My Funny Valentine

I usually could not care less about very much dislike commercial crap such as Valentine's Day. This year though, I managed to land myself a hot date.

Well, maybe not so hot unless you're into the Eastern-Europe-mafia-hit-men-walking-like-big-brown-bears type.

And maybe not so much of a date either unless you consider an 8mth pregnancy visit to an Ob-Gyn like a date.

My relationship with my ob-gyn started the day of Malo's birth. Until then, I had no ob-gyns . I had seen one at the start of my pregnancy, had liked what she had said (read "yes, you can run as long as you feel comfortable about it... which is what I wanted to hear, and what I thought was sensible, but which is definitely not what your average ob-gyn would say here), then proceeded not to see her ever again since everything was going super well and I'd rather have my monthly appointment with the midwife.

Fast rewind 2.5 years. On the day Malo will end up making it into this world, I turn up at the hospital, feeling pretty cheerful. What, are those the extremely painful contractions I am supposed to experience, especially as my waters have broken? It looks like I am going to be one of these exceptions who don't experience pain during labour, which is fine by me (I want a natural, drug-free birth, but if this does not involve intense pain, all the better, I am not that much of a masochist).

Two hours later, a guy enters the room. He does not say hello, nor does he introduce himself, so I decide that he must be some guy emptying the bin or something similar. Then he checks the monitoring. Oh, wrong, he's not the cleaning guy, he's the on-call ob-gyn. In any case, he clearly does not think that, as the woman giving birth, I am anybody important in the room, since he is totally ignoring me.

Then, having once again checked the monitoring, and still not looking at me but rather opening slightly the bathroom's door and poking his head in, he says, before barking at the midwife and leaving the room :  "that we don't like".

We will not see Mr Big Brown Bear for another couple of hours, during which it has become quite clear that, pain or no pain, things are not as rosy as we would like them to be. Bottom line is, as we find out after a lot of questioning, Malo's heart is not dealing well at all with the contractions. By the time his heart beat gets as low as 50-something bpm, we expect our son to be dying any minute, and, when Big Brown Bear, called in by the midwife, decides that this is it, it is either an emergency C-section or Malo may not make it, I am well past the "natural versus assisted birth" question, and just want to know my baby will be out soon. And alive.

Back to today. In the space of these 2.5 years, I got to know Big Brown Bear a bit better. Or enough at least to realise that, although his manners may be a bit on the rough side, and his biggest strength is definitely not his inter-personal skills (I just wish I knew this on Malo's birth day, instead of mistaking him for a non-French speaking cleaning person), he's a very competent guy, one of the best ob-gyn the hospital has, and he'll do what's best for the baby and for me.

I must now even admit to a certain liking of his rather -shall we say... dry? - sense of humour :

- "Do you want to know the sex of the baby", he asked on the day of Baby #2's second ultrasound.

I replied I did.

-" You've clearly not be advised I am not divulging this information any longer", he then said... then proceeded to the entire U/S without telling us what he had clearly seen the minute he started to check what was inside my belly.

For this second pregnancy, I have not seen Big Brown Bear much more often that I did see a ob-gyn the first time round, at least since we found out that the biologist's news that the baby was not viable was just rubbish. What has changed though is that this is pregnancy #2, and that, with an history of C-section, I am now part of the sought-after "risky pregnancies"club.

Hence my Valentine's date with Big Brown Bear, during which we did not dissert too much about the good old days of our first meeting, but more of the odds of me having a natural birth this time. And the odds are not super high, is the outcome of our "date".  The baby is high, the baby is big (and there is still some weeks to go!), and my pelvis not so much. 

What would have been terrible news to me 2.5 years ago is actually now OK. I came to realise that no matter how I give birth, I will love the little girl, the same way I did with Malo. Sure, if a C-section it has to be, I will miss immensely not having my baby against my skin the moment she's out. But on the other hand, I could do with not having to re-live, even if only in imagination, the horrible fears that ended up summarising Malo's birth. Oh, and if she continues growing and ended up getting anywhere close (or even not that close, come to think of it) to her dad's weight at birth (4.650kgs - 10.2lbs ladies! Respect to my mother-in-law is all I have to say), I think I'd rather not even try to get her out the "normal" way.

So following my hot date, I have been considering C-section as a very tangible prospect, and unlike 2.5 years ago, not a very scary one. And at least one thing would not change, should the prospect materialise. As I gave birth to Malo at the end of August, a month which sees about 99% of France's population taking their vacation, I had to deal with the slightly unreal experience of having to listen to the Ob-Gyn telling the nurse about his holiday (and complaining about the scorching heat... well, guy, just try again with a belly the size of a hot air balloon next time, and I swear you won't complain ever again), all the while stitching my uterus back together.

Guess what, this time round, should we need to plan a C-section, this will have to wait until full term minus10 days, because he'll be on holiday again. And unless "Petite soeur" decides to come and check out the world earlier, it therefore means I'd better get ready for some incredibly frustrating accounts of ski-touring trips in spring snow then.

And that's all fine by me, if this ends up being the toughest part of that day.