Thursday, October 27, 2011

waiting.


I didn't think it would ever end, pregnancy. I just couldn't imagine that I wouldn't be that way forever. 'But you won't be' she said, matter of factly. It didn't comfort me but I'm not sure it was meant to. I was a week away from the date I was due to be induced but it might as well have been a decade, for how impossible it seemed. I didn't believe it was going to end, didn't believe I would ever be comfortable, ever sleep, ever not be in pain, ever meet the babies that were causing it. You know when people say 'it feels like it's never going to end'? It wasn't that I felt like it would never end, I believed it would never end. There was no conceivable way that I was ever not going to be pregnant. 
Sleep deprivation will do some crazy shit to your brain. 
(For weeks my sleep cycle had gone: squirm for 20 minutes, sleep for 10, wake in agony with stomach muscles threatening to rip, turn over, feel severe pressure on left kidney which appears to be infected, get up, cry, pace house for 20 minutes trying to relieve pain, pee, eat something, pee again, go back to bed. Repeat. All night. Alternating between the bed and the floor. 
Nobody tells you that the night after you have twins (even if the midwife wakens you with a flashlight every three hours to feed your baby who like you, just wants to sleep) will be the best night's sleep of your life. You will get THREE HOURS OF CONTINUOUS SLEEP, and you don't even need to pee once (because you have a catheter, but whatever). )
Every day was the longest, most uncomfortable of my life. There is just no way to describe the feeling of two 6lb babies plus 20something lbs of fluid and placenta hanging on the muscles that sit at the top of your stomach. Not that that stopped me trying, through my tears, all day every day. (God that man is patient.) Maybe you don't need me to describe it, to talk of bowling balls and stomach muscles stretched to schnitzel and the fact that the body really isn't designed for two babies at once, maybe just have a look at these pictures of Rebecca's 35 week stomach, that aught to do it. 
 *
I was due to be induced at 38 weeks but from the beginning I was told that there was very little chance that I would get that far, that hardly anyone does and that I would most likely go into labour myself, sometime before then. By 37 weeks (a year ago today) I knew that just wasn't going to happen and I was so fucked off about it. I didn't want to be induced, didn't want to wait another week, didn't want to be pregnant FOREVER. And so the days dragged on. I cried and moaned while Nye tried to make the house habitable. "Oh isn't it funny how people find all these DIY jobs to do just before they have a baby?" the nurse asked. I wanted to punch her, it wasn't DIY, it was building. Proper, serious, WE DON'T HAVE SOMEWHERE TO PUT THE BABIES building. 
And then it was the day before. You know, the day when the mother relaxes, practices her breathing (because sometimes you forget to do that. Breath.), maybe has a massage and a long bath, makes sure that her bags are packed and serenely admires the nest that she has feathered for her baby(s). The day when the guy who is noisily and messily sanding the living room floors turns up three hours late, spends a hour telling her about how the government is using budget airlines to spray the nation with secret chemicals (see those vapour trails? Not vapour, chemicals. Apparently.) and that she had better not let the midwives vaccinate the babies because vaccinations are a plot to dumb down the population. The day when her husband who was sent out to buy cereal bars comes home with a three legged dog that he found in the garden, a dog who like all dogs she's been left alone with before lies at the door pining whenever he leaves the room, making her distinctly anxious that the babies will do the same. The day when to escape the noise and the dust and the crazy whacked out weirdo in her living room she goes to visit her friend, the one whose flatmate is training to be an ob/gyn, the one whose flatmate has left her highly illustrated ob/gyn textbooks lying on the coffee table, the textbooks with the photographs of prolapses and episiotomies and stillborn babies that are completely and utterly gripping and horrifying. It was that day. 
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S NOT HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SPEND THE DAY BEFORE YOU GIVE BIRTH? 

And then it was the night before. And the floor was sanded and the cereal bars were bought and the owner of the three legged dog had been found and it was just us, Nye and I alone, together, on a mattress on the floor, hands on my stomach feeling the babies who we were soon to meet squirming and kicking and wrestling inside. I get up to pee and start my nighttime routine for the last time.


35 comments:

  1. Wow. I do agree about the first night's sleep. Even though I didn't have twins, Max and I slept for 6 hours that first night.

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  2. Wow indeed. I'm sat here in awe at all you went through, how amazing the human body is, how you write emotions and feelings just perfectly. Just, thank-you and again huge congratulations at this (almost) first year. xo

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  3. This really opened my eyes to what my mom must have gone through with my little (twin) brothers! Wow. I knew it was a lot - but the way you described it really brought it to light. They were eight 8 lbs each. EIGHT POUNDS! That's insane to me. And she had 3 other kids (2, 4, & 6 years old) to wrangle and take care of (with a rather unhelpful husband) while she was going through that. Insane.

    You are one strong woman!!

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  4. I remember saying to a friend who hadn't been pregnant before, "I can't wait to have this baby so i can have a good night's sleep". She laughed.
    Here I am 8 months pregnant again and thinking the same thoughts....

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  5. i always knew there was something fishy about those vapour trails.

    you're brave and marvelous, C, and those ladies who manage the smug-nursery-hover just before birth give me the creeps. three-legged dogs, on the other hand, are my favorite.

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  6. I've been following your story. This is my first comment. You've given me goosebumps. Also made me close to tears. You write beautifully. How wonderful that your bundles of joy have this record of their lives before they were born Hxx

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  7. Your pregnancy posts make me feel so much braver about when we one day decide to start that process. I feel like so much of what it's like to actually be pregnant (with twins, no less!) is shrouded in this "Life is a miracle. Making a baby is magical and lovely and the most special thing ever and nothing about it could be complicated" crap. Not that it isn't all those things, but it's also a real thing that we have to go through, and as such, I'd like to hear the real stories.

    Thank you for removing the veil.

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  8. Whfoooff.

    I don't know how else to write that sound. The sound of oh-my-god-you're-such-a-good-writer and oh-my-god-you-had-TWO-babies-inside-of-you-and-now-they're-outside-of-you-and-HOLY-SHIT-that's-intense.

    Just, whfoooff. That is all I can say.

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  9. that picture you linked of girls gone child freaked me out beyond belief. how amazing that a body can go from that to you!

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  10. I had that feeling too. Like intellectually, I knew one day there'd be a birth and the baby would come, but I think I was kind of in denial. For example:

    Hospital bag: fail

    Spotless flat: fail

    Pretty nursery, stocked with clean, ironed clothes and a compartmentalised changing table: fail

    Made up moses basket: fail

    There's a picture of me holding him a few days old, dressed in this quilted outdoor outfit, like a starfish. I don't know which of us looks more surprised. (actually, it's me. He's asleep.)

    Anyway, I am a muppet, but then, who's perfect?

    Great, brave post; I'm so sorry you had a pants time of it.

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  11. I'm not planning to have kids and don't normally enjoy reading about pregnancy/childbirth... and I read this whole post and was bummed that I have to wait for the rest of the story (even though I know how it ends ;)). I love the way you write.

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  12. In a nutshell: you're amazing. I'm so, so glad you're sharing your story - I can't even imagine how difficult it is to verbalize something so intense and life-altering.

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  13. Jesus, I really can't wrap my head around those photos of Rebecca's... that just sums up a whole of crazy about the way the human species does things!

    I was actually thinking of you the other day as your twins were born on the same day as my friend's little girl – and we were talking about the birth, well, she was talking and I was sipping a tea and nodding in the way you nod when you don't understand.

    Serenely admires her nest? Yup, I know no-one who has done that! It sounds a little Tom Cruise etc for my liking... three legged dogs, cereal bars etc sounds more like the thing to me!

    xxx

    p.s. I can't even think of what to say to the sleep routine...

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  14. You write so beautifully. I always wish your posts were longer! I don't want to wait for another post! x

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  15. so, you're telling me that i just better get used to the sheer exhaustion i'm experiencing at 15 weeks pregnant. that my sleep wont ever be the same again and that any control i had over my body has abandoned me altogether.

    do i shut up and put up or do i whinge, moan and grimace for another 25 weeks? my husband would like to know.

    looking forward to the next instalment, dont wait a year, i'll have figured a lot of it out myself by then and i much prefer reading about it first. :))

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  16. I'm really pleased that you've taken the time to write about how you were feeling late in your pregnancy with your babies and I'm hoping there is more to come. I've been reading and re-reading your twin posts since I first found out I was pregnant with twins, looking for some (any) insight in to how pregnancy and life with twins works and I've taken a lot of comfort from how special you make it look and sound. Well... most of the time. :)

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  17. Dudette, eye opening. you made it, well done!

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  18. )))))Cara(((( You're so amazing. I shall never get over how I do admire you. You've kept two babies alive for almost a whole year + nine months. No easy feat. well done. xx

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  19. This actually made me feel teary. Then again, I'm 39 weeks pregnant and doing the same waiting, notsleeping routine lately. Although there's only one baby, in which case I probably still haven't got a clue what you felt like.

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  20. You are a beautiful writer, and a beautiful girl.

    And I get you. On every level.

    OK, mebbes not the 2 x baby thing.... not both at once anyway!!!

    An early Happy Birthday to your two beautiful babies :)))

    xXxXxXx

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  21. Oh my goodness! The horror. ;)

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  22. I missed your words. Also...

    TWO BABIES. AT ONCE.

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  23. Cara, this is just incredible! I think I need to go and lay down now...

    ...can't wait to hear more.

    xx

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  24. a year ago? look at you go :) happy birthday to those sweet little babies.

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  25. Poetry and so much pain. And yet you did it. You are doing it. You're an incredible Mama.
    x

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  26. oh god. Beautifully written as usual, but, oh god...

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  27. I think you are superwoman.
    Such a beautifully written post, why can't we live closer
    x

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  28. You are not making having babies sound appealing. I think it's because your writing is so good and so detailed and so freaking scary!!! You should punctuate this post with a million pictures of your adorable babies so we know that everything turns out okay and it is all worth it.

    Because it's worth it, right? RIGHT?

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  29. What a sweet story! Your children will look back on this one day and thank you. Bravo! xoxo

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  30. Sigh. Lovely.

    THOUGH THAT PICTURE IS HAUNTING ME. It's only because I know you all end up fine and adorable that I'm tolerating it ;)

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  31. Goosebumps, and maybe a couple tears.

    Almost 1 year with them on the outside - well done, you too. xoxo

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  32. It's just been so lovely to have you on this side of the motherhood fence. And pictures of your babies somehow keep me young. Thank you.

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  33. oh honey.

    (also, catheter buddy, yeah!)

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  34. Just found out on Friday we're expecting twins!
    This photo of your huge belly scares the crap out of me on a whole new level now.

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  35. That photo is incredible. I keep looking at it trying to work out how it can all be possible.

    And you're incredible too. Happy birthday to all of you, again. Don't make us wait another year for the next bit...?

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play nice.