Marva's blog: Me & You - Part 1

I wake up groggy, the stark strip lighting above trying to burn me a couple of brand new irises.  It’s been three days? I’ve had too little real sleep and far too much of a morphine-induced stupor.  What day IS it then? And why am I here again…?

My memory is patchy at best, lurching at me with wildly like an intoxicated teenager.  The flashbacks fall thick and fast like a weird Tetris-type game, and events are trying to slot into their rightful place, but I’m incredulous that what is trying to come through is what actually happened.

It was Sunday night and I was very heavily pregnant. I really could not comprehend how I would possibly stretch any further – my skin and my wardrobe were at its limits. We had gone to the cinema, my partner and I, with the aim of watching something low-key and fun, and had ended up choosing Kill Bill Vol 1. featuring Uma Thurman and Darryl Hannah.  It could only be funny and light-hearted, wouldn’t it? I left the cinema that night with the intense squeeze of my first contraction. I was 7-and-a-half months pregnant.

So here I am, it’s Wednesday, or perhaps Thursday, and I am well enough sit up. I last felt him trying to push his way into the world, but I had known that I had placenta praevia and he was in fact scheduled to come nicely and neatly packaged on December 6^th, not now, nearly two months early.  I am not ready. There was a mid-night urgency to get to the loo, but no, it wasn’t the loo that I needed, then panic and fear, bright blue lights, sirens, and a hurried signature scribbled on a consent form before they dashed me into theatre for an emergency caesarean.

Now I am being wheeled gently into the infant care unit - and there he is.  He is a small, but perfectly strong and healthy 5lbs 3oz.  We stare a cautious “hello” at each other.  I am not sure.  I love him, but, he’s here…and I am scared and not sure.

The unexpected physically and psychologically bruising of the baby’s arrival heralds the beginning of many, many long months of what I now know to be a common outcome of emergency caesareans and bonding between mother and child.

We are through the woods now, 14 years later, but it took a long time of careful self-care and really just trying to figure “stuff” out without the pressure of everyone else around me telling me how I “should” be feeling and what I should be doing at every juncture through the myopia and faded and sterilized memories of their own experiences.

If this is something you are going through, it will not last, the numbness will fade in time and then eventually the intensity of the rush of love you feel for your little one will frighten you.

Give yourself and your little one time, and try to be brave in expressing your needs. Also, if you need help and feel like you’re drowning inside, throw yourself a life-raft and let your midwife, partner or someone else that you trust know.  It will work out in the end.

Marva is single parent of a 14 year old boy. She has worked in the City for 18 years and is currently a Financial Operations Team Leader for a Global Investment Manager.