth to a premature baby at the side of the road in the snow.

  Driving in a full-blown snowstorm, Jamie was trying his hardest to calm me down whilst also trying to time the contractions. We hadn’t got a clue what we were doing; we just knew we had to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

  So there we were, the two of us and bump, me unable to speak properly through the pain and Jamie ashen-faced trying to navigate the winding roads, windscreen wipers going ten to the dozen as we were bombarded with big fat snowflakes. Every instinct in our bodies was telling us to get to the hospital as quickly as possible but then we remembered we had to drive slowly so as not to go skidding off the mountain roads. It was terrifying. All the way down, I was speaking to our baby, telling them to hold on, to stay put, to keep calm, it was not time yet for them to come.

  The drive from hell finally came to an end. The attendants took one look at me half waddling, half bent in pain and trying to walk into the hospital reception, and they rushed me up to the maternity unit. The monitor confirmed that I was having strong contractions, so they explained to me that they would do all they could to calm them down and keep the baby put. The baby was checked over and we were told all was fine, and I was hooked up to a contraction machine for the rest of the night and given anti-contraction pills. The doctor also told me I was going nowhere (fine by me).

  The contractions eventually died down, and after a night of monitoring, I was told that my cervix had shortened further and that I was going to have to have a steroid injection to help the baby’s lungs develop in case the baby arrived prematurely (every sign was indicating as much). With the injection done and the contractions gone, I was allowed home but put on strict bed rest. The doctor warned me not too walk far (I was allowed to walk from my bed to the toilet and back, but that was it), I couldn’t lift anything, I had to stop work immediately and I wasn’t allowed to drive or go in the car for long distances. Effectively I was under house arrest, ordered to rest until the baby arrived. God, I wish I had appreciated this time more and let myself relax. Don’t get me wrong, I was strictly feet up and bum on sofa, but my mind was racing all over the place, thinking of all the things I should be doing, watching my hubby take receipt of all the things I’d excitedly ordered for the nursery but which now I could not help set up, and feeling – what was that I was feeling? A little bit restless like I should be doing more and, dare I say, a little bit guilty because I couldn’t. Oh yes, you never forget your first taste of mummy guilt – and I wasn’t even officially a mummy yet!

  I managed two weeks of sitting still and struggling to relax, worried about the baby constantly, knowing every day counted when it came to a baby coming prematurely. My nephew had been born earlier the same year at thirty-two weeks, so we had some first-hand experience of the challenges facing these little early birds and knew that the more days I could get under my belt the better. I managed a total of twelve extra days.

  The contractions and tightening had continued and was pretty constant but nowhere near as uncomfortable or painful as the previous episode. However, I felt as though I was losing a small amount of water. Calling the hospital, we were told to come in. They examined me and the baby and said all was fine with the baby and that my cervix wasn’t that much shorter than twelve days earlier, but they would check if I was losing amniotic fluid.

  Me and the hubby will never forget the moment when the nurse confirmed that yes, I was losing amniotic fluid and that our baby would be with us within three days’ time. We both stared up at the midwife with the goofiest of grins, overwhelmed with relief that the baby was OK to be born at this time, and ridiculously excited that we were going to be real-life parents, that the two of us were going to become the three of us in just a matter of days. This was it. It was happening!

  We had been reassured that our baby was healthy, and not in any danger: the steroid injection and the fact that I’d managed to keep the baby put for an extra couple of weeks meant that the baby was fine to be delivered at thirty-four weeks. They told us that we had a maximum window of three days to give birth, as my waters had started to break. Otherwise, they would have to give me a C-section – on Christmas Day. Oh yes, our end-of-January baby was now a festive baby; it seemed like the turkey might not be the only thing getting sliced and diced on Christmas day.

  Over the course of the next three days, I was induced three times, each day bringing a new midwife and a different method each time. I endured the joys of an overzealous sweep, a pessary and a drip – and I have to say that it was the pessary which left me in the most discomfort. On Christmas Eve, I was told I was finally dilated and that they were moving me up to the labour ward so that we were closer to everything we needed to be close to (namely the epidural, ha ha). Looking back now, I am really proud and a bit in awe of how calm I was. I really did take it all in my stride and felt ready to go into childbirth. I was doing my yoga breathing through the pain and felt in control. This feeling of being in control helped me mentally, and made me feel prepared for what lay ahead.

  The nurses all knew that my plan was to carry on dealing with the contractions this way, for as long as I could, and that then I would have an epidural. Things were all going swimmingly until I was asked if I was ready to go into the labour room since I was in active labour. Idiot here decided instead, to opt for another quick walk around the ward before we headed in for my epidural. As Julia Roberts said to the snooty shop assistant in Pretty Woman, ‘Big mistake. Huge!’

  That decision to take an extra stroll meant that I missed my window of opportunity for the birth I had planned. The birth for which I was mentally prepared. When I was first asked to go to the labour room, the anaesthetist was available and ready. By the time I was ready to go into the room, she had been called to attend to an emergency case, and I would have to wait. Wait? Oh my days, telling a woman in active labour to wait when all she wants is a goddam epidural takes a very brave soul. My hubby was the one who had to break it to me. Through gritted teeth, I told him in my best demonic and savage voice that I wasn’t being rude, ‘… but please stop talking to me. Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me. Just leave me be to get through this and wait.’ I proceeded to pace around like a caged
and angry tiger in a small circle, counting up to ten, on and on and on, around and around and around. I was consumed with such a savage and desperate pain that I no longer wanted to be in my own body. Instead I wanted to disown it and run as fast as I could away from the burning and disgusting pain and come back when it was all over. Oh dear Lord, why did I go for that damn walk and where was the damn anaesthetist?

  She finally turned up, and I was so twisted in agony and despair at the level of pain I was in that I felt betrayed by my own body. I was desperate for the epidural – but despite wanting nothing more than those drugs, I’ve got to admit that actually having the epidural terrified me. I’d heard that if I moved whilst they were doing it, I could be paralysed forever. Not a great thought to have when they’re trying to get a needle in your spine during the ever-decreasing windows of time between body-shaking contractions that rendered it impossible to do anything, let alone keep still. My calm was starting to unravel, replaced with unadulterated fear and me repeating to myself: ‘This is not what I had planned.’

  My epidural made me feel sick to my stomach because it took a good few attempts until she was able to do it safely. Once it was done, though, I told myself that I could relax and just start to get my head in gear for the delivery. My mind had been filled with nothing but unrelenting pain up to this point. I just needed a window of respite to get myself together – which the epidural gave me. It was pure bliss, like an ice cube on a hot day, or a warm bath after a long run. I fell into the most blissful of sleeps and slept deeply for a full hour. When I woke up, my hubby calmly told me they were going to come and break my waters when I was ready and that we would then start with the delivery. I was ready. The epidural, the loss of pain and the sleep had renewed and restored my confidence. I was ready. ‘Back in control.’

  Just as these words left my mouth, a wave of excruciating pain crashed down onto me, breaking my hopes and resolve against its angry shoreline and leaving me face down in the water, unable to catch my breath before the next, more powerful wave of unspeakable pain came crashing down on me. What the hell was going on? My brain grasped for answers and air. I was hooked up to the epidural and should have been able to self-administer it depending on my level of pain, but no matter how many times I hit that button, nothing was happening.

  I was now surrounded by a machine with its alarms going off, in even more pain than before and with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The anaesthetist was called back in, along with numerous midwives who couldn’t work out what was wrong with the machine; they rushed and fussed around me, checking wires whilst I was almost levitating off the bed in agony. One moment I’d been having the best sleep of my life, all warm, calm and safe, and the next I was trapped in the jaws of hell with no way out and no one to rescue me.

  The midwives were all talking to me in French. My poor mind was now understanding only my body’s fear and pain and it could not decipher a word they were saying, so I started to block them all out. My husband managed to break through the barrier of pain I was trapped behind and translate, telling me that there was nothing they could do, the machine had stopped working and that it was too late to try and give me a second epidural because the baby was coming. The look on his face must have mirrored my own horror; I have never seen him look like that at me before or since, telling me that I was on my own, that I had to somehow get through what was about to happen and there was nothing he or anybody else could do.

  I grabbed his hand, looked him dead in the eye and told him to just tell me what I needed to do and I would do it … I then remember telling him never to ask me to do this again. I screamed, ‘Promise me!’. He did and then, with him on one side and a midwife on the other, I grabbed their hands and stepped off the precipice, into the flames.

  The rest of the birth is one giant blur of pain, indescribable noises and shocking realities that shook me to my very core and left me broken mentally and physically. I may have been physically strong enough to get through childbirth, but my mind was not equipped to deal with the level of panic, pain and shock that I experienced during it.

  Through the whole experience, there was a moment of numb peace: the moment I met Éva. When she was placed on me – a hot, gooey comfort with wild, searching eyes and a perfection like no other – I knew her instantly. And boy, did she show us who she was from the moment she was born. Six weeks early, as strong as an ox and weighing an incredibly healthy premature weight of 5.2 pounds. The doctors were surprised, and pleased to tell us that she was fine and healthy, and that she didn’t need to go in the incubator they had ready for her. She even breastfed straightaway. She was an incredible little powerhouse, as dainty as a baby bird but as strong and as sure-footed as a Trojan.

  It’s both funny and reassuring to think back to the sureness of the connection I felt with Éva, this little being I had never even met. From the moment I became pregnant with her, I felt this overwhelming bond with her, and when she was born and I finally got to meet this little girl I’d been dreaming about for the past several months, the bond became even stronger. I knew beyond anything else I’d ever known that we belonged together and that I would take the best care of her. To say I loved her would not even come close to my feelings for her. We were one: she was me and I was her and that was that.

  Now, unfortunately, this is where we say goodbye to the old me, the mum that you have gotten to know between these pages, via these confessions and the stories so far. Her time is coming to an end. She’s still around in some form, but to the person she was before this moment we now need to bid farewell.

  You see, in the labour room that night I gained a beautiful, feisty, strong-hearted little girl, but I lost something too. I left that labour room with a baby in my arms, but I also lost a piece of myself, a piece that I have never been able to get back.

  We had no idea at the time what awaited us on the other side of those labour room doors. A life as a family, yes, but also waiting was one of the fiercest and most challenging battles I’d ever had to face.

  We spent two hours in the delivery room with Éva. She was nestled on my chest, feeding and getting cuddles whilst I watched and adored her through a screen of bewildered calm. Something had shifted in the universe because our little daughter was now a part of it. However, something had also shifted in me, and it would take a good several months before we realised the size of this seismic shift and the devastating repercussions it would have on the little family that had been forged together in that delivery room, that night.

  THE EVERY MUM GUIDE TO CHILDBIRTH

  We have all been there, fit to bursting, rubbing our fast-expanding tummy and hanging off every last detail from a mum painting the story of her birth in full technicolour glory. I’ve been there, listening away whilst pregnant with my first, hoping that the kind of story I would get to tell would be closer to the nice and positive experiences I was hearing rather than the ones where I sat open-mouthed and cross-legged listening to the poor mum who had to go through such an ordeal. As fate would have it, two babies have given me experience of both: a birth that left me traumatised and suffering from postnatal depression and a birth that was so textbook and straightforward that I told my husband I would definitely have another baby. Go figure!

  That’s the thing with childbirth I wish I had been more aware of the first time around. No two births are the same, no two experiences will leave you feeling the same as the other. Yes, it can be an amazing experience –and yes, it can also take you to the depths of despair. So, when preparing for the battle that is bringing your tiny human into the world, isn’t it about time that we prepared ourselves both physically and mentally by being open about all the different types of experiences, open and without judgement? By throwing away our expectations and ‘perfect birth’ plans, and easing off the pressure we place on ourselves to have the perfect birth, the one that goes exactly according to plan. And start believing that a birth which keeps the mother and baby as healthy and safe as possible is the only type of birth
to focus on – regardless of how it happens.

  With that in mind, here is my Every Mum Guide to Childbirth, including all the things I wish I had known before I entered the labour room.

  • It will eventually be over!

  ‘Thank God,’ I hear you all cry! Yes, regardless of what type of birth you choose or is chosen for you due to bad luck, bad timing and circumstance, it does have an ending. That may be hard to believe when you’re going through it, but that baby is coming out one way or another. The process of bringing your tiny human into the world will not go on forever! Whether you are having the birth from hell or the birth from heaven, it will eventually come to an end. Amen to that!

  • You may not have the birth you want

  Not the news any of us mums to be want to hear – but why the hell do we sugarcoat the fact that the birth we have been planning may not happen? Like all things in motherhood, by managing our expectations and the pressures we place on ourselves to deliver our perfect birth experience, we are also decreasing our chances of feeling like a failure if things don’t go according to plan. Childbirth is a tricky bloody matter involving lots of different variables outside of our control. Therefore, we need to go into it fully aware that things don’t always go according to plan and instead to prepare ourselves (mentally) for the possibility that they won’t.

  • You may have an amazing birth

  The concept of an ‘amazing’ childbirth experience was completely alien to me after the traumatic birth of my first child. I stared in wonder at mums who told me they had ‘enjoyed’ childbirth and that it had been a ‘wonderful’ experience – surely their drugs should have worn off by now? Apparently not; they really had enjoyed it: the birth of my second was the opposite to my first. I thought it was an amazing experience and felt elated following it. So, for any mum out there who has also experienced a traumatic birth: as unbelievable as it may sound to you right now, I promise you that a good birth is possible.