On Wednesday, April 18th, I went in to the ER for
some unusual chest pain. I had felt the
pain once before but had ignored it after it went away, since it did not
reoccur. However, when the pain did reoccur on the 18th, it
was worse than it had been before, a debilitating nerve pain, like brain
freeze, right in the middle of my sternum.
The pain itself was pretty intense, but the real difficulty was that it
was relentless. No matter what position I was in, where I pressed
on my chest, or what I drank, the pain would not go away. So, when it had
lasted long enough that I couldn’t stand it anymore, I went to the hospital.
When I arrived, the valet fetched me and my mother a
wheelchair, and she rolled me inside.
Before they even asked me what was the matter, every doctor and nurse in
the room was declaring that I was to be moved to L&D. Once I finally got their attention, I told
them that I wasn’t there for the baby, he wasn’t coming any time soon, but that
surely this chest pain would kill me soon if somebody didn’t pay attention to
it. And so eventually, they agreed to
keep me in the E.R., as long as I had an L&D nurse with me the whole time.
Honestly, being a pregnant woman got me the fasted E.R.
service I have ever experienced, but my mother and I would still be sitting
there until very late at night. (We
arrived around noon.) Pretty
immediately, they hooked me up to heart rate and contraction monitor straps
around my belly, as well as my own heart rate monitor and automatic blood
pressure cuff. I could hardly move for
all the various wires. They discovered
that both the baby and I had elevated heart rates. This obviously concerned them, and they
decided to keep me overnight for observation.
At least they were kind enough to move me to L&D for the stay.
By the time we moved up to L&D, my mother had to
leave. Luckily, only a few hours later,
Vince showed up to keep me company. He
slept on the little bench that they had in the room, and I lay in bed all
night, hardly sleeping at all. The
monitors were terribly uncomfortable and restricting, and morning came with
exhaustion. While I was awake at seven
or eight, Vince continued to sleep until ten or eleven.
I was administered a one hour blood glucose test in the
morning, and so I wasn’t able to eat until it had passed. I think I napped on and off through the
morning, my mother stopped by twice. At
some point, I was rolled away for an ultrasound, which ended with a surprise 3D
session. I was given several “3D” images
of my son after the procedure. When
eleven or twelve rolled around, I finally got Vince to wake up, which led to a
huge fight ending with him storming out of the room, saying, “Sometimes I hate
you!” By the time the Doctor came in to
see me, I had just barely had time to dry my tears. Little did I know, I would be fighting back
tears for the next several hours.
When the doctor came in, she had bad news for me. I had failed the glucose test, and my
ultrasound from that morning showed “excessive fluid.” She told me that these two things together
indicated that I may have developed Gestational Diabetes. She suggested we move for an induction. I was devastated. I had expected to have a flawless delivery,
unmedicated and natural. I knew it wasn’t
time for the baby to come, I hadn’t even felt any real contractions. (Remember, I had only come to the hospital
because of those pesky heart pains.) I
didn’t know this at the time, but I was hardly even dilated at all. If my birth had been allowed to progress
naturally, my baby would not have come out for at least two weeks. Also, I had spent my whole pregnancy reading
about the horrible statistics of hospitals.
I knew that inducing significantly increased my chances of “needing” a
c-section.
I told the doctor that I didn’t know what I wanted to do,
that I needed some time to think. Once
she left, I spent some time crying. I
texted my mother and let her know what was going on. I cried some more. Vince tried to call me and continue fighting
with me. I told him I didn’t give a fuck
about his problems. I told him none of
it mattered to me at all, that I had other shit on my mind, and didn’t want to
deal with his drama. Once he had shut up
enough to listen to the situation with the baby, he asked if he should come to
the hospital. I told him I didn’t know.
Shortly afterward, the nurse came to visit me. I would like to say here that both of my
nurses were lovely, and that I was blessed to have them with me on my
journey. I don’t remember their names,
but this nurse was younger, with shoulder-length hair. She told me that she had worked at many
L&D units all over the country, and of them all, she trusted the doctors at
this one the most. She also told me
that, usually, this particular doctor was not the type to push for
inductions. I asked her for her personal
opinion, and she said that she would go for it.
She said that, if this doctor was asking for an induction, it was for a
good reason, and she could be trusted to work for my best interests.
That was enough to convince me, and I told her that I would
go through with the induction. I called
my mother and let her know, and got a hold of Vince.
They started me on pitocin by the afternoon. At this point, the nurses had changed out,
and now I was with the older, redheaded nurse that would stay with me
throughout the entire delivery. She kept
the pitocin low and slow, doing me a mercy.
She was a wonderful woman, completely supportive of my wish to be
unmedicated, and later of my choice to medicate.
Because of the pitocin, I was required to be on the monitors
constantly, which meant I was confined to the bed, unless I was up peeing. I went through several hours comfortably
enough. Vince showed up eventually,
accompanied by my best friend Adam. My
mother was in attendance as well, as often as she could be. The contractions were mild, at this
point. Once six o’clock (or so) rolled
around, the doctor and nurse started talking about breaking my water, since I
wasn’t progressing very quickly. I didn’t
really want this to happen, since it would put a time limit on my labor, and I
would have much rather had a long, easy labor, than a short one full of
complications. It turned out that my
water breaking was the least of my worries.
When the doctor arrived to do the procedure at eight or
nine, she started with a cervical check, to make sure the baby was still head
down. The baby had been head down for my
entire pregnancy, so I was completely shocked when she said that she couldn’t
feel the head anymore. She brought in a
little portable ultrasound and confirmed that suddenly, for no reason at all,
my baby was breech. (Now, I had felt a “flip”
a few hours before, but I had thought that the baby was simply rolling over, to
face the back instead of the front. I
had never imagined that he would suddenly flip breech. I am convinced this happened because we
introduced pitocin, and he didn’t like the idea of being pushed out just yet.)
The next thing the doctor said was, “Stop the pitocin, we’re
going to do a c-section.”
I immediately panicked.
Couldn’t I just deliver breech?
No, she said. There’s not a
doctor in the city that will deliver breech.
Can I try inversion positions, take some time to flip the baby
back? It probably wouldn’t work, she
said. Finally, I asked about an external
version procedure. I absolutely refused
to be rolled in for a c-section. She
tried to tell me the risks associated with an external version. Finally, I told her to give me some time to
try and flip the baby on my own, and if I couldn’t, then we would do an
external. She didn’t particularly like
it, but she left me alone to do my thing.
I spent the next hour laying with my head down, and my ass
up in the air, but no luck. I was
determined. The baby had only flipped a
short time ago, he should easily flip back.
I willed him to flip over with all of my heart and mind. Unfortunately, both my heart and mind were exhausted;
I could hardly keep myself from crying, much less connect with my unborn child
and tell him what to do. It was getting
late, I had hardly slept the night before, and emotionally, I was approaching
my breaking point. Vince had been
present this whole time, but he had been either asleep, or non-responsive. My attempts at telepathy and spiritual
connection failed. The child stayed
stubbornly upright.
The doctor returned with her little ultrasound again, and a
large bottle of lubricant. My only
choice now was the external version. I lay
on my back, and my lovely nurse offered me narcotic pain medication, which I
refused. She was surprised, but didn’t
push it. I was put on oxygen, however,
since our heart rates were elevated again.
The doctor did a quick (rather painful) ultrasound to decide which way
to turn the baby, and then set to it.
She applied a generous amount of lubricant to my stomach, told me to
take a deep breath, and started pushing the baby counter-clockwise.
This was the most painful thing I have ever experience. I actually cried out in pain.
With one great push, she had the baby sideways, with his
head on my right side. She took a half a
second to give us both a break, and then pushed again, sliding him around to
upside-down again. When success was
announced, I immediately broke down into sobs, releasing the tension that the
pain had built up in me.
Vince remained in his position on the little bench, lying
down, throughout the entire procedure.
The ENTIRE time that our son was being wrestled inside my stomach, and I
was crying out in pain, he stayed where he was, and didn’t say a word. He pretended he was still asleep.
Immediately after the baby was confirmed head down, the
doctor set about breaking my water. They
wanted to get rid of the extra fluid that the baby had to swim about in, and
suck him down into the birth canal, so that he wouldn’t flip breech again. Compared to the external, the exam of my
(extremely sensitive) cervix seemed like nothing.
Finally, as they were preparing to break my water, Vince
came to my side. He didn’t say much, but
I was just stupidly grateful that he was next to me. It didn’t last long, and soon he was back to
his spot.
Once my water broke, the flow of waters was unstoppable; I
didn’t think I even held so much fluid.
And it just kept coming. They had
me lying on a stack of towels that my sweet nursed changed out often. Once I had lain down after the initial gush,
it was back to business. She started up
the pitocin again, and strapped all my monitors back up. I was told that I was allowed to stand as I
pleased to work through the contractions (so long as I was close enough to the
equipment so the monitors could still reach me.)
However, another problem surfaced. During the external version, the umbilical cord
had wrapped around the baby’s neck once.
This made it so that, unless I was lying on my side, or sitting up on
all fours, every time I would have a contraction, the baby’s heart rate would
drop dangerously low. My nurse was
amazing, and never panicked. She worked
with me to try and find as many positions where the baby wasn’t stressed as
possible. In the end, though, I was
restrained to lying on my side, or being on all fours.
It was now very late at night. Vince had brought several friends to the room
to keep him entertained, including one “friend” that I had specifically
requested he NOT invite. The
contractions were starting to get more painful.
The trance music that I had playing helped me to focus through the
contractions, but I was very quickly wearing down. I had hardly slept the night before, and it
was nearly three in the morning. The
contractions were painful, and I couldn’t stand or walk, or do anything to work
through the pain except try to meditate through them. I was trying to get on all fours during each
contraction, and then trying to lie on my side between contractions so that I
could rest. However, changing positions
was extremely difficult, because of the many wires and monitors attached to
me. (At this point, I had two IV lines,
a blood-pressure cuff, two wired, internal monitors, and an oxygen mask.)
Everything was working against me. I think that if even one thing had been
different, I may have been able to persevere.
If I had been well rested, and wasn’t so exhausted, if I had been able
to stand to work through the contractions, if there hadn’t been so many people
in the room, if I hadn’t been attached to so many wires… if even one of those things had been true, I
don’t believe I would have needed the pain relief. As it was, however, I felt that if I
continued the way I was going, with no pain relief, that by the time it came to
give birth, I wouldn’t have the energy to push.
So, I spoke to my lovely nurse, and had her set up an
epidural. Even knowing that relief was
coming made the pain easier to deal with, knowing that I would be able to give
my whole self to delivering my baby.
The epidural was executed flawlessly. I was still restricted to lying on my side,
because of the baby’s cord, but with my oxygen mask, and yet another wire tying
me down, I was finally able to relax. I
caught a few hours of sleep, occasionally waking up to flip to the other side,
or to push the button on my epidural.
The next time I woke up, the doctor was in the room, and I
was told that I was fully dilated. At
this point, I could feel that the epidural was losing some of its efficiency,
and I should have pushed the button again, but I chose not to. I wanted to feel my birth, and by the time I
had pushed to crowning, nearly an hour later, I believe that the epidural had
almost completely worn off.
I pushed with my nurse for almost an hour, before the doctor
was called in. At first, it was hard to
feel the urge, or even the muscles that I needed to focus on, but as the
epidural wore off, I could feel the urge to push more and more, and could
identify the proper muscle groups. My
nurse was wonderful, supportive and encouraging. (She actually ended up staying about an hour
after her shift was supposed to end so that she could be with me through the
entire delivery.) When the baby was
finally crowning, they transformed my bed, and everybody covered in scrubs. I was terrified at one point, because nobody
was at my feet ready to catch the baby, and the urge to push had taken over
me. I was afraid that I would
involuntarily push the baby out while nobody was there to catch him.
I wouldn’t say that the experience of giving birth was
painful. There was certainly pain
involved, but the more prevalent descriptor that comes to mind is… “intense.” As the baby’s head slowly came out, stretching
me, my body was filled with adrenaline. The pain didn’t matter, my body knew exactly
what to do, and I was in thrall with the directive, I had no choice. Giving birth was the most important, despite
pain, despite fear or anger or sadness.
It is the only time in life that I have been completely out of control,
and I didn’t mind it so much.
I pushed out the head, and felt the doctor turn the
baby. I was told later that she removed
the cord from around his neck at this point.
I pushed a few more times, and out came the body. My little Taurus boy then cried with the most
lovely and sweet voice I have ever heard in my life. I kept asking over and over again, “Is he
okay?” Of course, he was just fine; he
had no problems at all. I wanted
skin-to-skin right after the birth, but they didn’t give it to me. I was laying flat on my back, so I couldn’t
attempt to latch, or anything. (This is
the only part of my birth experience that I really regret; I wish I had been
more firm about the things that I wanted directly after the birth.) Vince cut the cord, (it was FAT, more than an
inch in diameter) and they took the baby from me for weight and measurement.
Only then did we decide on the name. Lukas Gabriel was born at 7:09am on April 20th. He weighed 7lbs 14oz, and measured at 19 ½ inches. He was absolutely perfect in every way, and
came out looking just like me. He got a
tan skin tone from his father, but his blue eyes and warm, light brown hair
came straight from me. In the two
months that it has taken me to write this story, he has nearly doubled his birth
weight (my little fatty!) and his voice has only gotten lovelier.
Bottom line? My birth
experience was NOT what I wanted or expected, and at times it was extremely
stressful and sad. However, I have no
hard feelings about it, because it led to the most beautiful little boy I have
ever met. Would I do it again? Absolutely. :-)
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