Baby number 2 was an experience.

This was not a pregnancy I breezed through.

There was nothing easy about it.

I grimaced at the memory of the midwife’s words from my first labour:

“you’re a natural! You made that look easy”.

This time felt anything but natural.

The morning sickness, the food avoidance, high blood pressure, the absolutely swollen belly that was far beyond my last pregnancy.

I think this pregnancy is here to make me never want to do this again.

I’m 4 days from my due date and I’m so uncomfortably large and achy that I don’t remember what comfort is.

I went to sit on the couch..

and for the first time I experience the tv show water break.

I felt the click inside me before the fluid gushed down my legs.

I stand back up, dumbfounded.

We jump in the car, kiddo pulled out of bed and on our way to the hospital.

Roadworks. Everywhere.

Stopping, starting, detours – you name it, it was there.

I feel different this time.

We finally get there and they confirm it was my waters that broke and tell me I’m not dilated. I remember wanting it all to just hurry up, not wanting to go home and have to come back – but I don’t remember if I fought to stay or if I went home for a while.

I do remember that they kept saying I wasn’t opening. I was hooked up to the machine that was supposed to show my contractions and I thought to myself “now they’ll see” because I was in so much pain.

It radiated through me – but they tell me my contractions are very light.

It was nothing like my first.

I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t drink – even a sip of water felt too much.

The next day after a sleepless night, when I’m so sure that with the pain I was in – it must be nearly time.

I was devastated to find out I was barely 3cm.

I hadn’t been able to eat, drink or sleep properly for days at this point but after my waters broke and the process started? I was done for. Working off no energy.

I agreed to be induced to help get things moving.

After what feels like forever, I’ve moved a few cm but I’m still only half way.

The midwife says she will be back, just ducking out to see the doctor and I knew..

Murphy’s law will activate.

It feels like minutes go past (although I’m sure it was longer) and they need to come back.

I need to push.

I need to push!

My Mum went to fetch someone to come back and they tell me not to push.

They told me that I wouldn’t be open enough and I felt the crushing weight of despair because why do they keep telling me that my body isn’t ready?

How was this pain so much more devastating than my first and STILL not ready?

I’m just about ready to do it anyway, willing to risk it just to not feel this way anymore. I say again that I need to push and they check – confirming that I WAS ready to push.

Push, push!

Oh how I thought it would be so easy.

It was not easy.

She would crown and feel like I couldn’t get that last little bit, there was no relief.

I pushed and pushed, my cries dimming as my energy gives out bit by bit until finally.. she slides out and I wait for the sweet relief.

It’s 10:16am and I wait and I wait, turning my eyes to my baby who looks grey.

I’m living in a haze.

I’m not sure I’m real anymore and I’m waiting for the pain to stop.

I push through the haze, realising they aren’t giving me my baby.

That she took a while to cry – but then they are placing her on my skin and I’m so relieved, so very relieved..

They are asking me if I want to feed her and I’m still waiting for the pain to stop.

I nod my head,

I think there’s something wrong with me.

They want me to feed my baby.

The midwife looks at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m a disagreeable child. So I try.

I try and I have the energy to feel embarrassed as a pained whimper escapes.

My midwife asks me what’s wrong.

I can barely answer

I shake my head to say I don’t know.

My limbs feel wrong and my body doesn’t know what to do.

Something isn’t right.

My midwife isn’t happy with me.

She’s trying to get my placenta to come out and it’s not releasing.

She tells me to “let it go”, occasionally tugging it to help.

The pain just gets worse with each moment.

A heaviness sets in and my midwife is still telling me to let it go.

I don’t know how to let it go.

I didn’t know I could hold the placenta against its will.

I can’t hold my baby anymore.

I try to breathe, but all that wants to come out are pained puffs.

I feel like I’m failing, like I’m supposed to have done better.

The midwife talks to me like.. I’m new to pain, and drama is my game.

The Doctor comes and checks the placenta, it wasn’t detaching and too much blood was being lost.

“No, no. This girl needs surgery now” he said, and while I should have been worried all I felt was relief.

Someone was seeing me, seeing that something wasn’t right.

Their words were a blur but they wheeled me along the hall, gently prompting me to sign the paperwork to say I agreed to the surgery.

Giving me the speech that I decide they must have to give to everyone because the sympathy on their face said they knew I wasn’t hearing them.

My hands shook so much, I don’t know how I managed to write my signature but my squiggle must have been enough.

We pull in to a new room and they tell me they’re doing a spinal tap.

After a few tries, I find myself on a table with a sheet boxed around my lower half so I can’t see.

I don’t remember the transition.

It was a strange feeling, like a rummaging in my stomach as they guided the placenta out.

It had fused to my insides like it wasn’t ready to let go.

I wake again hours later.

The pain is gone.

Relief

I can’t feel a lot of things, I guess it will hit later when the spinal tap wears off but I’m so grateful to be out of the woods.

It’s my birthday, and all I want is to see my baby girl.

I’m so thankful when my Mum is there – that part of me that had ached at the thought of my baby not being loved in her first moments was wiped away.

My Mum held her the whole time I was being worked on and gently placed her on my chest as I lay there, still slightly numb but so very grateful to have my moment finally.

It was here, as my youngest lay upon my chest – even though I wasn’t able to hold her properly yet, that I knew my love ran deep.

I had learnt what love was with my first baby and this time I knew what that feeling was.

I did not allow doubt.

This is where my life flipped again.

Where my first taught me to stand up, to experience and to learn – she was my little star.

My second taught me to breathe. She cuddled me like I was her world and warmed my frayed system – my little sunshine.

Together, they are my universe.