Challenge Accepted!. Celeste Barber

my water broke, Wendy came back in to check on Api and I made it my mission to get as comfortable as possible. Trusty Wendy was there to suggest some positions.

      Wendy: Try crouching.

      Me: No.

      Wendy: Sitting back with your legs rested up on the sides of the bath?

      Me: No.

      Wendy: Some women like to lie on their side, propping themselves up with their elbow, and their partner holds their top leg in the air, like a scissor kick.

      Me: No. Please don’t say ‘scissor kick’.

      Wendy: OK, let’s get you on all fours.

      Api: Hehe, that’s what got us into this.

      Me: ARE YOU SERIOUS?

      Api: Sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood.

      Me: Come here and let me cut your dick off, that will lighten my mood!

      So I got on all fours and bit the metal on the side of the bath and the pushing began. They say that you should push into your bum when having a baby and it makes you feel like you are pooing.

      Well, Wendy had this covered. I was 45 minutes into pushing into my bum and Wendy, my Wendy, leant over and said how important it was for me to really focus on pushing like I was pooing.

      Wendy: We’re nearly there, we really are.

      Me: FUCKING ARSE TIT PRICK POO AND MUTHA FUCKING BALLS!!

      Wendy: You’re doing so well, Mum.

      ME: AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

      Wendy: Now, just keep focusing on pushing into your bum. I don’t want you to worry if you do a little poo, as I have a poop scoop.

      With this she presented a poop scoop shaped like a ladle and showed it off proudly, much as Mufasa did with Simba in The Lion King. She put it next to my face, she showed it to Api and then just for added value showed it to me one more time.

      This was all going on while I was mid-contraction. I turned around – well, my head turned 180 degrees and the rest of my body didn’t move. I glared at her with bloodshot eyes and snarled through gritted teeth: ‘I’m not interested in the poop scoop, Wendy. I don’t care if I shit on your face. Just. Get. Him. Out.’

      Api was scared, the trainee midwife standing in the corner staring at my shirtless #hothusband in the bath was scared, I even scared myself. But Wendy didn’t flinch. She didn’t take her eyes off me as she slowly put the poop scoop down. I think if she could have she would have told me to shut the fuck up and know my place, but as she was a professional she let it slide. Wendy and Celeste BFF status was back on track.

      An hour into pushing, Wendy said they needed to monitor my heart, as they didn’t want it to be straining for too long. Turns out that being in active labour for eight hours is fine but once you hit that eight hours and five minutes mark then people start to panic.

      It was around this time that the burning ring of fire was really in full flight and Wendy could feel the top of my baby’s head. GROSS! She asked if I wanted to reach down between my legs and feel his head so I could be a part of this moment.

      A PART OF THIS MOMENT? I am this moment. Without me there’s no baby head, there’s no #hothusband flexing in the bath and there’s no poop scoop. THERE IS NO FUCKING MOMENT! But I get FOMO real bad and I didn’t want to feel like I was being left out of my son’s birth, so I reached down and it was as gross as I had expected. It was gooey and hairy and fucking weird.

      I gave myself a ‘hands where I can see them’ rule and continued grunting.

      With another massive push, his head tore out. I was on all fours so I couldn’t see him, but Api could, and he said our son looked exactly like him and immediately started to cry. I was like a cat trying to get comfortable on a leather couch in an attempt to bend around and see my baby, but as the rest of his body was still inside my body I wasn’t as agile as I would have hoped. So I just had to trust Api.

      A little birthing-in-the-water trivia: babies can stay underwater for ages before they need to draw their first breath, and it’s the atmosphere around them that pushes oxygen into their lungs. So when my son stayed immersed in water for a full minute between me pushing his head out (gross) and the next contraction when his body came flying out, and I was screaming, thinking he was drowning, it turns out he was fine.

      When the rest of him came shooting out, I caught him, held him on my chest, rearranged the umbilical cord that was conveniently wrapped around my thigh, and never let him go.

      We named him Lou.

      I now have two beautiful boys, Lou and Buddy. They are by far the best thing that has ever happened to me, second to that time I met Sporty Spice.

      The only five minutes Buddy (18 months here) slept in the first two years of his life.

      Lou (age two) constantly reinventing the use of props.

      If it all gets too hard, just hang your head out the window and scream!

      @jessicasimpson

The One Where I Discovered Ritalin, My Childhood (Not So) Imaginary Friend

      I COME FROM A SMALL FAMILY; it’s just the four of us – Mum Kath, Dad Nev, my older sister Olivia and me.

      My parents are such a great team. Mum has a short fuse and Dad loves nothing more than ticking her off, in a loving way of course. Mum is really creative: she has run three successful interior design businesses, and at the ripe old age of 62 decided to start up her own soy candle brand, Flame Candles, supplying wholesale candles to shops across the country. My dad is the handiest and cleverest man in the world. He is funny and patient and can fix anything. Between them they have built two houses – Mum designed them and Dad built them – had two daughters, and put a lot of effort into naming their pets as though they were a barren couple and their pets were all they had. When I was born we had a silky terrier, Phoebe Josephine, then we got a schnauzer, Lucinda May, followed by another silky terrier, Bronte Isabella, and Mum is currently treating her second schnauzer, Clover Lee, like a misunderstood genius child.

      Liv and I were lucky kids; we never went without. We had our own rooms, we could eat cheese whenever we wanted and, when we were annoying – and our parents sent us outside because we were being too loud – we had enough outdoor area to whip sticks at each other without doing any real damage.

      I wasn’t really great at school, it just wasn’t my thing. Every now and then I’d pretend I had slipped into a deep coma, so when my dad came in at exactly 6.55am EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING to get me up for school, I would squeeze my eyes shut and go as stiff as a board, behaviour commonly associated with coma patients, so I wouldn’t have to go to school.

      I just kind of hated the idea of it. I struggled academically, I couldn’t concentrate, I was bored easily and I just wanted to do anything other than having to stay still. Turns out I had ADD, and the small private Catholic school on the Far North Coast of New South Wales didn’t have that on their syllabus.

      I love making people laugh – at me, with me, whatever.