I’ve never actually written this down before, and now that I’m doing it, I realise it’s because my son’s birth story is the kind of thing that makes people rethink procreation altogether. It’s less “miracle of life” and more “cautionary tale.” I was the first of my friends to have a baby, and while I’m a world-class oversharer, both of my birth stories are the kind I kept locked away for the sake of everyone else’s peace of mind.
We’d struggled to have our son - not infertility, exactly, but a repeated heartbreak that comes when your body just doesn’t hold on. By the time I got pregnant with him, I was a jittery ball of anxiety, but things calmed a bit after I hit the second trimester. The doctors assured me I was no longer high-risk, and I even started to enjoy pregnancy - well, as much as anyone can enjoy knowing that a small human is preparing to make their grand exit via your vagina.
My son was due in October, my favourite month. I envisioned walks in the park, crisp leaves crunching underfoot, and me pushing my glorious, absurdly heavy, overly expensive buggy. (A rookie mistake I’d come to regret but didn’t yet know.) By August, though, the UK was in the midst of a heatwave, the kind that turns our collective British grumbling into a national sport. My husband and I took cooling dips in the sea, which were less “relaxing swims” and more “trying not to think about the sewage reports.” Glamorous stuff, really.
Then came the swelling. At first, I didn’t think much of it. It was hot, I was pregnant - of course I’d puff up. But it wasn’t just a bit of puffiness; it was full-on sausage feet. My trusty Birkenstocks were on the last hole and still cutting into me like torture devices. My sandals! Not even proper shoes! I’d already removed my wedding rings for fear of having them sawed off in A&E, so I figured I was just winning at pregnancy prep.
I was still commuting from Kent to London when I could, because clearly, I had something to prove to myself - and demanding seats on the tube like an absolute tyrant. I didn’t even need a “Baby on Board” badge; my mere presence radiated, “Don’t even think about making me stand.” Then, one day, everything went blurry. Properly blurry. I couldn’t read the tube map, which was alarming because even though I rarely needed it, I could always see it.
At this point, I was seeing my midwives more frequently. It was a rotating cast of them, so I didn’t have a dedicated person. On my last visit, they skipped the urine test because they’d done one not long before. “All looks good,” they said cheerily. Spoiler: not good.
The next symptoms crept in like uninvited guests. Headaches. Nausea. A sudden lack of appetite. But again, I chalked it all up to late pregnancy - what did I know? No one in my close circle had been pregnant before, and the only people who had were my mum and aunties, who did it all decades ago without a whisper of complaint (lies).
At my 36-week appointment, I met a new midwife. My son was still breech, but she assured me he had time to flip. “Sure,” I thought, “he won’t. He’s already as stubborn as me.” Then she suggested smoking the bottoms of my feet to help him turn. I kid you not. Smoking. My. Feet. I’m all for a bit of spiritualism - I’d done acupuncture and manifested a baby while we were trying… but this felt like taking it too far. I nodded politely and resolved to let gravity and modern medicine handle it.
Then came the blood pressure check: high. “Are you nervous?” she asked. No. (I lied.) “Let’s try again,” she said. I was sweating and fuming in the tiny, sweltering room, already late for work, and suddenly desperate to escape her ramblings about pregnancy yoga. She sent me off for a urine sample, which, let’s be honest, is always a humiliating endeavour. They never give you a cup, do they? Just a tiny tube and the hope you’ve got excellent-level aim.
I waddled back with my pitiful contribution, and as soon as she tested it, the atmosphere shifted. “Blurred vision? Headaches? Swelling?” she fired at me. Check. Check. Check. “You need to go to hospital now,” she said briskly. “You’ve got high protein in your urine.”
Brilliant. My husband was literally doing his driving test at that exact moment. It was his umpteenth attempt, and of course, this one mattered the most because we had a baby incoming and I couldn’t bloody drive myself home from the hospital.
I called him: “Did you pass?”
“YES!” he replied triumphantly.
“Thank God. We’re going to the hospital.”