During childbirth I heard: “The lady is not groaning because the baby is nervous”

Zuzia’s photo session was taken by photographer Ania Wibig. You can see more of the artist’s works on the website:.

5:01 PM I felt a soft, warm little body against my chest. I looked at the face. I didn’t know her. I thought it would look familiar. “Bleeding” – the movement of the doctor and midwives. I looked at my husband, he was shirtless with our daughter on his arms. “The Lord is going to kangaroo now, the wife needs to be examined quickly.” Tools chatter. “If I die now, let this be the last image I have before my eyes” – I thought, looking with disbelief at Mariusz, who was holding a newborn child with a face similar to no one.

A piercing stomach ache woke me from my existential nap. After six hours of labor contractions, I thought I would have a moment to break from writhing in convulsions. But no. “The lady is not moaning because the child is nervous” – the doctor silences me during the examination.

It doesn’t take a roller to run a woman over after 10 hours of labor. One sentence was enough. However, as I think about it today, I believe that it may pass as the motto of motherhood. Here my “hurt” goes to the background. All of me are relegated to the background. Someone needs me all the time. His life depends on me. He’s counting on me 24 hours a day. Beautiful? Today I will say yes, but three years ago I had different terms for me: scary and overwhelming.

Zuzia gave birth to her second child in a pandemic. Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

Don’t turn it off. The system is being updated

First of all, the first relegation meant a change for me. Uploaded the “Zuzia free and independent” system update to the “Mother Zuzia” version. It turned out, however, that I like the new me, and the old one has not disappeared at all. My daughter became my motivation to change. I started training crossfit, changed my job, traveled, partied, woke up as a feminist. I felt professionally and privately fulfilled.

And just when I was thinking how great I am and what a great life I am, shit! Pandemic. It couldn’t be worse? £ up, another hit. In the first week of the first lockdown, holding a pissed piece of plastic in my hand and staring incredulously at the two lines, I realized that the mysterious Wuhan virus did not scare me the most. I was Zenek Martyniuk of my life. I was standing on stage and singing “How it happened, I don’t know.” Some time ago I wanted to have another child, but I still wanted to decide for myself when it would happen.

The protagonists of the series ‘Honestly after the birth’ talk about the first steps in motherhood. Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

The condition is NOT blessed

Everything is up to the head. Life in as in negative. Zuzia-superwoman, whom I remembered from her first pregnancy, gave way to Zuzia-let someone wake me up from this nightmare. The form of life after a month became only a memory. The body was not cooperating with me. Everything hurt, irritated or made me sick. Thank God for working remotely, because during longer colleges I was able to jump to the toilet for a quick discharge of stomach contents and come back unnoticed (I hope).

I had the impression that everything I could physically fell on me. But the fetus was healthy. So I do not groan because the child is nervous. After nine months of torment (because I would certainly not call it a blessed state), childbirth. On the one hand, I was quite pregnant, on the other, I remembered the previous slaughterhouse in the delivery room. 4,400 g without anesthesia. The second time it did not look like it would be any easier. Plus a pandemic. Hospital regulations changed from week to week. In December, even parcels cannot be handed over to the delivery ward.

In the photo Zuzia’s daughter: Pola. Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

Hello darkness my old firend

10 days after the due date, I ended up suffering from pregnancy pathology. I waited two days for induction of labor, because all the rooms were full. “The lady walks a lot and squeezes her nipples, it might start by itself.” Sure, it didn’t feel weird walking down the hospital corridor with my tits in my hands. Nothing happened except a growing sense of envy with each circle of the corridor. Also, nothing happened after the first attempt at oxytocin induction. I felt frustration, a sense of failure: I had failed. My body didn’t work. After all, everyone said it would be easy, because I am (what a horrible word) a multiparous woman.

Another induction attempt scheduled for the morning. I have a “rest” overnight. Thanks for the advice! Who has never given birth does not know that a delivery bed is a bed only in name. It was more comfortable for me during the six-hour journey, crowded to the breaking point on the TLK train “Słoneczny”, and it must be added that I spent it trapped in the toilet with five other people. To this every now and then howl from behind the wall. Not screams. These screams are in the movies, in the delivery room there is a primal howl, straight from the gut, in which you can hear the pain that tears the body and the power of animals. And for someone who is to give birth in a few hours, a howl is a prophecy of a few hours of hard labor. Oh yeah, I immediately felt so relaxed …

Zuzia is a happy mother of Gustaw and Pola Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

Morning approach number two. This time the oxytocin worked. Soon the pain became unbearable. Blue births, meditations, relaxing music, shower? You can also put out a fire with a watering can. I dreamed of one thing: anesthesia or a bullet in the head. And then he comes in: all white – savior anesthesiologist. One stab and I flew away.

It was beautiful. The sun has gone down, we were only the three of us. Midwife, me and my husband. My son appears in the world without pain, in an atmosphere of tenderness, intimacy and love. It was so wonderful for me that I wanted to almost kiss my hands, and then she said: “I didn’t do anything, it’s all your work.”

I keep repeating them to myself. The last time was this morning, when my daughter spilled 500 g of linseed on the floor, and when I was trying to clean it up, my son was eating food from a cat bowl. Yes, “it’s all my work”. My pride. But it’s not even that I’m proud of them (they’re perfect, so it’s just obvious), but I’m proud of myself. I did great. They not only changed my life but saved it as well. This is why.

Zuzia told about postpartum depression. Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

Stones in the backpack

I had a friend who loved hiking in the mountains. He told me about popular entertainment among amateurs of mountain tourism. When nobody is looking, a stone is thrown into someone’s backpack. First one, then gradually more. The poor man thinks he has no strength. He watches the rest of the team dash across the ridge like a herd of goats, and he can barely breathe. It is difficult to say whether there is more laughter on the trail or when it finally revises the contents of the luggage.

The story of this stupid play is exactly what happened in my life after the second birth. “Mom, shoes, eat, drink, play”, then diaper, feeding. I was tired but what parent is not? Weeks passed and the tiredness did not go away. I just wanted everyone to give me a break. My body didn’t recover as fast as it did after the first birth. The belly was hanging, and there was mud and rain outside the window. I had the impression that I am breaking into pieces. I caught every infection, I had enormous problems with my back. I was in pain all the time, and when it seemed to me that my losing streak was interrupted, I caught Lyme disease. Everything irritated me, pissed me off, I felt oversensitive on stimuli, I couldn’t fall asleep, and I was asleep all the time. When I come back to it now, I’m surprised I didn’t connect the dots before. The red light came on for me only when I started scolding the children. I am not talking about raising the voice normally, which no parent is proud of (for example, when one sees Sudocream-stained hands on the TV screen), but about screaming like an old man on the gilett.

The first heroine of the series ‘Honestly after childbirth’. Photo Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

Then, on a gray and hopeless day, I realized that I had become a person I do not recognize. Fearful, irritable, exhausted. I didn’t want to be like that for my family. I looked into my backpack, which crushed me enough that I couldn’t move. And there? Depression.

Childbirth depression is extremely nasty because it attacks us when we want to give the most of ourselves to what is most important to us. Depression is depreciated, and the postpartum one is treated by ignorant people as “bad mother’s moods and moods”. I was lucky because I connected the dots and knew what was wrong with me. I quickly found help, I was given medications that brought me back to life and, in addition, did not affect the quality of my food, so I did not have to stop feeding. Today I feel very well. I went on my trail again. “And that’s all my work.”

I was lucky because I knew what was wrong with me and I didn’t get tired for a long time. However, I know that not every woman will be in this situation. Chronic fatigue, sleep problems, irritability, nervousness – these are just some of the symptoms of depression. I had help from my relatives, a job, a stable financial situation, and I still got a few stones for my backpack. If you suspect something is wrong, don’t waste your time. You can even get help from an internist. Most offices in the pandemic era offer Skype consultations, so you don’t even have to leave your home.

Zuzia’s photo session was made by Ania Wibig ‘Objectively the most beautiful’

The next heroine of the series “Honestly After Childbirth” will be Magda. Her story will appear at the eDziecko.pl Birth School on March 23. We invite.