Birth story- the finale Okay, where was I- Every time I get halfway through an entry, something weird happens and I lose it all. Probably has something to do with the baby punching strange things on the keyboard with her feet. I guess I�ll just do this in the almighty Word and transfer it, which will unfortunately cut down on the amusing spelling errors. I don�t recall where I was in the birth story, but I think somewhere around Monday night/ Tuesday morning, when we decided that since the weather was so bad, and since I�d been having contractions 5 minutes apart for, like, ever, we should go into the hospital. Needless to say, as soon as I got there the contractions backed way off and so there I was in the stupid wheelchair going up to Labor and Delivery and feeling completely fine, despite the fact that I hadn�t slept since the beginning of the disco era. They strapped me to one of those monitors and verified that yes, indeed, there was a baby in there and it was going to come out sometime soonish, but apparently not imminently. The midwife on call came in, an older woman with a degree in psychology and a ton of midwifery experience, and a sort of comforting, cow-like quality to her. She volunteered to either break my water or give me morphine to help me sleep. At that point, I was bravely sticking to my policy of no interventions or drugs, so I refused both offers, and proceeded to continue not being able to sleep, while my long-suffering mother and husband crawled off where I couldn�t get to them to smoke cigarettes and collapse into their respective comas. I got into the lovely whirlpool tub, which was lovely and all, but didn�t stop or jump-start my labor. The nurse came in like every two seconds to do one of a few annoying medical things to me. Finally I told her to give me drugs, because I didn�t feel like I could force a large being out of my vagina without getting a little sleep first. So I got a huge shot of morphine in my ass and god it felt awesome. Nothing like pharmaceutical dope to remind you why you didn�t want to quit doing drugs. I guess I only slept for like two hours, but it felt like 12. I felt great when I woke up, probably because I was still looped from the morphine. I wanted to get my water broken by that time, because I didn�t want to go home; the weather was horrible and I was fed up. But a new midwife had come on duty and she wouldn�t do it. My contractions had all but stopped, again probably due to the morphine, because as soon as I got home the contractions started again. This time I should have known it was different, but I kept thinking that they would stop again, even after I couldn�t calmly handle the pain anymore and started howling every time a contraction hit me. The weather got worse and worse; freezing rain started to fall and coat the snow and slush that was already on the ground. The news people were freaking out, and telling people not to leave their houses. I remember lying in the bathtub hearing the ice hitting the window and just hoping that I would get to the hospital and not have to have the baby in the car stuck in a snowbank somewhere. I was going totally blank between contractions by the time it got dark. I would wake up to this intense pain, howl through it, and then go blank again. I think they must have been like 5 minutes apart at that time. My mom or husband would come find me whenever they would hear me screaming and sit with me. It was nice to just have them there. I don�t remember if they were telling me to breathe or any of that bullshit, but it wouldn�t have mattered by that time anyway because there was nothing I could do to help myself through labor; my body was just doing it and I was just kind of suffering through it as a consequence. Sometime in the wee hours, I have no idea when, my water broke while I was in the bathtub. It was kind of a weird sensation. I could feel the bag bulging out during a contraction and then popping. All the blankness suddenly disappeared and I became fairly alert. I asked my mom, who was on duty at the time, if the fluid was clear and at first she thought it wasn�t, but that had just been some last pieces of the mucus plug coming out. Yummy! I checked and verified that it was clear and that there was nothing really to worry about, but I told her that we needed to get to the hospital- I just felt like we had better get there, no doubt about it. I got out of the bathtub and fluid gushed out all over the floor, but her head was down pretty low plugging the drain so to speak so it didn�t come out all at once. I struggled into some clothes, which of course got all wet, but who the hell cared by that point. My mom went out to start the car and bring it around in front, but it moved about two inches, just enough to be right out in the middle of the street, and wouldn�t go any further. Our car wouldn�t move, either. There were several inches of ice on top of the snow by that time. So my mom called 911 and told them to get an ambulance there. The 911 guy was telling her to boil water and have me lie down on the floor, and it took a while to explain to the guy that, no, the baby wasn�t like falling out yet, we just couldn�t move the cars and needed a ride to the hospital. The ambulance got there in like 3 minutes, it seemed like. I guess it woke all the neighbors up, because a couple of them commented on it when we got home. What fun!! The EMT�s couldn�t get a stretcher up to the door because of the ice, and they had to hold me by the arms to get me out. I still almost bit it on the doorstep. But I got out there and strapped in and they got one of those things in my vein, the things that the heroin addicts like so much because you can just shoot your dope into it without worrying about finding a vein. That was the bumpiest, most hellacious ride ever. I was screaming and gushing amniotic fluid all over the poor EMT, who was probably pretty cute. Birth is so beautiful. When we got to the hospital they first wheeled me into the emergency room and here were all these heartless emergency room doctors snapping their rubber gloves on like prison guards doing a cavity search. I guess they thought I was crowning already, but my mom redirected us to L&D, thank god, because I was about to have a heart attack. The midwife on call was the same one who had sent me home that morning, or the morning before I guess it was. She checked me and I was still only 4-5 cms., and she acted pissed off that we had made her come in. by then I didn�t care what she thought or even notice. I was getting no break in between contractions at all. She ran me a really hot Jacuzzi bath and when I climbed in I actually didn�t have to scream through a few of the contractions, but then they got bad again and I paced around, trying all sorts of positions and leaning on my mom and husband for support. I had this horrible back pain that was actually bothering me worse than the contractions because it made it impossible to get anywhere close to comfortable. I was pretty whiny by then. I started to beg for drugs. I couldn�t do it anymore and an epidural sounded like the best idea in the world. The midwife said that when the new lady came on at 8:00 she would talk about pain relief with me. A new midwife came on at 8:00. She was much more cheerful, and she had this great midwife-in-training with her. They checked me and I was 9 � centimeters. They told me I could start pushing whenever I felt like it. The sun was coming up. It was a new day and I was going to have this baby, thank god. I didn�t really have that urge to push they talk about, but it felt better when I did, so I did. For hours. I tried every position. I pooped all over everybody. I was more alert than I had been and it started to seem like this would never end. The midwife-in-training did do this wonderful counterpressure thing that made my back feel almost okay, though. Finally, my husband set on the bed and I squatted down, hanging off his knees with the crooks of my arms. He whispered encouragement in my ear and everybody else was cheering me on. I kept asking them if the baby was coming and they said yes. At one point they told me I could reach up and feel her head. I did and it was this soft, squishy hairy thing. They were checking the heartbeat with the Doppler and it started decelerating during pushes. The midwife said �This baby is telling us it wants to be born� and that was the only thing I heard probably the whole night. I pushed one or two more times and they told me to reach down and feel my baby and I did and felt something slimy and then they put her on my chest. I was really surprised to see her. She looked a lot different than I had imagined. She was all snuffly and confused, with huge, cloudy, blue eyes and a ton of black curly hair. My husband sat nest to me to look at her and he was all pale and crying. She didn�t cry but she still got Apgar scores of 9 and 9. I think they had my husband cut the cord, then I breastfed her and tried to deliver the placenta. I wasn�t having contractions at all, really, and I sure as hell didn�t feel like pushing anymore. After � hour, they were about to give me pitocin so I pushed the sucker out. It was a big blob, bigger than I thought, and the midwife showed it to me. It really looked like the tree of life. Anyway, I love my little monkey, Juniper Lee, more than anything ever. I never thought I could love anybody this much. If I ever forget what being a new parent is like: it took me a week and a half to write this, in between feedings etc. I finally broke down and got one of those swings and now I can actually put her down sometimes. |