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again to wait before cutting the umbilical cord (FYI – Noone bothers to read the birth plan they make you fill out and last I knew they cut it right away). So the night of October 30 at 3:55, exactly a month aftermy mother Ruzanna breathed for the last time, my daughter Sofia Ruzanna took her very first breath on planet Earth. And then we realized it was the night the clocks were going backward. They opened the lid on the clock to fix the time. But in the records they wrote the “old” time – 4 a.m. I love having this as a reminder each year when the clocks change time in autumn. My life so completely changed at that moment.

After the birth

I tore, so they had to give me stiches, albeit internal ones.  Also they gave me an IV with oxytocin to speed up the placenta birth. It came out soon, big and slimy – I felt it slipping out, unlike the baby. I saw it later on the table – it was huge, dark red and glistening in the light. I wish I was offered the option of keeping it (my friend has recently given birth at la Maternitat and they gave her the choice). They had to call the comadrona a few times as they were stitching me up and she’d stick her hand inside my uterus and manually removed the pieces of placenta that hadn’t come out. It was uncomfortable, but bearable. Then they were going to insert the hateful catheter to make me pee, and I asked them not to, and promised I’d pee as soon as I was upstairs in the room.

Now looking back I think if they’d just given me another half hour my body would have pushed the baby out just fine, and I wouldn’t have torn. And the placenta would have come out on it’s own just fine as well. The pain was also not quite so strong as it had been during the transition, when I gave up and asked for the epidural – you had little breaks in between the pushes.

I was to stay in the birthing room for an hour just to make sure all was ok. The baby was taken away only for a couple of minutes to measure and weigh, and then she was back with me – naked against my bare chest for the rest of the time. I just couldn’t believe she was there and couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was so sweet and cozy to be like that with her under a blanket. Carlos went out to check on Esther, who had been sitting all this time in the waiting area. He came back and said she was quite surprised we had her so quickly.

They wheeled me out to the room where we were to stay at around 6 a.m. I was hungry and thirsty – luckily Esther had brought along some food with her. She held the baby, while my husband was sorting paperwork somewhere – in fact she was the first person to ever hold my Sofia Ruzanna, even before my husband. I should have gotten to sleep, but was too excited. None of us could believe it was over so quickly and completely naturally. I had been preparing myself for 2 days of labour ending in C-section. My husband said it was like a tooth extraction.

A few days after we came home Esther brought her whole family to meet little Sofia Ruzanna and to check on us. And seven months later we went to hers to meet her beautiful little baby girl Carys.

Do your research about birth and know what you want. I knew I’d rather tear naturally than be cut, I knew I wanted the umbilical cord to stop pulsating before being cut, and also I knew about not pushing beyond what I was capable of. I just trusted the midwife, who needed me to be over with it fast, and I shouldn’t have. That is one big thing I would change – just push at my own pace and within my means (your uterus is so strong it does the work anyway and it knows what it’s doing). And if you can, don’t lose control (your partner might be slow in realizing what’s happening, as they don’t quite announce what they are about to do) and stand your ground. Also they broke my waters at around 8 cm to speed things up, which at the time was no big deal at all, but I now wish they hadn’t. I was already progressing fast enough and completely naturally, was there really a need to intervene! If I’d known, I would have told them to leave me alone. If there is a possibility of you getting anepidural they won’t let you even drink water. I was so desperate, I had my husband wet his fingers and brush them against my lips. I had left my water bottle somewhere, otherwise I would have drunk when no one was there. Your body needs water. And when it was for certain I was going natural, they let me take a few sips – it made a world of difference and I felt like I could go on for quite a while longer. Know that if you opt for an epidural, you are going to be sitting on a sort of a wheelchair without any movement in your lower body and you’ll be peeing through a catheter. To me that was more horrifying than the labour pains, however, at the end I was prepared to even get that. Hold out as long as you can, it’s really nice that once the baby is out, you’re DONE, can eat, drink walk – anything! They do pinch the baby’s foot for the vitamin K administration (I thought it was no big deal, don’t think she even cried). Bring along your items of comfort – I loved having my breastfeedingpillow (long sausage) that I had slept with the whole time during pregnancy and also my blanket (it was the end of October and I would have been a bit cold with whatever sheets I had). If you can, go sit in the waiting/admittance area at some point of your pregnancy for as long as you can.  Bring a book and a snack. You get to see women coming in ready to labour, you gage the time they have to wait before being admitted, you also see them being wheeled out after they gave birth (with the little bundle on their chest) – they all pass the waiting area on their way to the rooms. I had been there a week before I gave birth, it helped me get familiarized with the atmosphere and it didn’t seem so new and scary. Also the happy women with their newborn babies, their relatives rushing to see them is an amazing and tear jerking site – helps you visualize the happy outcome of your own birth when it’s all over. Do have your partner remember bring the camera no matter the chaos preceding your tripto the hospital. He needs to take still shots and if he can discreet little videos with a phone (I am not sure, but I think u have to have permission to videotape with a proper camera) of anything and everything during and after birth even if you just turn it on and record the sound. It’s the most unique time of your life and your brain is so foggy you might later feel like there is some memory gap, and it will help you put the pieces together. I’d die to have even 30 seconds of a video of myself during pushing or the baby being born, or anything, just to be able to perceive the intensity of it from outside. I only have a few pictures taken with my husband’s phone when we finally thought of it (he also had forgotten it in the waiting area where all our luggage was). Do your breastfeeding homework. Your milk arrives on the 3rd day after birth – the time when you are already home. And you need to know how to care for your engorged and leaking breasts, how to extract the extra milk ifnecessary, what to do if you have inverted nipples and baby can’t latch on them to feed. How to prevent and deal with cracked nipples.You need to know what is mastitis and how to avoid it (I ended up having it on the 8th day after labour). Have contacts for an experienced and hands on lactation consultant. You are given 10 days after baby is born to register the baby, otherwise he doesn’t exist as far paperwork is concerned. If you’re married, your husband can do it, but if not, you have to show up as well. And lastly have all the household stuff cared for – someone who you know would clean, shop and cook for you until you recover from labour – the first 2 weeks are crucial. Also someone who’d take the baby out of the house for a stroll so you could catch up a little on your sleep.  Ideally it should be your partner, but sometimes they can’t cope with everything. I wish I had had my MIL there from the beginning, instead of unrealistic expectations of how romantic it would be with justthe 3 of us. It depends on the baby, of course, but ours didn’t give us any breaks at all. And the very last thing I would like to add is this:  I think that as long as you and your baby come out of the birth experience alive and healthy, or at least with no permanent damage – you’ve had a successful birth. Everything else is a bonus. Sometimes certain things just have to be done for safety of the baby or the mother, and no one should ever feel guilty or less of a woman because they didn’t have the ultimate natural birth or breastfeeding experience.

 P.S. Little Sofia Ruzanna is growing and resembles my mother in many ways. She has recently started going to daycare and I finally can begin to claim back my life. I’ve tried writing up this story several times, but it took me 2 years to actually get the time to sit down, to concentrate and to gather my thoughts all at once. As much as I was prepared to deal with the birth, I was unprepared to deal with what happened after, the lactation, the sleep deprivation, the colics, the grieving over my mother, the responsibility for someone’s life, the mother instinct bordering insanity, the dark and long depression and the toll all of the above take on one’s marriage. But that is a different story altogether.