Bridget Christie

Bridget Christie

The NHS delivered both my babies. They were born in Homerton Hospital, Hackney, three and a half years apart. The first birth, in April 2007, wasn’t as fun as I’d imagined. In fact, a doctor told my husband we were lucky. If it’d been fifty years earlier, they might’ve lost one of us. I don’t know how old the doctor thought I was, but I remember being very insulted by that.

It didn’t start well. I was two weeks overdue for a start, and when my waters finally broke, on my bedroom carpet, a mouse ran over them. We lived in a flat above a deli and were constantly infested. I screamed and shouted, ‘Get off my amniotic fluid, you verminous twat!’ It really ruined the moment. This precious liquid had kept my baby safe all these months and now a mouse had gone on it.

On the way to the hospital we got told off by the police for driving too slowly, and a bit further on we had to do a U-turn and were diverted because there was a body lying in the middle of the road in front of us. A lone policeman had just got there and was cordoning off the area with police tape. I thought about the man’s own birth. He was someone’s new baby once, a mother’s pride and joy. He’d been held up, kissed and cuddled, shown off and photographed. He’d been fed and nurtured and read stories and tucked up in bed. And now he was here. In the road. Alone. I felt deeply and profoundly sad and we drove the rest of the way in silence. Then we couldn’t find anywhere to park.

Unbelievably, I wasn’t even IN labour yet and a midwife sent me home, which was annoying because we’d just paid for parking. I got home, lay on the sofa, had staring competitions with the mice and ate a hot curry but none of it helped. I just wasn’t progressing. It was like being back at school. The next day we went back in. Three shifts of midwives and thirty-six hours later, my baby still wouldn’t come out. He’s still like this now; he’s just swapped my uterus for his room.

By now, the baby’s heart rate was all over the shop and I wasn’t doing great either, so it was decided the best thing to do was to take me down to theatre and ‘get this baby out’. I thought all labours were like this and wasn’t overly concerned. On the way down, I kept vomiting into a cardboard bowler hat and had a consent form shoved in my face but didn’t sign it. My husband put some weird blue plastic clothes on and someone put my feet in stirrups. Everyone was really jolly and made me feel very confident. After the maximum amount of goes with a ventouse and some forceps from medieval times, I was told it was really time for an emergency C-section now and could I just sign the bloody form?

I begged them to try one more time, which they did, and my son was finally born as ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones blared out of the radio. He was enormous, grey, had a cut over his eye from the forceps and looked really annoyed. The doctor stitched me up as a porter watched on with a reassuring aloofness. I probably should’ve had that C-section because that birth gave me massive haemorrhoids, which I’ve had ever since. Even my health visitor commented on them. I don’t think she’d seen anything like it. My friends tell me I can have them surgically removed but I’ve chosen to wear them with pride, like a badge of honour.

My second birth was easy peasy. During my last trimester, I developed a rare liver disorder called obstetric cholestasis. It can be quite dangerous in pregnancy and in some cases cause stillbirth. I’d been maniacally scratching the soles of my feet and my palms like a madwoman for a couple of weeks. Then, by pure chance, I read about these weird symptoms in a pregnancy booklet called ‘Emma’s Diary’ I’d picked up from my GP surgery (thanks the NHS!).

I called my GP and told her I might have this liver thing. The surgery was just about to close but she told me to come in, give her a urine sample and she’d send it off to Homerton. At 5 p.m. on 31 December 2010 she called me to say my results were back, I did have it and I should get down to the maternity ward and have the baby checked over, and that’s where I spent New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year, Homerton!

The baby was constantly monitored for another week and a half and then a nice consultant suggested I be induced, just to be on the safe side. It was such an easy, calm labour. I remember saying to my midwife, Cheryl, ‘When is everyone else getting here?’ and she said this WAS everyone and looked a bit insulted. I couldn’t believe it! ONE person! My son’s birth needed about twenty!

The baby was born very quickly. Too quickly for any proper pain relief. But it was fine. I knelt up, faced the wall and prayed, which helped a lot, even though I’m not particularly religious, and my precious, tiny baby was born arm first, like Superman. I’m a massive fan of pain relief and I would’ve absolutely had everything available to me if there’d been time, but this was a good pain and I’m glad I felt it. The only complication was that the umbilical cord was so short Cheryl had to call for someone else to cut it while she held the baby. Thanks to the NHS for my beautiful babies and my magnificent piles.

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