Getting out of the window

Thankfully, the final stage of delivery wasn't as bad as I'd expected, though it wasn't because the epidural had kicked in. On the contrary, I was only given a mild dosage so that I could feel the pressure from the contractions. More on that later. Doc Rabner had been an excellent support the entire day: he dropped by at lunchtime (appeared suitably impressed with my upbeat frame of mind), after work (when he coolly punctured another layer of my water bag with a plastic spatula), and in the late evening after Dr Rawlings had sedated me. Rabner told me that he would go home to get some sleep before returning in the early hours to deliver the baby. He lived a ten minutes' drive away.

The hours between 10pm (post-epidural fiasco) till 2+am just flew by ... I was drugged, fatigued, and sick and tired of the vaginal checks. The midwives had a shift change around 11pm and a nice, middle-aged lady named Ursula took over. She was German-speaking, personable and most important at that point - gentle. When the real pushing began, she cheered me on, with firm but motivating shouts of, "Fenster ... Fenster ..." (which of course means window -as in, to 'defenestrate' someone- which struck me as a rather odd utterance. But I didn't think much more of it at the time, presuming that it was perhaps a metaphoric way of telling me to dilate and release Baby through my 'Fenster'. It was only three weeks later, when I discussed this episode with Ste, that he clarified what Ursula had actually said, "It was 'fester', not 'fenster'. 'Fester' means harder ... like to PUSH harder ..."). In any case, I pushed for a while and when I overheard Ursula ringing Doc Rabner to come to hospital (oddly enough, I understood this in German!) I had a feeling that The Moment was near.

Rabner appeared at the doorway and got straight to work. He examined me and did something I found extremely helpful - he pressed down on the point where I needed to direct my expelling energy. With the second midwife holding onto my left leg and Ste to my right, Rabner said that the baby's head was very close and asked if I'd like to touch it. What a sense of humour ... what ridiculous timing - what ran through my head was, "Why the hell would I want to do that - just get the damn baby OUT!" Fortunately for all present, I was not particularly articulate at this point and just managed a slightly perturbed-sounding, "Er ... no ...". But I pushed ... boy, did I push. I pushed like there was no tomorrow ... I didn't really have a choice - the contractions were increasingly violent and Baby was felt like a ginormous poo that refused to budge.

Rabner then decided on another course of action. He didn't want the baby to get distressed and suggested the vacuum extractor to guide her head through the last twist in the birth canal. With the swanky vacuum equipment came a less-than-swanky extra midwife. The operating theatre suddenly felt crowded (a few weeks earlier, I'd asked Rabner how large his team in the theatre would be - he chuckled and replied, "Team, what team? You mean, me, the midwife, Stefan and you?"). With the buzzing equipment came a menacing pair of stirrups, to which my legs were lashed. I can't remember feeling the episiotomy, but did feel a tad queasy when I saw something resembling a toilet plunger raised in the air. According to Ste, Rabner activated the vacuum for a second, loosening Peany from her cozy environment, and told me to make the final push. I did exactly as I was told ... and with the baby's head came a glorious shower of amniotic fluid that doused Rabner quite thoroughly. Well ... if anything, that was one way to create an impression. The next scene would have benefitted from some musical accompaniment from the Star Trek soundtrack: a large purplish form was lifted from between my legs, blocking out the light for some seconds before it was placed face-down on my chest. It was wet, warm ... and surprisingly quiet. I looked at Ste imploringly and asked if everything was all right with the kid. Peany raised her head a little, squinted at me and furrowed her brow. I heaved a sigh of relief - a baby with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Now at the start, Doc Rabner had said that the low dosage of painkiller would make my pushing more efficient - and he was right, although there is a very fine distinction between pressure and pain. I could feel him stitch me up, which took an hour. Five minutes into the job, I inquired if he could just leave me to heal naturally instead, which elicited a cluck. Half an hour into it, I wondered what his handiwork (careful embroidery) looked like. For each stitch that was made, he would test the tension in the thread by tugging on it. Once, when he gave it a pull, the stitch didn't hold and went 'thwack'! Ouch indeed. I'd expected some pain-numbing effects from the euphoria of the moment, but none kicked in.

Just like an ant bite

At around 9am on 22 May, my waters broke. I was still exhausted from having slept very little the night before and tried (weakly) to wring out a few more precious minutes of sleep from the morning. My tummy was enormous (recall Doc Rabner's sagely observation, "This is not a small baby.") and I was at the mercy of gravity and a very insistent foetus. Anne had a clearly articulated preference for the left side: whenever I rolled onto my right (to get the circulation going), she would fidget and squirm as if the sky were falling. So I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to manoeuvre out of bed and into the loo rather neatly when the gush came.

I rang Ste, who had gotten to the office a little while before, and started putting last minute items into my hospital bag. The contractions were very mild all the way till the late afternoon, when I skinny dipped in the hot bath - the water was at a comfortable temperature and was carefully scented with ylang ylang essential oil ("I thought you might like that scent because you're Asian," said the midwife). The most unpleasant thing up to that point were the invasive vaginal checks. As the pain intensified, I buttressed my deep breathing with an indiscriminate selection off the drug cocktail menu: from homeopathic medication (the most harmless-looking little white balls which are, in reality, the most harmless and useless little white balls of ****) to Buscopan, to the eventual call for the almighty epidural.

And that's when the real action began. The anaesthetist was a senior member of staff and introduced himself warmly. He explained the procedure at some length, then told me to bend forward as low as I could (while seated, with my legs dangling off the side of the bed) so that he could find The Spot to inject in my spine. He got into position behind me, while the midwife and Ste stood next to the bed. I leaned over as far as I could ... but it wasn't enough. I tried again. And again. And again. But couldn't get low enough. We kept trying ... half an hour passed ... then an hour. A nurse would pop in ever so often with a telephone message for the good doctor. Ste told me later that his wife was trying to reach him, and that they probably had tickets to go to the opera or something.

I just remember thinking what a circus it was right there in the delivery room: me, the immobilised, elephantine mass in the centre of the rink, draped in generous amounts of last season's Hospital Robe and held down by two determined keepers. Ste was on my right, gallantly pulling my arm down, and the first midwife was on the left, tugging at the other arm. The second midwife stood on a chair in front of me and pressed her elbows down onto my shoulders. So hard that I could barely breathe. Someone was counting out loud ... people were telling me to bend over ... the automated blood pressure band would inflate, stop the circulation to my left hand (really annoying) ... and ever so often I said, "Stop! Contraction ..." whereupon all activity would cease, till the pain passed. Then the routine would begin again. Doc Rawlings had injected me a number of times, but was dissatisfied with something or other each time. The encouraging, cheerleading tone we'd first started out with turned into agitation and frustration after an hour. No one had said anything harsh to me; they didn't have to. I was very nearly distraught by that time - shaking from the nerves and from the pricks to (the nerves in) my spinal column. I felt dejected and defeated. The strength I had derived from everyone's encouragement and praise (for my stoic composure) in the first half of the day evaporated ... leaving me bone tired and lost. We carried on like that for another hour.

Finally, and I don't even remember how or when or what was different that time, it happened. Alicia Altorfer-Ong was epiduralised. Doc Rawlings, evidently as relieved as I was (except perhaps for the fracas that would ensue re: the missed opera when he got home) came round to my side of the bed and wished me all the best for the rest of the delivery. He had maintained his composure throughout (observed Ste), though he chuckled (in German, to Ste) as he was leaving that this was the hardest case he'd faced in 20 years on the job. I simply felt broken and wasn't sure if I could take whatever else was to come.