Okay, saw this going around and I thought this could serve as free therapy while I’m doing a good deed. So here goes, the story of Emms’ birth.

I had a “normal” pregnancy or a what I thought was a normal pregnancy. We had assumed that my extreme mood swings were caused by the hormones taking over my life. In fact, it was hypothyroid and it plagued our lives for at least a year. I felt extremely tired, got crossed with hubby over everything and after I had baby I felt teary, unable to cope and yes, moody! The good part was that I didn’t gain almost any weight(I put on 7.5 kilos only during the entire pregnancy) and I lost the baby weight and loads more in two weeks after I had her. I am writing all these because many times we bitch about women who have lost their pregnancy weight very quickly, unaware of the fact that there might be a medical condition behind all the happy appearances.

Anyway, going back to the event itself(do I really want to do this??), it started on a Wednesday morning but because there wasn’t much more than slight back pain and a bit of bleeding we decided to carry on with our day as normal. I drove myself to the hospital just to have them check and dismiss me(“Call back when your contractions are 5 minutes apart!” “Hmm,what?!?”). I went and had my hair dyed and cut after that and hubby went to Derry(a mere two-hour drive away) on business. The real deal(or what I thought was the real deal) started in the evening. But it was still just dull back pain and very disparate contractions so I sent hubby to bed and I soldiered on till 2 a.m. Then everything stopped and I went to bed, what else? The following day hubby decided to stick around, hopeful that things will progress and baby will be scared out of my womb by his presence. It didn’t happen. I had a lazy day in bed and then around 7 p.m. I started to feel things heating up again. By 11 p.m. I was in so much pain he had to drive to the hospital again although the nurse on the phone told us to stay home on Paracetamol. Hmmm, really? Got there, was put on very strong painkillers, got a bed and then…everything stopped. I didn’t want to go back home so I decided to stay with all those women moaning and giving birth around me. I thought the atmosphere might spur baby on. Hmmm, no, it didn’t. At noon on Friday they were ready to send me home but I refused to budge. The novelty of the giving birth thing was wearing off, you see. Anyway, they kept me in and around 7 p.m. on Friday my waters broke and it started. I did well for a couple of hours but once they took me into one of those small, claustrophobic “birth suites” I  started to feel VERY uncomfortable. The baby must have been back to back because it took FOREVER and a day. And then the nurse said I was only 5 cm and I completely lost it. I inhaled gas and air while they put the epidural in and it all went silent from there. I felt strangely euphoric with the drugs and the tiredness. I had to push for an hour or so and then they forgot to tell me to stop and it all went very…wrong “down there.” But when the nurse said: “There’s a head of dark hair coming out” I knew. I knew my dreams had come true. I knew I was having a girl. A girl who looked like the man I loved the most in the world. A girl I will cherish and dress up forever! And nothing else mattered.Well, maybe a little bit, the part when I got stitched up for literally hours and the nurse asked casually over her shoulder “Does this bit fit here, you think?”

Oh, I am putting on a photo from when we went home three days later. Hubby lost all the birth photos and videos. As you do…

Mother and baby

This blog post was written for Save the Children’s BlogitforBabies campaign.  Every hour of every day, 11 newborn babies die in Bangladesh. That’s about one every six minutes.  1 in 19 children do not live to see their fifth birthday in Bangladesh because access to basic services such as healthcare is very limited, particularly in rural areas.  For every 10 births in Bangladesh, 8 mothers have to give birth in their home without a skilled health worker present, putting the life of their baby at risk.

Please help Save the Children to raise money to build 7 new clinics in Bangladesh.  

The new clinics in Baniachong and Ajmiriganj will reach 21,500 women of child-bearing age with family planning services; 3,000 pregnant women with antenatal care; 2,190 newborn babies with postnatal care, breastfeeding support for their mothers and antibiotics when they become ill; 2,218 infants aged up to one year, by helping their mothers to breastfeed and wean them safely and reducing the chance of life-threatening diseases such as diarrhoea and the risk of malnutrition and 43,600 people in the area with information on how to stay healthy and where to get help if they do become ill.