Apres birth

So, I managed to tell you all about the day Flumpy fell out. Up until the actual moment of falling out, at least. And then the story abruptly stopped. But you know what? Stuff happened after that. The world did not cease to exist at that momentous instant (though it sometimes feels a bit like it did). So I might just burble on a bit about what happened just after Flumpy was born, if that's ok with you? And I might jibber a bit about home birth and how I became a committed, unwashed, tofu-bothering hippy. Or I may end up talking about something else entirely. Like fish. Or Postman Pat. Who knows. I'm a bit rusty at this blogging lark. Bear with me.

Right, where did we leave me? Sitting in a birthing pool with bits of unidentifiable (and some disturbingly identifiable) gunk floating past, clutching a outraged Flumpy. I stayed in the pool for quite a while, despite the fact that it looked like some kind of hideous body fluid soup. Everyone else bustled around doing stuff - I really have no idea what stuff, as I only had eyes for the squirming little creature I was holding up at eye level. His skin was like damp velvet, a tiny seal who'd emerged from the murky depths of the pool. I kept laughing, hardly believing what had happened, how it could possibly have been this easy, how I was sitting in our bedroom with a new baby which had been inside me just a few minutes before. This huge, redefining thing had happened, and we hadn't even left the house. It was all a bit hallucinatory.

Eventually I decided to get out of the pool. There's only so long you can sit around in a vat of your own afterbirth, frankly. The midwives - there were two of them now, as the second one had turned up about half an hour after Flumpy had emerged - made a nest for me on the bed (rather conveniently, this happened to be on Mr Badger's side - wah hah hah haaaaaaaaaa!), and I somehow managed to clamber out of the mank bath (only leaving a slight snail trail of gore), and hop across the room while juggling a baby who was still attached to my nethers by an umbilical cord. I'm sure I have never looked more alluring.

Once ensconced in our bed nest (which was made up of around forty pillows - way more than we actually have on our bed. Midwives must have some magic ability to make pillows breed just by looking at them), I decided to introduce Flumpy to the BOOB. And, surprise surprise, it was love at first sight. Or first suck, more accurately. He slurped away happily while Mr Badger popped open a bottle of champagne - the perfect isotonic post-birth drink, ideal for replacing all of those lost fluids with bubbles and alcohol. We asked the midwives if it was okay for me to be necking booze, and they said "It's your house" - demonstrating one of the major advantages of home birth: the ability to raid your own drinks cabinet minutes after spawning. You don't get that in hospital, let me tell you.

Then we all waited for my placenta to plop out. Now, my placentas like hanging around a bit - obviously it's way too comfy inside my womb. Or else they don't really like the idea that once they do emerge, they'll be tied up in a bag and incinerated. Most likely the latter, actually. And who can blame them? But eventually it blobbed out and the midwives took it off to have a good poke at, because that's what midwives really like doing, the weirdos.

Then began the great post-birth clear up. Which I got to watch from my comfortable nest. Nothing like lying around in bed watching other people mop up your bodily fluids. Probably the most disturbing aspect of this was watching the pool be drained through a see-through hose. Mmmm, lumps.

By this point, Flumpy had got bored of us all, and fallen asleep. Because we are stupid, we didn't take advantage of this and go to sleep ourselves, failing to recognise that this was the last chance we were going to get for, ohhh, the next five years or so. I also had to be poked and prodded by the midwife a bit more, to check that Flumpy bursting out of me at such a rate hadn't torn me any new and undesirable orifices. And, to everyone's astonishment, it hadn't. Actually, I wasn't that astonished, as I'd been there when the whole thing had happened, and it had felt fine. Really, genuinely fine. And though the painkilling powers of water during birth have been widely documented, I don't think it's so effective that it can stop you even noticing your lady parts being rent asunder.


Reassured that all was intact and no major surgery was required, I was allowed to have a shower (though the pervy midwives insisted on watching me do a wee first. These people are sick, I tell you). Then, having checked that Flumpy had all the usual parts and appendages, the midwives packed up their bags and left. Sadly, despite my attempts to persuade them of my theory that if you have a drug-free birth you should be given the unused narcotics for recreational use, they weren't convinced, and didn't opt to leave the gas and air behind. No nitrous balloon parties at ours any time soon. Sad face. :(

So there we were, in our bedroom, with a new baby. It was about 2am. We were parents of two. We looked down at the sleeping Flumpy, in all his innocence and boundless potential.

And then he woke up.

Oh bugger. Here we go again.