The newest and biggest change in my life is that I am now a mother. My gorgeous little girl is the light of my life and everything I could want in a child (except for her apparent hatred for sleep…)

I was lucky enough to have had a pretty easy pregnancy. I actually enjoyed the process of growing a human (except for the trouble sleeping… can you tell I’m obsessed with sleep). My cravings limited themselves to grilled cheese sandwiches and apart from some brutal sciatica and back pains I have to say that my pregnancy was relatively trauma free.

Stupid and delusional me, I had all but convinced myself that my perfect pregnancy was going to continue into a perfect birth story and that my pre-natal yoga and gym sessions had given me the tools to be strong yet zen and that I would breeze though this like Superwoman.

I should mention that prior to actually getting pregnant, the whole birth thing terrified me and I was certain that I would need to be knocked over the head with a toaster and driven to the hospital where they would quickly remove the baby and give me a tummy tuck and lipo at the same time.

But hey, I’ve aced this pregnancy thing so let’s push a baby out – no problems!

5 days before my due date I went to work (wearing skinny jeans and wedge sneakers), hubby and I went for a great dinner (I had a salad) and took a nice walk (still in skinny jeans and wedge sneakers).

I put myself to bed (and actually slept) until I woke up around 11.20pm thinking I needed to pee. Head into the bathroom and cue movie style water gushing fluid leakage.
My water just broke… I think… maybe I peed myself… it’s not stopping… crap my water just broke!!!
In the bathroom – that’s pretty perfect.

I’m calm at this point, I’m Superwoman remember, contractions start coming – 3 minutes apart – we can do this. Get to the hospital – only 3cm dilated – crap.

Still thinking I’m Superwoman I decide to hold off on the epidural. My nurse eventually informs me that the anesthesiologist is going into surgery for a couple of hours. My body took this as a sign that it needed to slap me out of my super hero dream world and show me the most intense contraction it could muster up, just to remind me that I’m crazy for even thinking I could do this without drugs.

GET ME DRUGS! Little did I know that the anesthesiologist was actually a butcher and that the epidural would hurt more than the contractions. But once he’d gotten through with hitting every nerve on the right hand side of my spine and making me fear permanent paralysis I was able to get some relief and finally some sleep.

Fast forward 20 hours, it’s now Saturday evening, the drugs are dwindling, I haven’t had anything to eat since that stupid salad the night before. Had I known I was eating the last morsel of food I was going to see in 30 something hours I may have made a different menu selection. OK it’s time to start pushing!! What?! Wait?! NO!!!!!!  Where’s the doctor – no doctor – husband… grab a leg – well there goes my sex life.

Have you ever had the feeling that someone is hiding the truth to avoid upsetting you? Well that’s how I felt as we were pushing but not seeing any progress so let’s just fast forward those 3 hours of crying, pushing and getting nowhere. The doctor finally comes in and tells me I have to have a C-Section. I went from someone who had always been OK with the thought of a sunroof delivery to being completely devastated. I felt like a complete failure. But I didn’t have a choice. It was nearing 24 hours since my water broke, baby’s heart rate was dropping and we needed to get her out.

The next few minutes were a blur as everyone sprang into action and I was wheeled into surgery. Hubby was kitted out in sexy blue scrubs and a short while later we met our Little Love.

At risk of turning this into a seventeen page post, I will elaborate on some elements in future posts (yes you’ll have to keep coming back) but I can say that the birth experience was not a fun one for me and I definitely feel duped in some areas. On one hand I’m glad that I never actually had to deal with a vaginal delivery but on the other hand a part of me wishes that I did get that experience.
I didn’t even get the cute post c-section happy family photos.

The Little Love came out kicking and screaming and 100% healthy so that’s all that really matters.

But moms definitely do have certain expectations about how they think this process is going to go and when you tell them that it’s not going to happen that way (especially after 23 hours of trying) it really is a blow to the system.