Please notice that the following chapter will contain explicit descriptions of a bad and maybe even traumatizing experience of giving birth, including a lot of pain and fear.
If I hadn't changed the rating for this story to M for previous chapters, I definitively would have done it for this one. So, please read this chapter with caution!

"There's the first contraction, it works! Congratulations, you're in labour! Now it will only be a matter of hours until your baby will be there! I'll come back later to look after you and to give you the next ration of the drug."

The nurse patted Amy's hand, gave a concluding look on the CTG device, nodded at Sheldon and left the room.

Amy looked at her husband. There was a mix of anticipation, fear and uncertainty in both of their faces. That wasn't how they had imagined it at all.

Two hours earlier:

"It's the penultimate appointment Sheldon. Soon we don't have to see him anymore!"

"I hope so! That guy creeps me out!"

Amy and Sheldon had just entered the building of the gynecologists office and were now climbing the stairs. Really, why did a gynecologist have his office on the third floor? Even walking on straight ground had become a difficult task for Amy recently.

Some minutes later she was lying on the examination table, the CTG device creating the rushing, throbbing and gurgling sound in synch with their baby's heart, that they had grown so used to. But today the doctor that liked to do inappropriate jokes so much, had deep lines of worry on his strongly tanned face.

"I must ask you to stay calm now, my dear…" he said finally, when he looked up at them with concern. Amy saw the panic coming up in Sheldon's eyes, a vein at his temple was pulsing fast.

"What's wrong?" Sheldon asked with a rough and silent voice.

"The heart sounds of your baby are not ok. You need to see a doctor at the hospital immediately. Probably the birth must be initiated medically."

"But… I… but…" Sheldon stuttered. He was blinking hectically.

"Dr. Cooper, I know this is not your plan. Men like you always have a plan. Forget it. I'll call you a taxi to the hospital, neither of you should drive now."

Nervously they had taken the taxi to the hospital, spoken to a bunch of different doctors and nurses who had done several medical examinations, but in the end, everyone was agreeing that the baby had to be born within the next hours.

So, Amy had to sign a contract which said that she agreed to receive a medicament called misoprostol that originally was developed to cure stomach ulcer but that then had turned out as encouraging contractions, too. Sheldon wondered if the drug was sold by the pharmacy company Bernadette worked for. But he didn't dare to ask. This was not the right time.

So now Amy was lying here on a narrow and uncomfortable examination table in the hospital, with a CTG device attached to her belly, a peripheral venous catheter in her arm and a nervous husband next to her, who was studying the different possibilities of an artificial birth initiation on his smartphone to distract himself from his helplessness.

As the hours went by and she received more and more of the drug, the labour pain slowly became stronger. When finally the night broke in, it was strong enough to prevent her from sleeping, but way too few to start giving birth. Every six minutes that night, Amy sat up in bed and breathed in and out calm and deeply for processing the contractions better. Then she let herself sink back into bed and waited for the next wave of pain.

The next morning the dosage of her drug was increased, again. And again at noon. After a while, the medical staff started to make little remarks that one should think about a different way of induction of labour if this one wouldn't start working properly soon.

But that turned out to be unnecessary.

It had become late afternoon and Amy had started to get really exhausted. After all, she was in labour now for almost 24 hours and didn't have slept the last night (Sheldon had, but he wouldn't admit it, in his version he had sat awake on his chair all night, worrying for her wellbeing and only had closed his eyes for some minutes).

Amy had just drunk a sip of water and laid back on the examination table, again, when suddenly she felt an immense pain in the belly. WHAT THE HELL had that been? Had her uterus broken? Had the baby kicked her vehemently? Had it somehow managed to turn around in its narrow cavity? She still was speculating about the reasons of that pain, when it happened a second time. In that moment she realized, that now apparently the REAL contractions had set in. No! NO! She refused to believe it. That couldn't be possible. Another one set in. Oh my GOD! How could humanity have survived by suffering this cruelty while giving birth? Then she felt something wet between her legs. The amniotic sac had burst. So, this was becoming serious, now. Oh God. Oh God. She started to panic. Then she felt the urgent need to find a toilet. Her intestines wanted to empty themselves with vigor. After another heavy contraction that made her squirm, she finally could get up and go to the bathroom. As soon as she sat there on the toilet she felt nausea. What had she done to endure all of this? Hadn't she always been a good girl?

"Sheldon! I need a bucket, quick!"

„But Amy, you're on the toilet…"

"Come here, fast!"

Sheldon entered the bathroom and saw Amy's body already on the brim of vomiting. He grabbed a little dustbin that was standing next to the sink, threw off the lid and held it under Amy's face. The awful smell emerging from it gave her the little rest she needed for throwing up.

Breathing heavily Amy grabbed for the toilet paper to clean her mouth. She threw it into the dustbin and looked ashamed into Sheldon's worried face. "This is so humiliating… I… Can you please wait outside until… I have finished… this? Then you need to help me get back to the – AAH, OOUH" The last word of her sentence was cut off by another, heavy contraction.

After a while, Amy was lying on the examination table, again. Sheldon was sitting next to her, holding her hand, still overwhelmed by the recent events. A nurse they hadn't met yet came in and looked at the monitor. The labour pain that tormented Amy so much were nothing more than some colorful curvy lines and numbers for her.

"It will still take a while. Don't you want to go for a little walk in the park? The sun is shining!"

"I don't think she can walk anymore, Miss!" Sheldon hissed angrily.

"Please, Miss, can you tell me if THIS pain is normal or if something is going wrong?" Amy asked the nurse pleadingly.

"Having pain while giving birth is normal. Have you been living under a rock?" The nurse shook her head and left the room.

After some hours the night had set in, again, and the pain, that Amy only could compare to a heavy calf cramp, had become constant. As soon as a contraction had stopped, another one set in, without any pause. She felt completely helpless, trapped in her own body. Everything she had learned about what to do while labouring was forgotten and her breathing frequency was almost as fast as her pulse. She simply was trying to survive. This was the worst nightmare she had ever been into.
But the monitor didn't show what she felt. Judging from the technic, she was still far away from being ready for the final phase of birth giving.

A doctor came in and put his hand inside Amy's vagina. She just let him go. She didn't care anymore how many people saw her most intimate part of the body or even touched it. Everything she wanted was all of this to have an end. Then the doctor measured the width of her cervix with his fingers and she screamed because of the additional pain that it caused.

"3 centimeters," Amy heard him whisper to the nurse. "Why is that taking so long?"

"Please, I need an epidural!" Amy whined suddenly. She couldn't take it anymore. Everyone had told her she should try it without epidural, that would be dangerous for her spine and the bonding with the baby would be much easier without painkillers. But she simply couldn't bear the pain anymore.

The nurse and the doctor looked at each other and nodded. "We will fetch the anesthetist", the doctor said.

"What have I done to you? What have I done?" Sheldon whispered desperately.

„Don't say that, it will be over soon", Amy tried to calm him. Or did she want to calm herself?

After some minutes, that seemed like hours to Amy, the epidural was put, the medicals had stopped the pain and Amy had fallen asleep immediately. In retrospect, she would always consider this as the most wonderful moment of giving birth.

But the illusion was deceptive. After some hours of much needed sleep, a nurse (again a new one) woke Amy up.

"Your body is ready for giving birth now, look!" She showed her some waves on the monitor. "You will feel some pressure in your abdomen, soon. But please don't start pressing yet, just say ooooh in a very low voice, ok?"

"Ok!" Amy nodded confidently. What could happen to her? She still had the epidural, she wouldn't feel the pain at all.

Soon, Amy noticed some first little pressure in her abdomen and met it with a deep and calm "ooooh".

But quickly, with the next contractions, the pressure became more and more and the deep "oooohs" became high pitched "uuuhs".

"Ok, with the next contraction you can start pressing!", the doctor said.

The contraction came and the pain of the pressure was overwhelming. Suddenly she was caught in the nightmare again. How was it possible she could feel SO MUCH PAIN with an epidural? Amy pressed as hard as she could. And again with the next one. She wanted this to end so badly. Why didn't it end? Why?

"I can already see the baby's hair! Press again!" the nurse now shouted. Desperately, Amy tried to press harder.

"Bring the suction cup!" Amy heard the doctor scream to some people who had come into the room. „Press as hard as you can! Press!"

Amy pressed and pressed. The pain was unbelievable.

"Dangerously low heart sounds of the baby! Stop pressing! Emergency C-section! Immediately!" The doctor was shouting now hectically.

Amy suddenly felt as if she was watching a movie, as if all those things didn't happen to herself. There were people around her everywhere, fumbling around with her body, the medical devices, loosening her bed and pushing it across the room and then the corridor running. Sheldon was running with them, then suddenly he had disappeared. Then she was in the anteroom of the operation room, four people were heaving her on a plank bed, which was rolled quickly to an operation table. There were a lot of people covered completely in green, she couldn't really see their faces. A cloth was hung in front of her face.

"She got an epidural. Probably it's still enough," someone said hectically, "We don't have much time left. Start cutting!"

Amy felt the scalpel cutting into her skin. It didn't feel worse than cutting her finger with a kitchen knife and it was way less painful than the contractions. But the fear of what she could feel next made her scream with a high pitched voice she had never heard from herself before.

Green, grey and white in a timeless place. Colours floating around above her head. She didn't wonder where she was, she only perceived. Then, after a while, the colours slowly started forming shapes, there were round objects with little circles inside, spinning around, they got less and less until there was only one object spinning around that finally stood still. Suddenly there was a face above her face, but as quickly as it had come it was gone. Or had it been there longer? Time was different than usual, everything seemed to be not in order, disconnected, like in shreds and Amy started to wonder where she was and what was wrong. She had no idea.

She heard human voices talking and although they were talking loud and clearly and she knew she language they were using, she didn't understand the meaning of the words she heard. What was wrong?

Suddenly Amy remembered that she had been getting the C-section and then she had felt the scalpel. Something had gone wrong. Awfully wrong.

Amy started to panic. Why hadn't she been able to see properly? Why was time so different? Why wasn't she able to understand her own language anymore?

Could it be that she had fallen into some sort of coma? Or was this even a near-death experience? Oh God, maybe Sheldon's mum had been right in the end and this was hell, where she had gone to for not believing enough in God?

Amy had never been so afraid in all her life. But after a while she could recognize some of the spoken words, again and calmed down slowly.

No, she was still in the operation room. They round thing above her head was a lamp. They must have given her a special anesthesia, that made her dizzy in the brain. Far away she heard a baby cry. Was that hers? Maybe… Somehow she didn't really care.

Suddenly there was someone who asked her what name they wanted to give to the child. So, it must have been her baby she had heard crying… She wanted to answer that they hadn't found a name, yet, but she had forgotten how to speak.

So this is how my brain works under the influence of a certain drug, Amy thought… The neuroscientist in her was intrigued but the human being just wanted this all to end.

Finally, someone took away the curtain. Amy saw some people in green clothes standing next to her. "What kind of anesthesia did you inject me?" she managed to ask. "That felt like a weird drug trip…"

"Oh, that was ketamine. Cool, hm? In the sixties we used that instead of LSD for our parties!" Amy knew that voice very well. She looked at the doctor who just had been talking to her and furrowed her brows in confusion. It was the creepy gynecologist. She recognized him from the strongly tanned skin. "Surprised to see me here? Half of my working time I'm in my office, the other half I'm working in the hospital. Always at your service, my dear!"

Half an hour later, Amy's bed was put into another room. Sheldon sat there, waiting for her, awkwardly holding a bundle in his arms. Never in her life had she been so happy to see him.

"Hello, Sheldon" she said with a small and tired smile on her face.

"Hello Mummy" he answered and smiled at her tenderly. "May I present you our daughter?"

He walked over to her bed cautiously and lowered his arms, so that Amy could see the baby's face.

"Do you want to hold her?" Sheldon asked.

Amy nodded. „Of course. But I cannot move my arms properly, yet, so you have to help me, ok?" Honestly, she didn't really care for holding the baby right now. But that was what a Mum of a newborn was supposed to do, right?

Sheldon sat on the side of Amy's bed and gingerly laid the baby on her chest. With her index finger, Amy slightly caressed her daughter's hair. It felt very soft and silky.

So this was it. Here she was, holding her newborn baby in her arms.

This was the moment they had been waiting for so long, the moment she had been fighting for so hard. How did she feel now? It was difficult to say. She was incredibly glad that giving birth was finally over. The pain and fear had been the worst in all her life. She was relieved that neither her nor the baby had been harmed. She was happy to see that Sheldon seemed to be ok with being a father. But she was also deeply disappointed she hadn't been able to give birth in the natural way and she still was shocked about the pain she had felt. And there was the thought, that she never would speak out loud to anybody except Sheldon, because he was the only one who would ever understand her: this was irreversible. They would be responsible for this child for the rest of their lives, there was no way back. They had wanted the baby, she still wanted it now, but becoming parents was a decision that never could be undone and that was very, very scary.

She remembered what people on the internet, Bernadette, her mother, just everybody had said: when the pain is over, you will feel a huge rush of love, you will be the happiest person on earth, when you hold your baby in your arms, everything else will be forgotten, this will be the most beautiful moment of your life.

She tried to feel the love and the happiness. But there was none of them. She didn't feel them. Apparently, for her, those kind of feelings simply didn't exist.

I know, poor Amy! And poor baby (whose name we don't know, yet). They seem to be so disconnected, right? Well, this story was never intended to be a fluffy one…

But before you curse me for making Amy and the baby suffer that much: it will get better in the next chapter, I promise. The dark times are (almost) over!

Another note: This story is actually based on my own (awful) experiences with giving birth, but I am very aware that those are not very "average" and that for most woman giving birth is a much more beautiful experience. So I hope, I did not scare anybody with this story!