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Maybe baby
December 20th – three days to the due date, but still my second baby showed no sign of moving. I went for an antenatal check up and, to my horror, the doctor announced that I’d have to be induced, if nothing happened within the next few days. Having had a natural birth for my daughter three years earlier, I wanted the same for this baby.
‘But you don’t want to be in hospital at Christmas,’ I was told. Maybe not, but I didn’t want to be induced either. Not for the sake of Christmas.
I phoned my mother as soon as I got home. She was a midwife so, surely, she’d know how to get things going. No chance – ‘You’ll know when it moves down, dear.’ I decided against the gin and hot bath routine, and set about tidying the house and chopping wood for the fire, in the hope that would do the trick. But at the end of the day, I lumbered off to bed, fed up and still in one piece.
Early the next morning there was still no sign of movement, but, making my way to the bathroom, I suddenly felt an almighty shove somewhere at the bottom of my very swollen abdomen. By the time I made the loo, I’d had the show.
Throughout the day I was queasy and uncomfortable but still no pains. We took my daughter Christmas shopping and walked up and down Belfast’s Royal Avenue. News flashed across the screens of the TV’s in the shop windows, announcing an end to Northern Ireland’s first hunger strike. I took that to be a good omen; maybe there would be peace in this baby’s lifetime. At six o’clock the first real contraction kicked in, with full force. We were looking at toys and I gripped my daughter’s hand so hard, she yanked it free and fell into the cracker display.
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