This is going to be a long post.

I was scared of giving birth, especially the natural delivery. I wasn’t just afraid of the pain of giving birth, I was concerned about the postpartum impact of this on my hoo-ha.

When my OBGYN asked how I’d like to deliver Adam, I immediately said I wanted a normal delivery. Before asking that question, she offered to book me in for a caesar section at the date of my choosing. But I didn’t want to. To me, booking an elective c-section felt like I was taking the easy way out. But suffering seems to be the theme of being a mother so I braced myself for a painful, natural birth.

Since I knew my vagina was going to be ripped wide open anyway – that was all the suffering I could handle – I told my OBGYN to give me all the drugs available. (to all the mums who have opted for an unmedicated birth, kudos to you but also omg why). Even then, with the thought of the vaginal “damage”, I bought so much stuff to prepare for the post-birth recovery.

I’ve been asked to go to the hospital the night before I was going to be induced for labour. We were there at around 9pm. They had to insert a gel-like substance up my hoo-ha called prostaglandin to thin out my cervix for easier vagina delivery the next day. The procedure was quick but so uncomfortable. I needed to hold Zig’s hand. And I was told they were going to do it again after 6 hours. I was less than thrilled.

What’s more fun? Getting a vaginal examination every few hours by a nurse to see if my labour has progressed. It has not. See the image above for reference. (Side note: hours before leaving for hospital I was starting to get really anxious at home so I played Friends episodes in the background to calm my nerves.) They even manually broke my water and still nothing. By this time it was 2 pm, April 1st and I was only 3cm dilated after 6 hours. If you do the math, I’ll need another 12 hours just to be fully dilated.

I was over it at this point. My OB and I agreed that the best course of action is to do a c-section. She said the baby is too big for his age and that a natural delivery would’ve been challenging anyway (cue images of a torn perineum) and I just wanted to get it over with and meet the baby.

Surgery doesn’t scare me since I’ve already had two of them prior to this. I know what I can and cannot handle as far as healing is concerned and Zig will be there to help out when my movements are still limited so I had nothing to worry about.

The whole procedure was pretty chill. I already had an epidural in anticipation of a natural delivery. They just increased the dosage so my lower extremities will be completely numb. To test whether it worked, they ran an ice pack up and down my torso to see if I can feel the cold in certain parts of my body. I found that interesting. And everyone was so fucking nice about it the whole time.

Then they asked if I wanted any music to play while they were doing the procedure. My mind went blank. The one thing I was not prepared for. In a panic, I said “play the Tick Tick Boom soundtrack” because I’ve been listening to it since the movie came out. All the doctors could say was that it was an “interesting choice” LOL. So yes, Andrew Garfield was there with me in spirit.

During the procedure itself, all I could feel was some pressure and my abdomen being tugged left and right and the whole procedure took longer than I imagined. Having no expectation at all – because I expected to give birth naturally – I thought a c-section just meant I was getting sliced open in my mid-section and the baby will be pulled out easily. It was not the case at all. At some point, I felt so nauseous while on the table that I thought I was going to vomit. I was already thinking of who I’ll throw up on, the anesthetist to my left or the nurse to my right. Apparently, that was a sign that my blood pressure dropped quickly so the anesthetist gave me something on my IV to remedy that. Now I regretted even considering vomiting on him.

After half an hour, I suddenly heard the people in the room oohing and aahing. They finally got to the baby. Mr Anethetist said “wow he has a full head of black hair!” to which my husband proudly responded, “great then he really is mine!”. My arms were restrained so I couldn’t hit him.

Then I heard him cry. I was relieved. I was elated. I was scared. This is fucking it.

I am a mother.

Tears started to well up in the corners of my eye. But I didn’t ugly cry like the mums in the movies. Neither did Zig. I think we were both so overwhelmed by the whole experience and by the army of people fussing over me and the baby.

Birthing adam was pretty chill, painless most of the time, and was over in less than 24 hours. Part of me is embarrassed when I tell them about this because not birthing vaginally feels like I did not go to this really exclusive party where the attendees trade super interesting anecdotes. To be fair, nobody made me feel that way (so far). I guess it’s just how I was programmed.

But then part of me also feels glad I was pragmatic about the situation and chose the method that works best for me and my ability to care for my baby during the first few days of his life and spared myself and Adam from any trauma.

And that is my birth story.