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Your countdown to be rushed down the hospital aisles must soon be approaching, and you might be wondering as to what the experience would be like. Imagining screams? Yes. Moans? Yes. Grumbling? Yes. Just about everything you have seen on telly, read in books, or heard from other moms? You will be scared, we bet. But don’t be surprised if you come across the relatively calm ‘I have been there’, the ‘sedated’ types, or the super-experienced granny types beside you in the ward.
Here are the types of moms you will encounter in the maternity ward:
1. The Pathetic Screamer
If you have just arrived at the scene with little contractions you’re on that stretcher waiting for the medical team to carry out the rituals on you, you will already be scared for your life seeing that woman beside you screaming in a way that would bring down the roof. You will be praying that you don’t have to go through that at all!
2. The First-Time Mom
This woman might not be in a full-fledged labor and yet she will fret like never before. You can calculate it by the number of paramedics in her room who decided that they stay put there instead of flitting in and out of the room each time they hear the buzzer go. Obviously, this woman can’t really tell if she has real contractions or if the symptoms she can feel aren’t fake. So, you will expect the alarm setting off all the time.
3. The Brave-Face Mom
These could include those first-time moms too who have prepared themselves from their mental images of birthing. Yet, they can’t help to scream out when it’s the most unbearable.
4. The Moaner
The moans of some women will confuse you. Do their moans define their pain? But isn’t that just a bit louder than a moan? It could not be a ‘fun’ moan. Or it could be quite that ‘vengeful’ moan. But you can’t help turning around, giving her a look of, “Hey, you will be fine.”
5. The Fault-Finder
These women find birthing so disastrous that they blame just about everyone they can think of. Let alone her husband who was responsible for getting her pregnant, she won’t stop picking at her older children for hoping for a sibling. Even more far-fetched will be her neighbors or friends who kept ‘encouraging ‘ her to have yet another offspring. And suddenly she will begin to suspect everything she had been eating or drinking or her very lifestyle that facilitated her pregnancy!
6. The Extroverted One
Can’t imagine giggles from a woman in labor? Well, the extroverted type has it in her to shock you enough. In fact, you will be jealous of those sudden giggles that also rise into fits of laughter! She will ask for her epidural, and the paramedics will be so much at her service, she will have it like she just ordered for her Martini. But you can’t even be cross with her because she would have already made friends with you and added you on her list of friends on the social network! And you never now, how handy she could be to address your labor in such a cool fashion!
7. The Innovative One
So home-deliveries are rare in modern times. You either deliver in the hospital or if you don’t make it in time, in the back of a car seat. But how about delivering amidst nature? That too a planned delivery? Well, a woman did just that. She chose her place of birth and landed there before time to deliver her baby in the woods, albeit with the help of her husband and other near and dear ones.
8. The Hallway-Roamers
Some women like to walk in the halls while switching to the huge exercise balls. At times they would be holding a sofa handle, a railing, a door handle and just stand there expecting to pop out anytime – and they will be ready to do just about everything by themselves, right from delivering to cutting the umbilical cord on their own.
9. The Old-Stager
If it’s this woman’s fourth, fifth or sixth baby, the job has just got easier for her. She is cool about everything that goes right from making her grand entry to what goes in the labor room and thereafter.
10. The Planned Caesarian Mom
Now, this woman will turn out immaculate. She will enter like she’s done for a party – her neat clothes, tidied hair, matching accessories and make-up reveal it all. And guess what, she would arrive with a suitcase full of things that will take care of her, her husband and the soon-to-arrive baby before and after delivery for as long as they are at the hospital. And don’t be jealous of the way she will go home – pretty neat – but with that beautiful addition to the family.
11. The Philanthropist Type
She may not be the mother giving birth, but one of those wise grannies who rule the hospital hallways. It could be a member of your family or that of a friend or one of those friend-of-all women who is waiting for her grandchild being born out there. And she will pour all the advice even when not asked for, sometimes ruling out what the doctor or medical science says – because those life-hackers just did wonders through all the generations, although science hasn’t been able to prove this. And you might still want to consider her advice that comes free!
What were the types of moms you chanced to meet in the maternity ward? Write back to us!
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