***WARNING-graphic and potentially alarming info regarding childbirth follows.  Do not read if you are not yet a parent or if you are expecting!!!! This is a no holds barred account of a rather awful labour and delivery experience, (though with a good outcome).

11 years ago yesterday I performed my biggest and best accomplishment (for the first time).  I struggled through 27 hours of labour, most of which was endured without an epidural because I was an idiot first time mother.  After pushing for over two hours with my knees to my ears, during which time my husband and good friend Suzanne cheered me on, I was strapped down to an operating table, hooked up to all kinds of wires, prepped for a blood transfusion, and told not to push anymore because the baby’s heart rate was decreasing with each contraction.  The anaesthesiologist was then delayed for 45 minutes  because he was performing gall bladder surgery and I began hallucinating that I my old neighbour, Simon, was in the OR with us, withholding my meds, and I had a freaky conversation with him while my hubby apologized to whoever this guy really was. 

My body began lifting itself off the table and slamming itself back down again and again in a scene reminiscent of the movie ’The Exorcist’.  Apparently my body wanted to continue the pushing that it had been doing for the last two hours and was going to do it with or without my cooperation.   I screamed and screamed and was quite certain that death was near.  Then 45 minutes later, the doctor arrived, increased the meds and the c-section began.  The ob could not get the baby out because she was now so tightly wedged inside my tiny malformed pelvis, and I heard her ask for a stool and some assistance.  20 minutes later Paulina was born, healthy and pink, swaddled comfortably in cotton blankies, while I was swollen and bruised from tummy to thigh, with a frozen pad between my legs to ease the swelling and another pad on my incision to help ease the pain that none of the drugs could make go away. 

By day two my breasts were swollen and I was feverish, had a migraine, and then Paulina began puking up pink froth, which turned out to be MY BLOOD because by then, my bruised and battered body also had to endure the horrors of cracked nipples, which made nursing feel like broken glass being squeezed into my breasts each and every time my hungry newborn latched on like a little piranha during a feeding frenzy.  Once I got home, I developed severe anxiety, a nasty infection, PPD and insomnia.  Oh yes, and let’s not forget that wonderful visit with bronchitis as well.

So… can someone please explain to me why I did not receive any birthday gifts today?  Why Paulina got to celebrate HER day with a party and friends and I did all the work, again?  Who decided that this is the way that birthdays would be celebrated?  The only thing that I am certain of, is that whoever started this tradition had never given birth.

Dare I say that I’m guessing whoever started this tradition was likely a man, maybe proud of himself for being born a male? (Down boys, that’s the way it was gazillions of years ago.  Anyway, it was just a little joke…heh heh heh…)

Don’t get me wrong-I ADORE my baby girl.  But I think some of those prezzies she got today belong to me and I’ve got my eye on that crystal making set AND the animal encyclopedia…..