This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood piece is an emotional account of complications in labour leading to an emergency caesarean. In MY BIRTH STORY Huda Ismail describes her extreme experience in direct and unflinching prose that’s full of strength. As a nurse, Huda is more familiar than most with hospital process, and she reflects on how it felt to be a patient in an emergency situation, with her positivity and love beaming through. We’re grateful to Huda for sharing her story.
***
My Birth Story
Huda Ismail
The excitement of being told that my baby girl was no more than four hours away from arriving into the world was enough to get me through this. I was eight centimetres dilated when I arrived at the maternity suite and I couldn’t have been prouder of myself, having dealt with the contractions in my home. The countdown had started but the contractions were becoming more intense, the hours going by and still no baby. Despite my earlier protests, the pain had driven me to agree to an epidural. But relief evaded me for another hour as I was gripped by a contraction every time the needle came close to piercing my skin. With the epidural finally in effect, I strained and pushed for hours with no luck, my hips were too narrow; drained and exhausted, I was wheeled into theatre.
I lay on the theatre bed, feeling lifeless as my little angel was born, unable to hold or look at her. This pain I felt was indescribable. I heard the emergency obstetric crash call being put out for me. Doctors and midwives came rushing to save my life but were unable to tell me what was happening. What had gone wrong? Everything hurt, yet I felt numb. The feeling of fear and panic consumed me.
I remember the cold sharp scissor on my flesh as it cut. I watched my blood drain into the catheter, one litre, two litres … three. I was shaking, trying to stop shaking, but it only got worse. My veins collapsed, and the more the doctors tried to help me, the more pain my body felt. I couldn’t take it anymore and went into shock – I was losing too much blood.
Being nursed on a high-dependency ward felt surreal. As a nurse who has dealt with real-life emergencies I wanted to put a brave face on it. But it felt so different; I realised how much patience was needed to be a patient. I tried to be understanding of the circumstances, but I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to take my baby home. But I was on too much medication to look after her. I was bed bound and unable to sit or stand on my own. Seeing my baby for the first time was incredible. She was beautiful. She was more than beautiful. I couldn’t believe that I brought this little girl into the world. Everything that I had to go through, and all the pain I'd felt, disappeared in that one moment.
***
My Birth Story by Huda Ismail appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.