I should have published this a long time ago but it has been lying unfinished in my drafts and I thought, why not? Hope we can all normalise stories of our encounters with pregnancy, delivery and nursing without judgement or feeling awkward about it. Enjoy the read!
I look at him and smile broadly. He is so cute and I’m in awe of the beauty of our creation. You haven’t seen him smile yet, I promise his smile will send you blushing. I am so proud of us. By the way I produced an exact copy of his father, only that this one has two dimples and a head full of black curly hair. He is the chubby type that many think is being overfed and is obese, hahaha. He was chubby even before he started weaning and I promise you chubbiness runs deep in our lineage.
Let me give you a detour into the journey that has been bitter sweet for us and a personal account of pregnancy, birthing and nursing. A question of whether I will miss my pregnancy is one I answered while still pregnant. NO! If I’m to be deprived of sleep by paining hips and thighs I sure won’t miss that pain. During the second and third trimester, I had difficulty sleeping on both the left and right side. I would experience a sharp pain from the hip which would suffuse to the thigh and for a minute I would be unable to lift my leg even in an attempt to get from that very position to stop the pain. I would let the pain subside on its own before I lift myself up to lie on the other side or sit up in bed. During these encounters I would cry and look forward to the end of the pregnancy. I actually used to pray to be among the statistics of those that go into labour during the seventh month just to have the pain go away soon but instead seven turned into ten. I will somehow miss the glow and the priority treatment in shopping malls and matatus.
This brings me to the most evaded conversation about pregnancy. Why do we vilify women who give their raw accounts and shut them when they say they weren’t prepared for their pregnancy? Oh, don’t say that, there are women who wish to have children or whatever you’ve got. And you honestly think we don’t have these people in our minds and we don’t wish they got children? My prayer always is that God blesses the wombs of women who really want to have children.
I’ve heard this talk over and over again, no one prepares for pregnancy, it just happens; this is what should be demystified. Imagine a pregnancy can be well prayed, planned and prepared for. I always say mine was not prepared for and I end up getting talked down. Again, when I say one is enough for me I’m looked at like a mean human. I honestly would like to have as many children as possible but whom do you intend to carry them, each 10months and 24hrs of labour? Hats off to you all women who go beyond one because I don’t trust myself to be endowed enough for such.
Despite the night sleep challenges, the journey was good with strong kicks that never seized- I now understand why I have a playful, ever jovial son. My stress kicked in during the 37th week, when I went for my last clinic and the nurse attending to me said my pregnancy was oblique and I needed to go to Mbagathi for an emergency CS. I instead went to see my gynaecologist who confirmed to me that all was well I shouldn’t get stressed, especially towards the end. I chose to wait for my labour despite having been advised to not wait until the 40th week due to the exacerbated blood pressure.
On the 28th of January at around 3am I experienced a sudden handful splash of liquid and I sure knew it wasn’t urine, I chose to wait since I hadn’t started experiencing any pain. I continued to experience discharge of clear substance with brown shades. Six hours later and I wasn’t in any form of pain. We decided to visit the health centre we used to attend prenatal clinics and the lady that served us advised us to go to KNH since many hours had lapsed without receiving labour pains. We called our gynae and she also advised us to proceed to KNH and we obliged. She said six hours is a lot of time, after having water discharge with zero pain, the baby might be in distress.
I was admitted at around 2p.m and induced at 9p.m but before getting induced I was belly strapped with an elastic material attached to an electronic machine, cardiotocography, CTG, that printed very tiny bound pieces of paper from the top of the machine to the floor. It was 30 minutes of monitoring the baby’s heart rate and contractions but the moment the straps were unbuckled mild pains started setting in.
The inducing dosage, pitocin started off well until I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I still can’t believe I am the one who was crying and asking the doctor to just take me to the theatre instead. An intern on the night rotation made it worse when she came to examine my dilation, triggering continuous excruciating pain, I don’t know what pain intervals are and what they feel like because I didn’t have a break from when the pains kicked in.
On Sunday, at around 6 a.m I was moved into the delivery room and put on a drip and I remember cross-checking with this intern if she sure knew how to insert the needle well (okay, I just didn’t want to be a sample for an intern to be learning on especially during a life threatening encounter, yes, giving birth is a matter of life and death) She ended messing up by inserting the needle directly into the flesh of my dorsa instead of the vein and after a long while of pushing, the nurse in charge noticed the swelling hand, at 9cm of dilation and had to remove the needle and look for another alternative, antecubital fossa which wasn’t working, instead of the drug flowing into my body through the antecubital fossa, blood from my body was flowing into the pipe attached to the needle. The frustration took a toll on me and I almost lost it. I was told “Mummy shuka kwa kitanda usquat squat” With that amount of pain one can barely do anything, in fact going up on that bed itself is another hurdle you never bring your head around accomplishing, now imagine being asked to squat.
I pushed for sometime till I was left with no strength to continue pushing. I didn’t see myself making it until a nurse told me my baby was in distress and tired and I needed to act fast. I have no idea where I harnessed the strength from to give one final push but when I told myself inside my head I was going to give it one final powerful push and counted to three and started to execute, I felt a painful cut on my perineum followed by, “This blade is not even sharp.” I don’t know if you’ve ever lost your cool because I almost ran mad. This other nurse had given me an episiotomy without my knowledge and went ahead to claim she had not cut me when I furiously asked her why she opted to cut me in the middle of pushing without consulting me first. I stopped pushing before getting back at it again. Other women around me were consenting to it first before getting cut and I felt it would have been respectful to consult with me first so that I was mentally prepared for what was coming my way but making that decision when I had made up my mind that I was going to give my all to make sure my baby was out felt so disrespectful.
Lest I forget, I went through the primal gross fecal encounter, it felt embarrassing but with time and encouragement from the nurse intern who had taken over from the other intern who had messed me up earlier, I swallowed that pride and gave out more poop before our “nugget” made his way out. I finally delivered and the doctor who had attended to me the whole night walked in and found the nurses cleaning me. He congratulated me and went on to ask the nurses how I was doing. He actually walked in on the third nurse cleaning me and they told him I had Internal tears which none of them have ever sutured and requested him to stitch the internal ones and they would suture the external tears together with the cut from the episiotomy. The doctor took over after a lot of convincing and before he did he had suggested I be taken to the theatre since he had observed I was losing a lot of blood, a suggestion which of course I countered by saying they turned a deaf ear to my very humble request of being taken to the theatre because of extreme labour pain. The doctor started cleaning me again and said I had lots of blood clots before stitching the internal tears. After he was done with suturing the internal tears I requested him to finish the work he had started instead of passing me over to the nurses again for the external incision. He went in to stitch the external tears and the cut and from there the nursing journey now set in.
Nursing a colic and reflux baby wasn’t an easy ride. We can never put in words the exhaustion and sleep deprivation we had to endure before we could finally catch a breath.
I will not overemphasize not having family and friends around especially at a time when you badly need a hand, what it does to your mental state and healing. The lack of sisterhood in nursing when you anticipated to have it during pregnancy is appalling.
To all of you who will come across this and you have the wish to bring an angel into this world, motherhood and fatherhood is so rewarding and worth giving it a clear shot. I promise you will be tested and tried but many are the happy moments you look at that child and admire their milestones in growth. Don’t get discouraged, I can encourage you by asking you to do your research well on what to expect during pregnancy, delivery and nursing so that certain things don’t catch you by surprise and HAVE people in your life who will extend a hand and support you before and after delivery. It works magic in one’s healing.
Do I still want to have an addition? It’s open for debate.
sainaondy 