Birth Story, Part 1

Things have settled down around here sufficiently enough for me to sit down in five minute blocks and type out what went down on Roland’s birth day. Thanks to all for the congratulatory wishes – it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that people care! Squeeee!

Anyway, on Saturday the 18th, we got up and had our respective hot beverages and newspaper perusal as usual. Being increasingly perturbed with a pregnancy that seemed to be stalling its ending, I suggested that we go walk the mall (for all you locals, this was the day that they were lighting up the tree at the Streets of Southpoint and Cheyenne Kimball was performing). I figured that putting some pressure on the area where my two legs meet would remind the kid that his shelter was meant to be a temporary one and that he should make his way towards the nearest exit. The mall traffic flow was disastrous, but we left early enough in the day to find a parking spot by Belk (fewer people park there – it’s like the mall boondocks).

[I must interject here that going into a mall knowing that you’re not going to buy a damn thing is a completely liberating feeling – especially getting to tell the clerks that you’re not interested in the particular item you’re fingering. Scott and I were poking about Williams-Sonoma and were conversing about how the coffee maker he’d purchased five years ago hadn’t gone down in price yet – of course, the clerk came over and tried to sell us one.]

A couple of hours into our mall wandering, I needed to stop and sit for a while. I had the sensation of a bowling ball being stored in my pelvis and my lower back was voicing complaints as well. We sat for a few minutes, but the firmness of the display we were sitting on made me even more uncomfortable. I could only get settled by sitting back on my tailbone which passer-bys must have thought to be quite an interesting sight. After doing one more lap around the ground floor I wanted to call it quits so we headed towards the car.

We stopped at Target for something or other…shampoo? Then I decided that I was in the mood for P.F. Chang’s and we circled back around to see how long the wait was. After being told by a hostess that we would have to wait two hours for a table (“But ma’am, you can also wait for a seat at the bar and next time you can call ahead for advanced seating…”), I gave her stink-eye, and a dry “Um, no – that’s okay.” What woman at 39 weeks 5 days pregnant is going to sit at the freakin’ bar when she has enough trouble getting off the toilet seat? I can’t remember what we ended up doing for dinner. I think it involved potato chips and Rice Krispies Treats.

At home I fired off an angry blog post in between periodic back pains that had me pacing around the front room. It didn’t dawn on me to time them until I realized they were going away and coming back regularly. After about three hours of toe-curling back tightening I realized I was probably having back labor. At that point I began freaking out because I was expecting uterine contractions and didn’t know if they’d even admit me for weird back pain that I couldn’t even describe. All knew is that my obstetrician told me that if I got reeeeally uncomfortable that I should go to the hospital. When I was sufficiently uncomfortable, I made Scott put his shirt back on to drive me to the hospital.

Of course they didn’t admit me. My cervix still hadn’t dilated beyond 1 cm and was 50% effaced. The triage doctor wanted to see at least 3 cm and contractions that were more regular. Although the nurse suspected that I would be back by early afternoon, they gave me an Ambien to try to sleep through the pain at home (HAR HAR HAR). The doctor told me that if my contractions started to get regular, (“trust me,” he said) that I wouldn’t be able to sleep through them. I took the Ambien at the hospital and Scott drove me home. Pissed.

By the time we pulled into the driveway I was so high off the sleeping pill that Scott had to physically escort me across the threshold. It was a little after midnight and I shed my clothes and got immediately in bed. I won’t speak of the weird hallucinations and dreams the pill brought on mostly because I can’t remember their exact contexts. All I can say is that pill had me so jacked up I thought that someone had slipped me some hard drugs.

Something woke me at around 5:30 or 6. I don’t know if it was the cats scratching on the door or some distress from my mid-regions, but I got up and went to the potty figuring that if I was indeed going to deliver that day I should do a load of laundry so I’d have something clean to wear home. I never did get those clothes washed.

[To be continued after a nap or two]

Posted by Tiffany at November 28, 2006 01:28 AM | TrackBack