Mummy, will you always wee yourself now?

Since beautiful baby has arrived she has managed to achieve quite a lot. She has completely ruined my figure, (clearly it was she who had a craving for pizza not me) she has managed to get me to expose my breasts to the postman, the milkman, and very nearly my father-in-law. She has also managed to reduce me (a cynical, sarcastic almost middle-aged woman) to an over enthusiastic, baby gurgling, obsessed mummy. Seriously if you come within 50 yards of the house I will entice you into the front room and insist that you spend hours looking at the 500 photos we have taken so far and then force you to stare at her whilst arranging your features into various expressions in order to make her smile, I will also force you to endure listening to me talking in baby speak and my personal favourite talking through the baby to you; i.e. ‘so does mummy’s friend want a cuddle, does she, oh yes she does.’

Now let me turn back time at little and tell you about a time me and beautiful baby didn’t get along so well. It was 5.10 on the 26th of May. I had just collected twin boy and girl from the childminder and I was trying to move my heavily whale like pregnant body up to the house when suddenly I had to stop. ‘Mummmmmmmy’ yelled twin girl (she is incapable of speaking at normal volume) ‘you just did a wee in your pants, that is so naughty’ Twin boy then nearly breaks his neck darting over the garden with an expression of pure joy on his face as he realises finally that his incontinence issues must come from mummy as she has apparently just relieved herself on the driveway.

‘No’ I say ‘I think the baby is coming’

Well that was a mistake; it would have been easier to have just said that I wet myself to protect myself from the barrage of questions that then followed.

‘Why do you wee yourself when you are having a baby?’ Twin girl

‘Is the baby going to fall out on its head now?’ Twin boy

‘Will you always wee yourself now?’ (Hmm maybe only when I sneeze!)

So we get in the house and then I begin to doubt myself. What if I have just had a momentary loss of bladder control? The books all said I would know when I was in labour and quite frankly despite having two older children I had no idea whether I was in labour or not! An hour later I still had doubts and as he who helped create them walked in from work I asked his opinion whilst gripping his wrist so tight that it caused the blood supply to slow down.

So fast forward, we sorted childcare, popped the twins to bed, much to twin boy’s disappointment that he wasn’t going to watch a live birth and we drove to the hospital. During the drive I considered my plans for birth, after having an induction, then having my waters broken and then finally an emergency c section with the twins I was keen to try to have this baby with as little medical interference as possible so it was a surprise to me as much as anyone when I saw the midwife at the hospital and she enquired as to how I was doing and I merely growled at her like a feral animal and demanded an epidural.

Turns out, when you go into labour with twins you can have anything you want, when you give birth to one baby, no one pays attention.

Epidural refused, something about don’t being enough centimetres – I didn’t see her with a tape measure so really how could she be accurate? The gas and air was wheeled in. Some could say I was a little enthusiastic with this. Whilst the midwife tried to demonstrate how to use it I snatched it out of her hands like a woman possessed took a deep breath, inhaled, passed out and woke up on the floor like am upturned tortoise. He who helped create them was also doing his best impression of an extra on casualty by yelling ‘nurse, nurse’ as he was just physically not strong enough to lift my pregnant self off the floor.

After a rocky start myself and the gas and air quickly formed a friendship that would be hard to ever separate. I also amazed myself by the full repertoire of cow like mooing noises I could make during a contraction. He who helped create them tried to help by offering comforting words such as ‘breathe’ and ‘concentrate’ however every time he came near and a contraction hit the only mild pleasure I could gain was to bite him on the shoulder so he soon gave up and went back to watching ‘eyes wide shut’ on the TV.

 Five hours in and I had reached new levels of moaning, honestly I amazed even myself that I could be so rubbish at pain control. Soon we all decided enough was enough, I was distressed, turned out beautiful baby was also fed up of my complaining and had also got distressed, the doctors were distressed that I could be so loud in my distressed state and I found myself back on the operating table minutes away from meeting beautiful baby.

Then it ended as abruptly as it started.

You arrived and nothing else mattered,

I would make a million more mooing noises to ensure you made it into my life.

7lb 2oz of beautiful baby born at 1.02 on Thursday 27th of May 2010.

Welcome to the world Libby-sue – mummy promises to never use language like she did in labour in front of you ever again.

I love you little one.