To my daughters, 5 years and 2 months

Everything has changed. Absolutely everything.

The whole trasformation started on August 24. Well, no, it started about 40 weeks before that but the big change started on August 24. It was hot that day, and I was 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant, on the bottom end of a failed membrane sweep that made me feel like I had been used for a puppet, and miserable. Despite the impossibility, I felt that I would be pregnant forever. The baby wasn't coming out. Ever.

Mark and I left our oldest daughter with my mother for the afternoon and went to another midwife appointment. Mark had just come off a couple night shifts and was going to sleep after the midwife appointment. We had a second membrane sweep which is never comfortable, but apparently the baby was still sitting quite high and my cervix seemed like it was hiding out near my bellybutton trying out for a new job. On the possitive side, I think the mw managed to give my tonsils a scratch.

We left the mw office before lunch under the advice not to stray too far. We were commanded to go for a walk, so we headed up to Perth, a lovely scenic town offering nifty shopping. Off we went. I was crampy, hot, swollen and irritable. Mark was exhausted but in good spirits. He walked and I waddled around town, then we stopped at this cute little restoraunt and had soup and a sandwitch. Their pie looked excellent, but I was still pissed off at the unfairness that I would be pregnant for all of eternity and so did not partake. I regret that decision. It was probaby good pie.

Mark looked like a zombie, so I said we should just go home so he could sleep. In reality, I didn't care if he was tired. The car had a/c. I would have murdered a homeless person for a/c. So we climbed in. Once my internal body temperature had climbed back down from the melting point, I became concious of regular tightenings. I didn't look at the clock, I wasn't having a baby anyways. We had to pass through the town with our mw in it on the way home, so I suggested we just pop in and let her know that I was contracting regularly...I was just too stuborn to find out HOW regularly. She suggested we rent a hotel so mark could sleep. We decided to go home, we couldn't afford a hotel. On the way home, Mark gave me his watch and told me to keep count. I was contracting every five-ish minutes, but they weren't painful. I figured it was just my body's terrible sense of humor playing a nasty trick.

Under orders, I telephoned the mw and told her. Mark forced me. He was a man on the edge, perfectly balanced on the fence that is the silent and still line between panic and action. She told us to go home, take two tylenol and get in the bath. She would see a couple more ladies and call me back. Mark practically man handled me into the bath tub with this blank look on his face that said louder than words that he was perfectly willing to force me to do what ever the mw said. So I got in the tub. My five year old fed me dip and chips. Spinach dip. It was yummy. So then the mw called back and asked if I was still contracting regularly. I was then told it was time to go.

From the look on Marks face I knew these things

1. no more dip

2. if I didn't get dressed immediately, I would experience the hour long drive to hospital naked.

So naturally, I hauled my fat ass out of the tub and got dressed with as much dignity as I could manage. I still didn't believe it was time, and was possitive that the mw would end up at the hospital just to tell us to go back home.

By the time we got the the hospital it was maybe 2 or three. She checked me and the whole time I felt embarassed because I didn't believe I was in labor. She told us it was early labor, but my first daughter was born quickly and she wasn't about to send us home. So we went walking. We went to meet my mother who was coming to join us after dropping off my oldest daughter with my father. Then we went back and I got hooked up to my iv which I needed for my first course of antibiotics. More walking. We went outside so the smokers could enjoy a bit.

When we went back in there was another largly pregnant woman sitting in a chair panting and looking a little wild in the eyes, which quickly turned a bit spiteful when she saw me walking around laughing and talking with my family. Guess she was in pain, and the fact that I obviously wasn't bothered her. Sorry.

We walked to the gift shop, and the timmy's. Went back to the room. I was at four or five cms but still in early labor. Apparently my cervix/belly button was quite thick. I honestly didn't even feel most of the contractions and was still waiting for someone to realize that I was so NOT having a baby and send me home. She offered to break my water, once I reached five, and then we could all go home at a reasonalbe hour. OK then, whatever works. So I got my water broken and asked if I could get in the tub. It looked like a wonderful experience...a nice big deep tub with jets. HELLS YA! So in I got.

Labor progressed quickly. The pains came on with the strength of a sledge hammer. W-O-W. I breathed through them and privately got very worried about managing to make it through without meds. But I shut up and kept breathing. I was determined to have the baby quietly and calmly. RIGHT. Eventually I started clutching Marks hand and had to fight back tears a few times. I couldn't believe the pain. He was on his knees on the tile floor beside me, pouring warm water on all the parts of me that wouldn't fit in the tub. He draped a face cloth over the parts he knew I wouldn't want everyone to see. He stayed there for as long as I was in the tub. I think I got out around nine. Once I got the the point that I was really struggling, the mw came in and told me to make low noises. It would help. I thought it was bullshit...and also thought that she sounded like a wounded buffalo. I had no desire to compromise my dignity any further and ignored her. Her student came in...we found out later that Mark scared her. She needed to monitor the baby's heartbeat regularly but I hated it during contractions...so mark kept telling her when to back off. She was young.

When I was researching natural birth I was lead to believe that labouring and birthing in water is a natural pain killer or something. Bullshit. SOOOO bullshit. It doesn't help. The mw student told Mark if he pinched a certain part on my hand it would stimulate my brain to make more endorphines or something. Also bullshit. They gave me a TENS, which sends small shocks to your muscles, and is supposed to help with pain. More bullshit. There is no natural way of making natural labour easy. I'm not even sure if it can be made easier...it's brutal. And painful. More painful than I could ever describe.

Eventually, I finally caved and asked for the gas. I could handle the gas. So they brought me gas. I huffed on it during contractions, leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. During one particularly bad one, I huffed a little more than I had been and noted a pleasant dizzy drifting sensation...so I kept huffing on it even when I wasn't contracting for a bit. Just for shits and giggles.

That was the last bit of fun I had that night.

At some point I decided or the mw decided it was time to get out. I don't remember. I got out under my own steam and waddled to the bed. She checked me. I was a six but completely thinned. The mw said I would have a baby in an hour. I didn't believe her. I was a four when I got there, and I was only a six...hours and hours and hours later. Painful drug free hours. I cried for a bit, and then I asked for drugs. Just a little bit. She said that because she knew I was delivering so soon, I couldn't have anything BUT an epidural. I didn't want that. So I cried a bit more.

Then there was a new pain. My hips...they hurt so badly all of a sudden. They hurt...and it just kept getting worse and worse. The mw kept trying to make me move, but I was afraid. It seemed that every time I moved, something started hurting...so I decided to make like a statue. For a skinny woman, the mw was quite tough. I was man handled (again) and with no co operation on my part, onto my hands and knees on the bed. Wow. I thought I was fresh out of dignity before. Now I'm REALLY out. They found the last shred of it and destroyed it. I felt like a dog. No one should have to be in that much pain, on all fours like a dog while naked, in front of five people.

I forgot about it. My hips. I thought they would fly apart, break into tiny pieces, dislocate. I started screaming. Screaming for drugs. Screaming screaming screaming. Someone kept telling me to push, she was almost here. I screamed. Someone told me she was so tiny, she needed me to help her. I screamed and screamed. I screamed "I CAN'T" but they didn't understand. I really couldn't. I couldn't make my body do anything. It hurt too much, all over. I wanted someone to kill me. I wanted someone to go out and beat a junkie to death for whatever he had on him and give it to me. I screamed and screamed. I screamed when people touched me. I screamed when they didn't.

I was terrified. Something felt wrong. All I could think of was that she had a very large ear or something. Something wasn't right. I was so scared of what that meant. I was scared I was breaking. I was ashamed at my lack of composure. I was sorry for the anesthesiologist who was probably being paged for everyone within hearing distance of my room.

Finally I reached down, and felt 2/3 of my daughters head, and knew it was time. I don't know how long she was like that...half born. Hours, minutes. I finally gathered my courage, and she was born in the next push...there wasn 't even time for anyone to catch her. She was born, exactle 1 hour and 3 minutes after the mw said I was six cms. She was born head AND fist first. I think that's why it felt wrong. That's why my hips hurt. That's why I thought she had an ear the size of a second head. It was her hand and arm, preventing her for sliding and moulding to me smoothly.

We were told through our pregnancy that she had a 2 vessle cord, and the chances of low birth weight, kidney problems and skeletal problems were higher. My daughter was born, and she wasn't tiny. She was 7lbs 13 oz, with a full head of hair, and a loud voice. She was alert. Watching me. I felt like death. Bone weary, hurt. But I was floating...with her I was floating. She was beatiful. She was new. Not her sister. She didn't look like her, she didn't look like me. She didn't fit in the sleeper I got for her. It looked like a sack on her. The hat didn't fit either.

Looking at her, and exhausted as I was, i wasn't really forming coherant thoughts. Just words buzzed by, moving to fast to be expanded on. Beautiful. Small. Loud. Ouch. Hungry. Cold. Tired. BEATIFUL. I was falling in love.

I had a quick shower. I got dressed. We left two hours after my daughter was born. We named her Marlee (my husband and I combined our names Mark and Lee) Josephine (my father is Joseph) Malynn (pronounced MAYLYNN, a combination of my mother and mother-in-laws names). We got in the car, and drove home. At the half way point, I needed to pee in a bad way, and he needed food and a coffee. I went in and walked, slowly and carefully to the bathroom. I tried very hard not to pass out. Between blood loss, birth and lack of sleep, I think I could have easily done so. I must have looked awful.

We got home around 1 am. We were both too tired to get the seat out of the car, so we just carried the baby in without it. Mark sat on the couch and held her and silent tears made shiny tracks on his cheeks. I ate my second sticky bun and two tea biscuits and jam. I ran out of breath and got all shaky walking to the kitchen. I went to the bathroom and tried to clean myself up a little bit. It was a lost cause. We held the baby for a while, both too tired to go to bed, too emotionally tired, too physically tired. Both burned out. Both too content.

Eventually we made it upstairs. We tried to put Marlee in a moses basket. She didn't like it. She

didn't like to be anywhere besides with me or her dad. So that's what we did. Were too tired to fight, even with a new born.

Those first two days passed so fast. I barely remember them. The midwives came to the house a few times to check her. All good. She was fine. The heel prick was terrible, she cried and cried. She wouldn't take a soother, she couldn't find her thumb. I became her pacifier. Within a week, Mark had been temporarily relocated to the spare bed, Marlee too up his place beside me. It was the only place she would sleep.

Within two weeks, we had come to the conclusion that 1) Newborns are not fun and 2) Marlee was particularly unhappy. NO colic, just yelling, not sleeping, screaming. Messy. I think I teetered on the balance of a normal sleep deprived newly delivered mother and post partum. My family rallied, taking my 4 year old out often. I didn't always nap, sometimes I just sat and stared into space and dreamed of a time that a baby didn't yell at me.

Marlee was insatiable. Always hungry. I could literally spend my whole day with her on and off the boob for hours at a time. It was brutal. OMG the chapping. BRUTAL. Toe curling pain. In time that passed, and days turned into weeks, and before I knew it, Marlee was smiling at me. Not very often, she mostly still yelled. But she did smile. I was recharged, I could handle a few more days. A few more days turned into two months. Now, only just, Marlee finally sleeps in her own crib. Mark has taken his spot back in the bed. She chatters, she puts herself to sleep. She does take a bottle, because quite simply I haven't the time to nurse her for four hours at a time. She would just happily live on my boob... She flirts and sings and talks to them. It's quite cute.

Her nightly freakshow seems to have passed, she's actually quite enjoyable. I am ashamed to say I am surprised.

And the changes will continue daily for her. From smiles to laughs, rolling over to sitting up, standing, walking and talking. I know every day will be new with her for a while. I just hope she won't grow up too fast.

And the changes in life continue. My baby isn't THE baby anymore. She's the big sister. A whole new identity. Not only is she insistant on making an imprint on her baby sister, but she's sort of given us two choices, the easy way or the hard way. She's very gentle, but smothering. Marlee takes it in her kind of stride, meaning she puts up with it for very short periods of time before shrieking her head off. Accordingly, Faith goes at her in short but frequent bursts in her dislike for the noise. They have an understanding I guess.

Faith also asserts her desire to be treated as a person who has assended the ranks so to speak. She's got the smug face of one who knows, that some day, not very far away...Faith will finally be the boss of someone. I have no doubt she's already making cookie snatching plans. Poor Marlee. She's gonna have to be heartless to resist her...and I've recently decided that she maybe does have a heart after all.

Mark and I have changed too. Our relationship is closer than it once was, and also a little less connected for the time being. I trust him now more than I did before, more than I ever thought I would or could. He is my best friend, my confidant, he is who I lean on when I have nothing left. I depend on him daily, and he has never failed me. Our relationship is strong enough to endure this sconnection, and it will pass when we sleep more than three hours at a time, when our whole day is not spent meeting constant needs for our children.

And so, even though I feel as though I am caught in a tornado and my world is just flying around in front of me, breaking up in the force of the winds, I am happy. I am happier than I have ever been. I have everything I have ever wanted in life, and there is nothing I would trade it for. There is nothing I would change.

Life is good.

di