'Twas a week before Christmas and the expert said to the young woman This
baby is too big. Let's get it out. We don't need to wait any longer.
The prostaglandin gel was placed deep in her body, and its effect was
powerful. Lying propped up on a strange, high bed, with straps around her
belly linking her to a machine, she was totally unprepared for the intense
surges that gripped her body. Gradually the excitement she had felt was
overridden by fear and a sense of entrapment. Meanwhile the baby's heart
rate kept printing out on paper that was spewed from the machine.
Someone thrust a plastic tube in her hand, and she sucked on the gas in an
attempt to numb sensation. She quickly became weary. Then there were
injections of strong drugs. These didn't take away the pain - they merely
dulled her mind and made her unable to respond.
Before long she pleaded for a caesarean, the only alternative she knew to
the terrible and unrelenting torture. The expert arranged for the pain to
be taken away and she lay, quiet at last. However the attention of those
in the room was turned to the papery snake, and the lines on it. The
volume on the machine was increased, and she heard ominous slowing of her
child's heart rate. Without sensation in her lower body, her mind was
still on high alert, and she sensed another type of anxiety. The carers
who had paid little attention to her distress moments ago were taking quick
action.
The expert was summoned, and it was not long before her child was dragged
out of her body. While people did things to the crying baby who weighed
only 3.5 kilos, the expert put stitches deep in her vagina to repair a
large cut.
A few days later she was at the dinner table with her loving family.
Christmas dinner. She struggled to put food into her mouth. Feeling waves
of nausea, she needed to excuse herself. The constant use of pain
medication had left her bowel clogged beyond belief. Then the baby woke
for a feed. The baby - she couldn't even say my baby, or call him by
name - was about to attack her again.
Sitting in the cosy den she burst into tears. Her mother was shocked to
see raw patches on the exposed nipple, like a nasty sore on a large full
breast. Like the bulls eye of a target that has been repeatedly hit.
The young woman's mother called a friend who had some skill in such
matters. Apologetically. The friend mused that if a mother and her new
baby could not get the help they need on Christmas day, there must be
something very wrong.
Joy Johnston
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