Nostalgic Fluttering

I am in a hospital bed.
For a week, I went through cycles of fever accompanied by intense sweating, followed by chills so severe my teeth chattered, my hands turned white, and my fingernails turned purple as the fever broke.
I am someone who doesn't usually sweat, but I have sweated more in this past week than ever before in my life.
I went to the hospital twice while pushing past my limits, only to be told it was just a cold. But it was too painful... I thought, if this is a cold, what is this misery!? So I went a third time.
They found pneumonia, and although I went home, I got worse the next day and was hospitalized.

I was so relieved that I was in a state where I could take medicine! I wasn't pregnant or breastfeeding, and I was so grateful from the bottom of my heart. I remembered how, when I was pregnant, I would get so tense with my husband when he came home, thinking, 'Hey, wash your hands properly, I can't take medicine here!'

By the time I was able to eat my meals little by little and finish the half-portions they gave me, my belly started to flutter. It really felt like fetal movement.
I kept my hand on my belly for a while, thinking, 'This feeling is so nostalgic.' Regardless of that, warming the area around the navel is so soothing, isn't it?

Well, anyway, I don't know how long this note will remain, but I want to record it so I don't forget.
Because I'm the kind of person who loses a diary even after I start one...

September 23, 2025
I had a bloody show at 6:00 AM, so I went to the hospital just in case.
My due date is October 4th, so I'm panicking.
Childbirth is finally becoming a reality for me (a bit late), and...
I was thinking about completely unrelated things like, 'Do I need cosmetics? Is it bad to wear a ring as a charm? Are dogs okay? Is the stuff in the fridge still good? Wait, we were supposed to have a takoyaki party today,' while emailing to see if I could get the baby dress for leaving the hospital shipped early in the car on the way to the hospital.
I'm the type who cleans while studying and opens photo albums while tidying up. I wonder if that's just how this type of person is.

Arrived at the hospital 🏥
At my checkup the day before, they said my cervix was 2cm dilated and it would probably be the same next week. It was still 2cm when I arrived, so we decided my husband should go home for now, and he went to work.
Before he left, he said he'd go buy me breakfast, so I asked for a melon pan, but apparently they didn't have any. I remember thinking, 'This is the worst, I wanted to eat a melon pan,' and 'I might die,' or 'That convenience store isn't even a convenience store, I can't forgive this.' But the bag was full of my favorite things. Thank you.

I moved to a private room and went to the bathroom, muttering that I might have an upset stomach. At this point, it was so painful I could barely walk, and I repeated this three times (please notice).
A nurse came once, asked if I was okay, and then walked away. I didn't even have the energy to ask, 'What am I supposed to do about labor pains!?'
I kept thinking, 'What did I eat? It wasn't raw food...' but I think I was out of my mind from the pain, because it was obviously labor.

After a while, I was on the phone with my sister saying, 'My stomach hurts, and it looks like I'm giving birth tomorrow, so I can't make it to the takoyaki party today,' when suddenly an incomparable, intense pain hit me. It was at a level where I couldn't breathe and couldn't stay conscious unless I grabbed onto something.

I don't remember how many times that happened, but I remembered that you're supposed to time labor pains, so I started taking notes (primitive). It got so hard that I wondered if there was an app, so I searched for 'labor' in the App Store and downloaded a labor timer app (too late).
When I timed it, it was every 2-3 minutes. 'Oh no, am I really this weak against pain!? Labor can't just be this! Get it together! A bigger one is coming! But let me press the nurse call button first!!!! It hurts!'

I tried to reach for the nurse call button on the bed, but it was too high and time kept passing... I pressed it the moment the pain subsided a little! I thought I was saved, but it must have been broken because I only heard my own voice echoing back with a delay.
I don't need an Ikkoku-do ventriloquist act right now... please come quickly... wait, everyone doesn't go through labor alone, right? Where did the tennis ball time go? As I was drifting in and out, the nurse came.

Me: 'I think I'm just too weak to pain, but it's already every 2 minutes or 1 minute, but that can't be right, can it?'
Nurse: 'Let's see... What!? You're fully dilated! Why didn't you call me sooner!? By yourself!?'
So, I didn't know about 'breathing through the urge to push,' and it seems I had been pushing without realizing it, and things had progressed...
It wasn't that I was too weak to pain, it was that the pain was too strong.

The time when I wanted to give birth but couldn't
From there, I hurriedly moved to the room next to the delivery room and endured until my husband arrived for the birth.
This was really tough!! I was in a state where I could give birth at any moment, but I couldn't put any strength into it, so amidst the intense pain, I would flutter my hands in the air without grabbing anything and keep exhaling long breaths. I think I looked very strange, but I couldn't care less lol.
The midwives came about three times to rub my back, but they would leave right away, so I felt very lonely, thinking, 'Don't leave me,' even though I couldn't make a sound. It seems they were busy with other births that day, so it couldn't be helped, but it really didn't feel like it couldn't be helped...

50 minutes later, my husband arrived, and I started crying out of relief. It was finally time to push! But because I had been holding it back, I didn't know how to push anymore. And then, they stretched my cervix wide open with both hands (this was repeated many times and was truly torture; it's the Reiwa era now... *cries*).
While telling my husband, 'More like this! Come here! Raise my upper body!', I somehow managed to keep up the breathing.

Time to give birth!
I got on the delivery table for the final spurt. When asked, 'Do you have water?', my husband replied, 'I have mine!', which made me lose my focus. It was obviously mine.
My legs were cramping on the delivery table. I had heard that hip flexibility was important, but I didn't know such things could happen.
They popped my water to induce labor, and after pushing with all my might, I felt so sleepy! Just sleepy! It felt fluffy and comfortable.
I didn't really scream; I pushed quietly and then slept. Even when they told me, 'You don't have to push anymore, let's rest,' I couldn't rest because I thought the baby might be in distress, so I kept pushing and then slept again. That was the cycle. To tell you how much I slept, I didn't sweat at all. (I thought I was just tired, but when I told my mother later, she was shocked and asked if I was about to die.)

My husband watched me, put water in my mouth, and said, 'Yeah, you're okay! You're cute! Your lips are dry, should I put some balm on them!?' giving me mysterious support and care, which made me lose focus again.
(It seems he was worried about how I looked in photos, but I had a mask on right before giving birth, so it was meaningless lol)

This is a bit of a tangent, but I remember my mother's comment when painless delivery became available: 'What does it mean that that pain will disappear...' and because I have a personality where curiosity outweighs fear, I chose a natural delivery because I wanted to experience the pain that brought me into the world. But it's not right that this is called 'normal'; this is not a pain that humans should have to feel. Even someone like me who sleeps while getting a tooth pulled shed a few tears.
(After the birth, I immediately contacted my mother to thank her.)

Welcome, baby
After repeating the cycle of sleep and a small, crying 'Heeeen...' sound, and enduring that torture from time to time, they finally made an incision. At 3:06 PM, my 2406g daughter was born.
She was wrinkled, puffy, and small, but she was alive, and I cried. I remembered the day I almost had a miscarriage, the day they found the hematoma, the anxious days, the day I cried for some reason during the 4D ultrasound, the people who were looking forward to it—all the events of those 10 months came back to me, and I felt an indescribable emotion.
You worked hard too, didn't you? Thank you.

She was in an incubator for a while, so I was alone, and since I couldn't sleep at all, I spent my time writing letters and looking back at photos.
I met my baby for the first time in the middle of the night two days later, and I will never forget the feeling of looking at my child sleeping next to me and thinking, 'It's a baby... there's a baby here... wow.'
Even now, I sometimes think, 'I really gave birth to her...'

She didn't gain weight easily, so she was under strict checkups, which made me feel down, but my daughter has grown so chubby that I can't even remember those days.
The elderly doctor in charge told me firmly, 'No matter how small she is, once she's born, she'll be fine!' and that was a huge encouragement. I will never forget my gratitude to this doctor.

No matter how much I wish for her to be a certain kind of person, things don't always go that way, so I just want her to grow up healthy.
If I were to be a little greedy, I'd want her to have confidence, honesty, and compassion. But she's so cute that I end up thinking that as long as she's smiling, that's enough.
It's a little scary to think about all the things waiting for us in the future, but I'm also looking forward to it.
Welcome! My beloved daughter!

※ I was able to be discharged safely ✌︎