Page 52 of So Thrilled For You

The pain. Nothing like it. I thought my body would rip in two. Screaming. Agony. Make it stop. How was this possible? I must be dying. Nothing can hurt this much and not be dying.

A stern midwife, pushing me back into the bed. ‘Please, you’re upsetting others on the ward. You’re only one centimetre anyway. Your labour hasn’t even really started.’

How can it not have even started when I was nearly dead and had been screaming in agony, on and off, for over two days? Pain I couldn’t sleep through.

I watch Cara stroking the back of her sleeping baby. Cara with her three-hour labour and breathing techniques. Cara could trust her body, and so her body rewarded her. Unlike me and my body . . .

What day was it? So much pain. Tristan’s face white, his eyes wide. What is happening to his wife?

Established labour.

I was wrong about the other pain being too much. Please give me back that pain. This is . . . can’t remember. I remember thinking,who let a cow in the hospital? Oh, it’s me.That noise is me. The comb was snapped in half a long time ago. They couldn’t give me any gas and air because they had run out. They had run out of birthing pools too.

‘Sorry, it’s always busy in September.’

I knew I was dying. I was sure I was dying. I also knew that this fear was making my childbirth worse.It’s my fault it hurts this much because I’m letting the fear win.The adrenaline from my stupid, weak fear at the fact I’m clearly dying was pushing away all the oxytocin. All of this was my fault. Just breathe out some golden breath.

Ask myself,‘Would I be able to do a poo like this?’ That’s what BreatheItOut told me to ask myself on her Instagram captions.

I don’t think I’m going to die whenever I do a poo.

I don’t sound like I’ve escaped from a barn yard whenever I do a poo.

I couldn’t breathe through this agony.

Never. Known.

Anything like it.

Swearing at Tristan. Telling him I fucking hate him. Fuck him, for getting me pregnant. Fuck him, for not having this pain. Fuck him, for trying to comfort me.

Almost broke his hand squeezing it.Don’t you dare go to the toilet, you can’t leave me.

Blacked out from pain. Not literally, but no memories. Only of it hurting so much that ‘pain’ wasn’t an adequate word.

Something was wrong.

Worried doctors. More monitors. People rushing in.

Woody was stuck in the canal.

Woody’s cord was around his neck too.

Woody’s vitals were crashing.

Rush rush rush, pushed through double doors, someone running alongside me, telling me the risks of an emergency caesarean section I had to agree to. I groaned in agony. My body felt ripped apart. My baby was dying and I was dying. I was going to be one of those women who dies in childbirth, or who loses a child. I am the statistic. I was sobbing. Tristan was still holding my hand, telling me it’s OK, it’s all going to be OK, Woody is going to be OK, it will all be fine in just a few moments.

‘The position the baby is stuck in means the caesarean is more complicated. Lower down. Higher risk.’

WasI supposed to use my BRAIN before I agreed to complicated surgery, fucking BreatheItOutBitch? Ask about the benefits as my baby strangled himself?

‘You need to stay very still as we put the needle in . . . very delicate . . . risk of paralysis . . . do you understand? Lauren? Are you with us?

A nod. I think I nodded.

Just as they injected me, a contraction hit. Piercing, searing, agony, but I couldn’t move otherwise I’d never walk again.

Cara didn’t have a C-section. Cara had a water birth. Cara doesn’t know what it’s like to be fully conscious while your body is sliced open like you’re on a butcher’s bench. Lucky Cara. I stare at her with narrowed eyes, jealousy littering my blood with hot, toxic bubbles.

---