Birth Story, Part 2

You would think by now my periodic hiatuses would indicate that we’ve been busy teaching The Kid how to sleep through the night, change his own diapers, and sleep in his own crib. Not so. I would probably have a lot more free time on my hands if we didn’t have cats. The layout of our house requires that if I leave Roland in his room, I need to be near enough to hear him. I won’t set him down in the living room or front room because the cats have been far too curious/jealous. Anyway. Right now I’m wearing him in a sling on my chest (snoozing away) and a monitor has been purchased so I can listen to him flail around in his crib even when I’m in the laundry room. That didn’t stop me from having him sleep in our bed again last night, but oh well. At least I have two hands to type now.

To continue the story, I woke around dawn and ran a hot bath. I lay in the tub, sleeping between contractions, until the water turned cold. The contractions were coming fairly close together, but not so close that I was wakeful enough to want to remove myself from the tub. After one particularly painful contraction, I got out, wrapped a towel around myself and nudged Scott awake. I mumbled something along the lines of “Let’s go” to which he responded with an expression of half-“you’ve got to be kidding me” and half-“this better not be another practice run.”

I pulled on whatever clothes were on the floor nearest me: a pair of grey sweatpants, a high school marching band tee-shirt, and rubber flip-flops (I would later regret this). We left a little food out for the cats and headed back towards the hospital for the second time in eight hours.

The parking situation was a little miserable. Because of all the construction going on at UNC Hospitals…never mind. Not worth discussing. While Scott found a valet to take the car a nurse coming off the night shift sat me in a wheelchair stored by the entrance for that exact purpose. I guess the woozy state the Ambien I took had put me in hadn’t worn off. Between the contractions and the loopiness I’m sure I looked as if I were going to pass out.

Scott pushed me upstairs to labor and delivery, and guess which doctor was still on duty from the night before? Yeeessss, the one that sent me home with that f*cking sleeping pill. I hated feeling like I was panicking over a false alarm, but damn it, at that point I was shameless enough that if I had to threaten someone with some high-octane swearing they were going to admit me. If I wasn’t in labor, then something was wrong.

In triage I stripped down again into one of those backless gowns and endured the humiliation of yet another pelvic exam. Still hadn’t dilated. WTF? I had been at 1 cm for three weeks. I remember the first time my obstetrician had checked me at my 37-week visit. As I was walking into the building, a woman getting into her car (with way too much energy to suit me) was squealing with glee that she was 2 cm dilated. Hmph. I’m still annoyed that I couldn’t dilate on my own. Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. Because my contractions were pretty much right on top of each other and I was completely effaced (which equals miserable), they admitted me.

The next thing I remember was Scott putting my street clothes into a plastic bag and someone asking if I wanted an epidural. The little Homer Simpson voice in my head was saying “Hmmmmm, druuuugs. *drools*” I had told myself early on that I was going to try to experience childbirth without an epidural. HA HA HA HA HA HA! I was in labor for close to 24 hours. No way. Somehow I got to a birthing suite (how’d I get there, Scott?) and my nurse worked with me on some breathing exercises while I contracted. She was six inches from my face and I kept thinking “DAMN, why didn’t I brush my teeth?” (Answer: because teeth don’t matter when your contractions feel like Rockettes kicking the hell out of your spine, uterus, and bladder.)

Because I was the only woman on the floor in labor, the anesthesiologist appeared fairly quickly to insert my epidural. Within 30 seconds of that puppy getting switched on I was on cloud nine and able to get some sleep.

You’ll have to excuse the fact that I can’t reference any sort of timeline here. I was so stoned that I was having a hard enough time controlling my anger at the fact that I hadn’t ate anything since … shit. When had I last eaten a real meal? Anyway, the fact that Scott ate a sandwich in front of me was perturbing. Anyway, the clock meant nothing seeing as how I was slipping in and out of wakefulness.

A doctor (who happens to be a very important doctor) appeared to invade my pelvis again. I guess there was a discussion about breaking my water and administering Pitocin in a few hours if I didn’t start dilating, but I can’t remember consenting to that. I guess I must have. The amniotic fluid was meconium-stained. (For all you laypeople, that means the baby had his first poop prematurely. Not normal – usually means the kid is distressed or else has been in the oven too long.) On top of that, because his head was turned in the wrong direction he wasn’t dropping where he was supposed to (hence the back labor).

The doctor left me to progress and would come back to check if I had dilated later. Fortunately, breaking my water was what my cervix needed to move out of my way and the Pitocin wasn’t necessary. I had some fear of Pitocin because it a) causes very intense contractions that may stress the baby and b) you could go through all that painful labor and if the cervix hasn’t moved you end up having to get a C-section.

Some blah blah happened (sorry…two weeks removes details from memory), and at 4 o’clock I was fully dilated and began pushing. I pushed for an hour and the doctor came in and suggested that we consider giving the baby some help with forceps. If I hadn’t been the type of person that goes into to “Chill” mode during stressful events, I probably would have began to bawl at that point. You never hear anything good about forceps. I evaluated the situation and decided I wanted my kid in my arms within the next five minutes. I didn’t want to labor for another hour and have his heart rate fluctuating the way it was. He would already have to be immediately assessed by NICU nurses because of the meconium: I didn’t want him to be taken away for longer if I could prevent it.

Once the forceps were applied he was out lickety-split, crying like he was offended. So, he was okay! He hadn’t aspirated any meconium, he didn’t have little forceps dents in his head, and he wanted to be fed immediately. 20 ¾”, 7 lb 13 oz. My little junior Scorpio.

Yeah, it was all worth it. The epidural shakes, stitches, limping, the catheters (no comment), the indignity of peeing in a pan in front of nurses – I’m not ashamed at all. Even when your kid comes out looking nothing like you, all you really want to do is smother him with kisses, take him home, and try to raise him better than you were raised.

I’m exhausted, but I love the squirmy little sucker. Other stuff matters less.

Posted by Tiffany at December 4, 2006 03:09 PM | TrackBack