Noah's Birth: A beautiful Story

Let me start with the most important thing: my birth was less painful and much shorter than I thought it would be. Maybe the fact that in the first one everything had ended up in a nightmare called Cesarian and that I under no circumstances wanted to have another one, made me take the pain more easily. But I also have to say that I must be kind of a pain resistant person since I almost fell asleep when they pierced the tattoo on my back for a total of five hours. So let me tell you what happened on 18th June 2010…

Thursday night in week 39 and my tummy was rock hard. I didn’t feel like doing sports anymore and you know I am an addict. Somehow I managed to sleep for .about two hours and probably unconsciously knowing, I had slept the four hours my daughter had spent at school that Thursday morning. Something I never ever do. So I was kind of rested when the contractions started to get more violent around 6:30 o’clock. I had been thinking not to tell Fatih right away because he was going to have a busy day full of meetings. But then I just blurted it out. „I think it has started“, I said. „Okay then I’ll stay here“, he said. „No no, you go to the office and I’ll call you when it’s more progressed. There is much time to go.“ He said okay and got dressed. I got in the bath tub and tried to relax. It felt good but when the water had cooled down, I washed my hair and got out. My daughter had woken up and she asked me what I was doing, sitting on a chair the wrong way around. „Mummy and daddy might go to the hospital today, sweetie. Do you remember, the doctor will help us to get Noah out.“ Zoe was happy to hear that and ran back in her room. Fatih came and asked me if there was anything he could do. I remembered that I should eat something but my stomach turned when I only thought about solid food. „I could try to eat some melon and let’s measure the contractions“, I suggested. I managed to eat some pieces of fruit and we found out that the contractions came every four minutes but took only for about twenty seconds. I texted my doctor and she called me saying that the intervals wouldn’t get any shorter but the contractions stronger. „When this has happened, you come to the hospital. I will organise my schedule and drive there myself soon.“ Zoe’s service bus left at 9:10 am and we shot our house door at 10:30 am. Our poor driver was in panic. Probably he has been watching too many bad movies and wanted to avoid a birth in the car because he drove way too fast. Fatih – who by the way told me afterwords that he had been cool only because I had told him to go to the office and he therefore had assumed that there was lots of time until the whole thing took off really – calmed the driver down and around 11 am we were at the American hospital. My back then husband wanted to get in from the emergency entrance but I said that there was no need. We went to the registration office and when the lady understood that I was in labour, she wanted to send me a wheel chair. But I refused. Why on earth would I sit in a wheel chair like I had a broken leg or something? You are supposed to walk around so the baby can move down quicker, isn’t it? They showed us two rooms and we decided for the suite. When the nurse checked my contractions, she was surprised to see how strong they already were. She said „You definitely don’t need an epidural.“ She explained to Fatih that usually women complain about terrible pain when it’s at a level of 40, mine were 142. Now this I cannot understand because seriously, it wasn’t that bad. I had pain yes and I was clasping the chair and I felt like I was going to throw up for a moment that I spent in the bathroom with my head bent over the trash bin. But it was bearable. When my doctor Kübra came, she was happy to see that the contractions were strong and regular. „That means that things are progressing well“, she said. I changed into my nightgown and she examined me. „You are 8 centimetres dilated“, she said. „Oh good, then we didn’t come too early“, I said. Nothing worse than coming to the hospital too early. This is when you get bored and concentrate on the pain needlessly.

Time passed with Fatih rubbing my back whenever a contraction came. That caused so much relief. Physically, no shit. Then I was fully dilated and the contractions hit one after the other. There was no time to recover and nothing really happened. This is the most painful phase of the whole birth. They call it transition period. My partner sat on a chair and I was in front of him, hopping up and down on a gymnastic ball that the nurse had covered with sheets so the blood would be soaked up. Whenever the contraction came I called for Fatih and he pressed and rubbed hard. He was there, offering me so much relief. Kübra was sitting on a chair on the other side of the room. „You are a tough cookie“, she said. Now I had some serious pain and I didn’t feel tough at all. We went through the hardest phase of the birth as I understood later. The pain level was at the peek and since I couldn’t rest in between, it was no longer fun. Kübra suffered with me but tried not to look too much concerned. „This must be the point where women wish that they never got pregnant“, I thought. Still, I was not there, I could take some more. Kübra asked me if I had the urge to push, but I didn’t. I couldn’t say how much time went by because all of a sudden, I did feel like I should push. „Oh my god, it’s too early“, I panicked. But Kübra said that it was okay if I did feel so. That’s why I let my body take over my mind and I pressed and naturally did the breathing thing they preach in the books and probably in all those birth preparation classes that we never attended. This phase of the birth was so satisfying because I felt that by pushing, I could prepare the way for my baby to come out. And the breaks between one and the next contraction were long and not painful at all. I was by then crouching on the bed. When a contraction came, I straightened my back, took a deep breath and then while holding down my chin, blew out the air. When it was over, I would rest my upper body on the pile of pillows that Kübra had prepared for me. I am not exaggerating: there was no pain at all while leaning on those pillows. During one of those breaks I said: „The baby must go through so much stress right now.“ „Not at all“, Kübra said and measured his heart beat which was around 120 and 130 indeed. She explained that babies might get stressed in a Cesarian because then they are simply lifted out of their environment in a couple of minutes procedure at a time which is determined by the doctor and not by the baby itself.

Kübra said that she wanted to examine me again. „We need to rush to the birth room, otherwise you will give birth here“, she said after checking me. „What do you mean?“, I asked. „Five to ten minutes and the baby will be out“, she replied. „You are kidding me“, I said staring at her. But she wasn’t because they packed me on a bed and there we were in the actual birth room. She told me when and how to push and I did so. I was still in shock. Could we really be that close? My mother had had a 24 hours birth with me and I was pretty sure that mine would take about the same time. „Okay now push without having a contraction“, Kübra said. In between she was constantly massaging my vagina with her finger. „I’m perfectly fine but my sugar level is completely down. I’m afraid I might faint. Please give me serum immediately“, I said and the sugar dripped in my vein.

And then the magic moment when actually his head crowned. A couple of more pushes and I was holding him in my arms. All covered with a white layer, he was there. My son. Our son. He had come. It was over. Already over. Fatih cut Noah’s cord and they wiped the baby clean. Kübra made the required tests and I heard his little voice. He was not crying. He seemed perfectly fine. Not like Zoe. Because of three doctors who had lied to my face, saying that there was no way the baby would come out the natural way, I had been cut up under full narcosis. My sister in law taped what happened while I was still in the coma: With some shampoo, they scrubbed the skin off my baby. It was shrieking and shivering because of feeling cold. Then they put my newborn daughter in a bed which was behind the glass wall that separated her from her father. My daughter cried her heart out all alone and these were the first fifteen minutes of her life. And why? Because they were waiting for her mother to wake up from the coma and be the first one to hold the baby. What about the father?? Does it matter if it’s him or me, holding our common child first?

One thing I hadn’t been prepared for in natural birth was the stitching. I knew that I might tear but Kübra had to sew my vagina for one hour and 15 minutes. There was not one big tearing but many little ones inside and outside. She sew and sew and my legs and teeth were shaking. It didn’t hurt at all but I just wanted to join my beloved ones, so I grew more and more impatient. But Kübra is a virgin, born in September: You can be sure that she will not let you off the hook before everything is simply perfect. And I love her for that.

cheap outlet Girls, natural birth is great. I ordered (normal not diet) food right after I got back in our suite, took a shower and put on make-up before my daughter and the guests arrived. Noah got circumcised the day after his birth. Sunday morning we left. They wanted to send the wheel chair again, but Fatih just laughed at them.

I was told so many times that I should wait for three months before going back to the gym. Kübra said that this might be true for Cesarians but not for natural birth. So Monday morning I started to work out my belly muscles while breastfeeding Noah. That was the only time I could find to exercise for a while. On the tenth day I could start seeing my abs again. And I had bigger boobs and less weight because of burning the hell of a lot of calories when breast feeding. Now you tell me why anyone would prefer a C-section over natural birth?