by SUSAN TAYLOR
I recently became a mother for the second time, and can honestly say that welcoming my newest son into the world has been one of the most exciting and joyous moments of my life – as you would imagine. It’s up there with my first son’s birth and marrying my husband.
But as wise glam rockers Poison once warbled, every rose has its thorn… and so it was also the worst time of my entire life.
“How did it all go?” an old girlfriend asked me the day after ‘the event’.
Now, I’m not one to hold back, especially with close friends.
This isn’t Fight Club.
You can bet your sweet derriere that I’m going to talk about childbirth, and not let my newly blissed out mummy hormones get in the way.
“You know in war movies where people get their limbs blown off and stuff, and they lie there asking their comrades to kill them?” I said.
“Ah, yeah,” my yet-to-experience childbirth friend replied anxiously.
“Well, the birth was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling exactly like that.”
Silence.
Sounds terribly dramatic doesn’t it? Well, it bloody well was! In actual fact, traumatic would be more apt that simply dramatic.
With my first son I was induced and quickly went into labour with the aid of an epidural, but unfortunately he was stuck and I ended up having an emergency caesarean. I was quite disappointed about this, so when round two came knocking I was ready and wanted to give a ‘normal’ birth a red hot go. I was pumped!