"I do not remember to talk about it": Women about pregnancy and childbirth
MANY ASPECTS OF FEMALE PHYSIOLOGY these days remain an "uncomfortable" topic. Such important and complex processes as pregnancy and childbirth are usually discussed in general terms, avoiding any hint of details. The only socially approved form of talking about childbirth is the romanticization of this phenomenon: no pain and fear — only happiness and love. The silence devalues a difficult and unique experience, and women are again alone with their thoughts, fears and real problems. We talked about this with five young mothers, each of which has something to tell about her birth.
I learned about pregnancy on the evening of December 31: the mood was unbearably bad, I asked my partner to go to the Christmas tree to save the New Year, and at the same time buy a pregnancy test, because I had a delay. Having seen on the electronic test "two-three weeks", we froze with round eyes, but everything complicated immediately went away somewhere, and a festive mood began. It is difficult to say that we planned the children (we met two months before), so we just embraced and began to rejoice.
There were many unexpected moments, including those that we did not have time to discuss with the father of the child in the short time of acquaintance. For example, I wanted to immediately share the news with loved ones, and Andrew is quite a closed person and for a long time did not allow me to do this. But the most unpleasant discovery was how much my mood depended on hormones. The effect of hormones can be understood with the mind, but understanding changes a little. The most frequent advice during pregnancy is not to be nervous, but this made me even more nervous. I could not get rid of fears about the future, finances and life: they pressed so that I fought several times in tears and hysterics. The worst thing about it is the thought of what irreparable harm I cause to the baby inside, and this only made it worse.
I was very lonely. A close friend, from whom I expected joy and support, at the same time experienced a stalled pregnancy. She several times reacted very painfully to my words of support, and we stopped communicating. It is easier for me to experience joyful events, sharing them, because it happened so that I almost did not feel the joys of pregnancy. We quarreled with Andrew, I was depressed by the feeling of guilt, and I was most happy when I went to the Glow Nurture app, where the size of the baby every week is given in comparison with a fruit or vegetable. From blueberries to kumquat, from kumquat to plum, to mango and so on. And only the last two weeks of pregnancy, I can call really happy: the hormones turned off most of the anxiety, and I began to do what I wanted.
I have never gone to the usual antenatal clinic, and immediately entered into a contract to manage pregnancy at the Center for Traditional Obstetrics: I chose a doctor, a midwife and a maternity hospital (I gave birth at the 8th Dynamo). At the receptions, I was often shy and forgot to ask questions, and my family was very helpful. Vika, my brother's wife, who gave birth a year ago, patiently and carefully answered all my strange and stupid questions. In the same way, carefully, I now give advice to those who ask for it: we are all different, and we all have ideas about how to raise a child and how to protect our health.
I gave birth in a paid, special chamber of the CTA, and therefore during fights I was in boxing alone - more precisely, with Andrew and the midwife. At first the contractions were not strong, and then it became seriously painful. I couldn’t relax from the pain, so the cervical dilatation did not occur, which was even more painful. I spent about one and a half hours in a hot bath and switched off between contractions, and during them screamed without end. It was painful to move, I always wanted to go to the toilet (or it seemed that I wanted to go to the toilet). At five in the morning there was still no hint of disclosures, and the doctors decided on epidural anesthesia. The anesthesiologist refused to work with me because of a tattoo on the back: it is believed that the needle can pierce the paint, and the paint in the cerebrospinal fluid will cause a lot of irreversible consequences. As a result, I was given an injection of a tram, after which it became quite wilder as it hurt, but no longer to me: the narcotic effect distanced the pain, and in two hours there was a full disclosure.
The moment of the birth itself, when something broke in the perineum, I remember very well. A strange feeling of torn skin and suddenly gushing blood, like a bursting ball, a lot of pain and an incredible relief from this pain, because it is not infinite and strong, like during fights, but sharp, sharp and instantaneous. In addition, to hear the groaning of someone new, who needs urgent help to be born to the end, is very invigorating: he, as I knew from the courses, is much harder to be born than I am to give birth.
Childbirth is like an ultramarathon: at first it is easy and fun, then it is difficult and you want to stop everything, and on the most difficult last kilometers one hundredth of breath opens, and pain becomes a fact that can be watched from the side. I think my experience of marathons and ultra-marathons played a role also in the fact that after two days I felt fine - not wonderful, but in general it’s normal. True, for more than a month after giving birth, I suffered from constipation: it is embarrassing to talk about it, but it happens to many. But in the first hours after birth, I was stunned. Maybe this is a tram effect, or maybe just fatigue: I could not believe that I had a child. In the first hours, the sensation cannot be called love - it is perhaps that endless oxytocin. First love came a day later, when I looked at him at night, staggering from fatigue. Suddenly, I realized that I would feel this tiredness for many more nights, and that I was glad for that, and that for the sake of this tiny baby I could do anything, because that makes sense.
The impressions of pregnancy most of all reminded me of a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, where an experiment was performed on the main character for the sake of the Nobel Prize, making him pregnant. Sensations one to one. I am still ashamed to describe the pregnancy in this way, since it went surprisingly smoothly and turned out to be just wonderful compared to expectations. I am grateful to the body and the genes for such a gift, but I still don’t understand why evolution chose this particular breeding method for us: budding would be much more convenient.
For 30 years, you get too used to the established way of life: with myself I have always been nice and comfortable, and during pregnancy my inner conservative, spoiled by this luxury, was wildly indignant. I even made a “pregnant” photo session myself, just putting the light in the studio and pressing the self-timer button. I forced myself to take a picture so as not to miss the moment, but I didn’t have a strong desire to photograph the belly - I was a little afraid of him at all.
A separate story - ultrasound. I got used to the fact that in films and during routine surveys they show a muddy black and white picture and say: "See? Everything is fine!" It turns out that the technology has reached new heights, and after the third month in advanced laboratories, you can print out a 3D photo of the child, and especially cheerful uzisty can deploy a monitor to you and arrange a live broadcast from the abdomen. Now I understand how beautiful it is with surprise to cover your face with your hands and see online that the person inside you repeats it. But then for my psyche it was a slight overheating.
In all examinations and screenings, I was worried about the so-called Chernobyl syndrome. I was born in Pripyat two weeks before the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and all of my childhood I was examined with an amendment to Chernobyl. When you grow up, hearing phrases like “We don’t know what will happen to you”, you don’t believe in yourself as a full-fledged organism - not to mention a new person inside. On the other hand, these nine months have become incredibly fruitful for me. I read a lot about the science of neurophysiology and endocrinology: it was soothing and helped me learn to trust my feelings. It is easier to listen to the signals of the body, understanding how and why they arise. The brain as an organ "separately" from our consciousness does a very important job, including managing the process of creating a new person. From the child's pituitary gland, the mother's pituitary gland receives a signal that it is time for him to be born: they say, come on, mother, start the contractions. It is necessary to allow the brain to solve its problems for nine months and not to cheat yourself too much.
A strange assessment of the situation came mainly from the outside. I heard from an accidental doctor of an accidental, though well-known, paid clinic: "Toxicosis does not exist, it seems to you. You just do not accept your condition - that's what makes you sick." Arguments like the fact that my mother once lay on conservation with toxicosis did not work. The doctor, who convinced me that I was just a neurotic, was a man, and at that moment I decided for myself that observing pregnancy in men was not the best option. Do screenings, ultrasound, look for a solution to serious problems - yes. And to observe the natural process inside my body I better trust a woman.
Perhaps, thanks to this doctor, I worked out karma and quite by chance, literally a couple of blocks from the house, I came across the "Center for Healthy Maternity", where, again, I accidentally came to an appointment with a really "my" doctor. She led my pregnancy, being pregnant with a third child, and on her recommendation I chose the Kiev Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology for childbirth. According to the doctor, there is the best postpartum care, which is especially important: in the first days it is necessary to correctly adjust all processes.
During labor, epidural anesthesia did not work: there was so much adrenaline in the blood during the night of labor. Then it seemed to me that contractions were not so painful as I thought, but the doctors had to inject me with general anesthesia in order to safely conduct a cesarean. After birth, it was physically difficult, especially considering the fact of the operation. But I prepared myself morally and practically for everything, and in fact everything turned out to be even simpler than I expected.
I experienced admiration for my newborn son, he aroused respect and insane interest. I felt like an astronaut who flew for nine months to a new uncharted planet, about which I had an idea only from fuzzy satellite images, then safely survived a nervous moment of landing, opened the hatch and finally saw the very land I had been representing for so long. This planet turns out to be much more beautiful and curious than in the imagination, but you have literally a couple of minutes to admire, because the work is not a good thing, and we must urgently begin to build a new space station.
My husband and I took the pregnancy with great enthusiasm, because we waited for her for a long time and even began to worry if everything was in order with the prospects. My attending physician was most surprised when, when I tried to prescribe antibiotics for prolonged cough, I warned him that I could be in a position. It turned out that the "position" lasts almost a month.
My attitude towards motherhood was determined, on the one hand, by my mother's stories about giving birth and raising me on difficult days of perestroika, and on the other, by the complete absence of pregnant women and young children in my environment. It’s hard to know less about children than I knew before giving birth. But, as it turned out, such non-centered girls like me can easily become responsible mothers. The only thing that is definitely not worth doing is to strive to be the perfect mom. Around the clock, trying to match the attitudes built in your mind about what you should be is a task that is not just ungrateful, but also impossible to fulfill. It will only cause dissatisfaction with oneself, the future child and the world.
There were a lot of fears throughout the pregnancy. In the first trimester, I had a fear of miscarriage, so I tried not to lift anything heavier than a gym bag and listened manic to any sensations in the lower abdomen. I really did not want to gain a lot of weight, so I selectively approached my diet. The weight was still growing steadily, and by the end of the sixth month I had already gained "extra" ten kilograms. After this psychological turn, seeing that I was not very successfully controlling the process, I stopped trying to do it and gained only four kilograms from the top. The weight went, of course, not immediately after the birth, but after six months I got into my old clothes.
There was also a fear of picking up some kind of nastiness like toxoplasmosis or rubella, and the vision was dulled, and the heartburn tormented by the end of pregnancy. With the birth of a child, everything passed at once. But sexual attraction, on the contrary, was rampant in the second and third trimester, and after giving birth it abruptly disappeared: when breastfeeding, this process is logical. It is believed that if you continue lactation further, then somewhere in six months the libido returns to normal. The only fear that has been justified is pain in the spine from being overweight: they have not left so far and simply will not leave. It is necessary again to systematically increase the muscle corset, lost during the forced "vacation".
I gave birth, according to numerous advice, in a public hospital. In Spain, at least in the Basque Country, where I live, state medicine provides no less, and often more professional and diverse services during childbirth. There are, of course, drawbacks - for example, the detached attitude of the staff and the feeling of a “conveyor”. In general, I was satisfied with the quality of service: both the midwives, and the surgeon who performed the caesarean section for me, and the nurses who helped with the breastfeeding technique seemed real professionals to me.
Not without disappointment. They were associated with a complete discrepancy between the desired and the actual during delivery. The fact is that my child never turned over (as a result, as I said, I had to do a cesarean section). Since the process began ahead of time and I was still hoping for another final and natural childbirth, abdominal surgery seemed to me a difficult, painful and depressing experience. In fairness it should be said that she had no effect on breastfeeding, metabolism, and had virtually no effect on appearance. The difficulties that arose during labor did not kill the desire in me to go through the experience of pregnancy and motherhood again. The next time the birth scenario may be very different from the first experience - and, perhaps, for the better.
Pregnancy and childbirth - the most intense physiological experience that was in my life. Visits to the dentist, surgery, a wide variety of diseases and experiments with corporeality - childbirth eclipsed everything. I got pregnant early enough, at 22, but that summer, when it happened, I, in fact, was going to do it. My first education is biological, and I wrote a diploma on mutations at different stages of embryonic development and genetically inherited metabolic disorders. So I was afraid of everything that was free from sleep and toxemia and thought out what I would do in case of any deviations I knew. I still remember the quote from an embryologist on the flyleaf of one of the books: "We think that the most important events in our life are university graduation and wedding, but in reality it is blastulation and gastrulation."
During pregnancy, I abandoned medical genetics and already studied in the first year at VGIK, which was badly combined with the birth of a new life. The audience was too stuffy, because of the toxicosis I was sick in all the toilets of the institute, the ten-hour school day was terribly exhausting, and I constantly slept on pairs. One of the teachers tried to dissuade me from further study and the career of a director, and the second wanted to deduct, because "you're a mother."
This is a very important period - when embryogenesis occurs inside you. All my fears were embodied in dreams: I dreamed that I was giving birth to a fish, then a brood of rats, then a very small baby doll. Already in the late stages of pregnancy, I constantly pushed my daughter in the stomach, if she had not moved for too long and could not calm down until she received a push back. Now I also strive to control her condition, but with the help of calls or SMS.
It is unpleasant to admit it, but children are money, managing pregnancy is money again, and childbirth is also money. I spent all the additional state and maternity payments at work specifically for private doctors, because there was not enough nerves or health for other medicine. When I went to the district maternity clinic, I had a painful on-duty cleansing from the cervix, and then for some reason I was offered an abortion, although I warned them that I was pregnant "on my own will." After that, I went to the antenatal clinic on Arbat to see the doctor who led my girlfriend’s pregnancy, and never returned to my district clinic. We found the nearest hospital and signed a contract with the obstetrician there as well, and at the same time we agreed that the father of the child should attend the birth. To do this, he needed to do a blood test and fluorography.
Before giving birth in Russian maternity hospitals, they often ask to shave the pubis, which is rather strange, considering what happens during childbirth. To shave a pubis when at you waters depart, and at me it happened for seven days before planned, frankly, not from a hand. It is good that a non-pregnant man was next: one thing I could not do. In general, when you start to give birth, the surrounding people are mostly nervous. В какой-то момент они устали нервничать, и настала моя очередь переживать. На меня устанавливали датчики, ставили капельницы, из меня лилась вода, всё болело, люди уходили и приходили: я абсолютно не понимала, что происходит и почему это происходит так долго.
Очень правильным решением было взять отца ребёнка на роды, и не потому, что он как-то невероятно помогал или напоминал, как правильно дышать. First of all, there was someone to exchange a word for 12 hours, there was someone to hold on to, when he was sick, when he needed to get up or sit down, there was someone to change the vessel and call the nurse. And in general, the entire maternity hospital staff works somehow faster, if a man is hanging around in the ward: patriarchy!
In the process of labor, I had sudden complications: the sensor was not securely attached to my stomach, and the strength of my contractions was underestimated. In the morning, fortunately, I was given epidural anesthesia, and I was able to survive what happened next. I remember that I was crushed with an elbow on my stomach, my crotch was cut, I thought that my face and eyes were about to burst. At some point, I began to scream and roar so that I decided to roll a general anesthesia. My daughter was not dragged out with an idyllic first cry and offering to her chest: she was bluish in color, and she was carried away somewhere. Then I began to thank David Lynch for the existential experience - it seems, out loud - the effects of anesthesia.
Now my daughter is already a completely separate person, but I still remember the day when she was born, with some shudder. We talk to her about it from time to time - at each age in different ways. I do not remember the women in my family talking about their births: it seemed to them that this was something shameful or secret. A pity - I would listen.
I became pregnant, by the standards of the Russian average man, late at 33, and gave birth at 34. In general, at 30, I realized that family, children were not my way, but suddenly a year later I met a lot of love, and the issue of posterity was automatically resolved the positive side. Influenced by stereotypical cinema scenes and the stories of relatives and girlfriends, I expected a lot of scary things, but just what happened was nothing that nobody told.
If everyone has heard a lot about postpartum depression, then I was completely unprepared for the fact that prenatal depression could occur. In the seventh month, I fell into such a quagmire of weeks for five or six, that I seemed to stay in it for good. Everything came together: the body that had become bulky and uncomfortable, the fears of all stripes, the confidence that the husband does not love me and never loved. Powerful nightmares have been added, from which I woke up either in a cry for help or fighting off demons.
At some point, I assured myself that the only favorable outcome was death during childbirth, and began to prepare for it: cleaned up all the cases, wrote the necessary passwords and valuable instructions in a special notebook. At some point, I saw in the search history that my husband was googling prenatal depression, and I realized that I couldn’t hide my condition. It faded away gradually - just as it began, but I still remember the feeling of doom most clearly. It helped that I worked almost to the birth - the abundance of tasks helped not to get hung up.
For the first five months we did not tell anyone about pregnancy: it allowed us to avoid a mass of unnecessary advice and prejudices (they have been enough in recent months). Once struck even the doctor. When I was sent to the flu vaccine in the third trimester, the therapist in the district clinic issued a standard anti-vaccination message. There was about mercury, formaldehyde and chipping of the population, it was argued that vaccinations kill sperm and make boys fruitless, which is the machinations of the cunning West to destroy the great Russia. Almost word for word, not kidding.
Taking into account the easy pregnancy, I decided to give birth from the very beginning with the duty team - without any agreements, persuasion and sentences. I did not expect a particularly loving relationship, but the level of attention and care exceeded all expectations. But to my shame, I turned out to be a terrible woman in labor. Despite all the articles I read, I did very little of what was needed. “Breathe a fight”, how the hell can you breathe this pain? It fights - the most protracted and exhausting period. I gave birth without epidural anesthesia - the moment was lost for her. Still, I begged for a shot, which for almost an hour slightly muffled the pain and allowed me to fall asleep right between the fights.
The birth itself did not last long, but when it was over, I was happy that my eyes did not burst and stayed with me (it felt like they had to fly out during the attempts). Then the midwife looked at my face sympathetically: "Poor thing, why did you overstrain your head so much?" When I got to the mirror, I found that my face seemed to be plowed - due to improper efforts, every time on my face became a micro-inflammation.
However, this is not the most tangible and endured effect of what happened. It is a mistake to tune in to the fact that childbirth is the finish. The body after childbirth is another story. It is impossible to sleep on your stomach and sit on a chair, and every trip to the toilet is an expedition. Want to sneeze? Really regret it. Cough? It is better to suffocate, but do not. Put the child to the chest? God, what are these contractions? Yes, when breastfeeding a child, the uterus is reduced, and the familiar pain comes back after fresh ones.
At this point it may seem that nothing could be worse. In comparison, it can. A couple of weeks after the birth of the child, I rushed to the gynecology department with a temperature of 39.4, provoked by inflammation in the chest. And here, biting my tongue, I no longer grumbled at fate. Neighbors in the ward changed every day. Frozen pregnancies, abortions, polyps, scraping and getting out of anesthesia - that's really scary. Suddenly, you understand how difficult and vulnerable the female body is.
At this point, the logical question arises: why is all this necessary if it brings so much pain and torment? It is hard to say. When I saw my child for the first time, the range of emotions was beyond - there was everything. Love? Even some. And not only to my son - I became softer and kinder to all my relatives, and an incredible outburst of feelings arose for my husband. It may still change more than once - my parenting experience is small. But so far even fatigue, lack of sleep and a ragged regime do not obscure the joy and happiness of what happened.
Will I ever decide to do that again? Hardly. First, the watch is ticking (haha). Secondly, if the opinion prevails outside the maternity hospital that it is easier to give birth to the second child than the first, then mothers are voiced by a more convincing opinion: knowing all the pain and possible emotions is a very serious decision. " Stories about the wisdom of nature, which provided for women to forget the brunt of childbirth, haven’t convinced me so far: for the moment, one child is enough for me.
Photo: pitakareekul - stock.adobe.com, Poles - stock.adobe.com, Nataliia Pyzhova - stock.adobe.com, Direk Takmatcha - stock.adobe.co