The Royal Baby? I Delivered A Royal Baby Once Myself.

If I was in my thirties, odds are I was pregnant.

So today is the big day? Today is the day that the royal baby will arrive? I see Facebook posts and tweets. It was all over the Today Show. I am extremely happy for them and they are going to be a magical, beautiful and ROYAL family BUT…..I don’t really care.

Don’t get me wrong, as a woman who has delivered four babies I certainly sympathize with Kate. Every time I hear a woman say that she is pregnant with her first child I just smile. I do NOT tell her that the delivery of the first baby is the stuff that horror movies are made of. For most of us anyway.

I think back to my first delivery. I was hugely pregnant. No really, I mean like linebacker big. One morning I was home alone doing laundry. I thought I was leaking a little bit but when you are fully pregnant you are quite accustomed to peeing yourself on most days. After it happened a few times I became nervous that I would be that woman who had to deliver my own baby on the kitchen linoleum. Which by the way was white and with my OCD issues that was NOT happening.

I called the nurse and she told me to come in to be checked, just to be safe. I called my husband at work to tell him the news. He calmly said he would wrap things up there and come pick me up. I hung up the phone and exactly 3 minutes later my mother in law came bursting through the door. Evidently he sent his people to make sure everything was okay.

You see, this was THE first baby. Our first baby, her first grandbaby and the be all end all. Kind of like the Royal Baby if you will. That’s right. I just compared myself to Kate Middleton. Who didn’t see that coming.

Everything was going to be fine because I was super prepared (or so I thought). I had my bag packed weeks prior due to the urging of my hubby. He is one of those nervous, prepared types. He came by it honestly though because by this time my mother in law was feverishly finishing my laundry. She had to make herself useful. Shouldn’t she have been boiling water and gathering towels?

The hubby arrived and whisked me off to the hospital. It was a Saturday so the doctor’s office was closed. I was three weeks away from my actual due date so I felt sure I would be sent back home to wait.

I waddled into the emergency room. There was no wheel chair waiting. There were no doctors walking past for me to grab and scream THIS BABY IS COMING RIGHT NOW!!! It was nothing like I had watched on “ER”. Instead I was shoved a clip board full of paperwork to fill out. Not as dramatic but okay, I’ll play along.

Next I was escorted to an exam room and handed a gown. My husband helped hoist me up on the exam table. I am not kidding people. Huge. Linebacker. The nurse prepared to check me. This was the moment of truth. Was this the day?

Now please let me interject here that I hadn’t even had a single contraction. I had NO IDEA what I was in for on that day. Clueless. It would be a LONG day.

She checked me and at that exact moment I felt a gush of the hottest most disgusting fluid come pouring from my body. What had she just done to me? She informed me that my water had broken. I was having a baby today. A royal baby.

Well you don’t have all day because I am sure you have to go check in on the royals so I will speed this story up.

I was in labor FOREVER. Hours and hours. I opted for an epidural which was the smartest decision of my life. BUT it was one of those that worked too good. As in I could not even move my legs. So I just laid there. Huge and numb. I waited and waited for my royal baby to decide that she was ready. My room was full of family and friends. People were everywhere. This was one anticipated baby.

The hours drug by. I grew tired of waiting. I could not move. They wouldn’t let me have anything to eat or drink except a few ice chips. Everyone paced and stared at one another. I was dilated to 4. Then 5. Then 6. It druuuuuuuug by. I laid there for so long that people were almost irritated at me. Like I was an underachiever. Why was I taking so long? Let them meet the baby already.

Finally It was time to push. Suddenly I wasn’t ready. You are never really ready. You tell yourself that you are. There is no delivery like your first delivery because until you go through it, you have no clue what you are going to have to do.

Regardless it was time. The nurses had to take charge of my legs because not like I could lift them (Let me interject here that this complete numbness did not happen with the other three epidurals). Then they told me it was time. I had to push our baby into the world. How exactly do you do that again?

I just dove right in. I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. My husband said later that the veins in my head and neck looked like they were about to blow. I threw up a couple of times, almost passed out numerous times and once even declared that I was done. Not pushing a single time more. The baby obviously liked it in there. I am sure those nurses had heard that before.

They encouraged me to not give up. It worked because finally after two hours and two minutes of pushing…she was born. She had been in the birth canal for so long that he head looked like an Egyptian headdress.

She was whisked away to be cleaned and tested. Before I knew it, it was just me and a nurse left. The whole family had followed the baby to the nursery. I felt pretty lonely in that moment but I understood. It was the royal baby.

I know a little bit about what Kate is going through today. Now sure my husband was not the future King of England and the world was not waiting with bated breath to find out when my baby would arrive. But more important than all of that, Kate is just a woman, trying to bring her first child into the world. She will figure it out just like the rest of us. Good luck Kate. You are going to be amazing.

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