The day my life changed forever

Magdalene dalziel

IT’S been just three weeks but everything has changed.

Life as I knew it has been turned upside down by a tiny sleep terrorist with the face of an angel and a set of lungs that would have made Luciano Pavarotti envious.

I was two days past my due date when I wrote my last column and was resigned to my baby being born through induction.

I’d become obsessed with watching Channel 4 show One Born Every Minute and had sat down on the couch for one more episode before bedtime when my waters broke.

Despite all my organisation and the two packed hospital bags waiting by the door, I was in shock and froze.

I was dreading being induced but relished the fact it meant a chance to have a degree of control over my labour.

I was planning a nice last morning of pampering and a leisurely breakfast before heading to hospital with well-coiffed hair and make-up for the birth.

This all went out the window very quickly when we realised my waters were green.

The baby had done a poo in the amniotic fluid he was still floating about in. This can be really dangerous, so time was of the essence.

Soon we were in the labour suite, where I was hooked up to a hormone drip which I’d remain attached to for the next eight hours.

I won’t go into too much detail about those eight hours. If you’ve given birth, you have no interest in my experience and if you haven’t – but think you’d like to one day – you don’t need to hear it.

After a while, the baby’s heartbeat was dropping but I was no closer to being fully dilated so it was off to theatre for an emergency C-section.

I was secretly glad about this development as it meant an end to the process was in sight.

Gas, air and morphine meant my memories are all a little hazy but fast-forward two hours and me, my traumatised husband and our 10lb 2oz bundle of joy were wheeled out of surgery to the high-dependency unit, where we had to spend the rest of the day.

Thanks to my six small fibroids – which were monitored throughout my pregnancy and didn’t pose a threat to the baby’s or my safety – I had a massive blood haemorrhage and had to have a transfusion.

Matters were even more complicated by a placenta which didn’t want to come out and had to be removed in pieces. Due to the local anaesthetic and cocktail of drugs I was on, I was oblivious to the drama and haven’t had much time to dwell on it since.

When you’ve got a little life depending on you for everything, there’s not much room for self-pity, which is a revelation for me.

I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards twice, I can’t stop crying and I haven’t slept In three weeks.

However, life doesn’t get much better than this.