The birth

Now that more than four weeks have passed since the birth of my daughter, I feel that I am ready to reflect on the experience, which was, unfortunately, a rather disappointing one.

I should start by saying that I am by no means regretting what happened; I am glad that my daughter and I both survived the experience unscathed, and that's what matters. It is just that the process was not at all I had expected, or had hoped for; however, I am also aware that these things never go as expected, and of course I fully accept the course of events that took place.

The birth was, in short, an over-medicalized experience. The moment I walked into the emergency ward at the Notre-Dame de Bon Secours hospital--which I decided to do because I felt that my blood pressure was mounting and I had developed a splitting headache--I was doomed. Because of my soaring blood pressure--which reached 180/120 at one point--and considering that I was 38 weeks pregnant, it was decided that the birth would be induced. 20 hours after some gel was inserted inside my cervix to induce labour, my mucus plug was removed by the midwife, and I was given medication to regularize my contractions. Being tied to several intravenous drips, I was immobilized; when the anesthesiologist came into the birthing room, I readily accepted the epidural. When my dear daughter was born, she was swiftly taken away--and I did not get to see her again until an hour or so after birth, and only in an incubator. After the initial birth, it was more than a day later that I was able to hold my daughter in my arms.

What went wrong? I will start off by saying that the hospital where I gave birth did not provide the holistic care that I needed. The doctor who was supposedly in charge of me saw me only twice during the course of my pregnancy. Even though I went to the hospital regularly, I was seen by different people each time--technicians for various tests, doctors for ultrasound, examinations, and information on anesthesia, and midwife for examinations, etc.--no one person looked at all the test results and examinations, and monitored my total well-being. All the results were in my file, but did anyone spend more than two minutes looking at them? If they had, perhaps the seriousness of my hypertension would not have been overlooked. What would have happened had I decided not to go to the hospital when I had?

In addition, for the duration of my and my daughter's hospitalization, we saw so many caregivers I lost count--a midwife would come once a day to give me medication and ask how I was doing; a nurse would come and take my blood pressure and temperature; another nurse would come and give me some shots, or take blood for tests. I think I saw the same nurse/midwife only twice max. A few of them would have the courtesy to introduce themselves, most did not even bother. As for doctors, four came my way--one to tell me that birth would have to be induced; another doing his rounds while I was being monitored after birth; and two anesthesiologists. Only one of these doctors came to see me more than once (and all of them for duration of no more than five minutes!)

For someone who had hoped for a natural birth experience and had done prior research into it, the over-medicalized turn of events was rather disappointing. Birth was not the life-transforming experience that I had been expected to believe; I was a mere passive participant in a process where I was delivered of my baby, instead of actively giving birth.

In any case, I am more or less fully recovered now--the lochia has stopped, the episiotomy has healed (and no, the midwife did not inform me she was performing this beforehand, just as she did not tell me before manually removing the mucus plug!), I no longer have haemorrhoids, I am nearly (but not quite!) back to my pre-pregnancy weight. My coccyx is the only thing that reminds me on a daily basis the trauma of the birth experience. Now nearly all my time and effort is taken up for taking care of my daughter. That's a whole different story!