This post is going to be very blunt, so feel free to skip it if you don't want gory details. Having a baby is something nothing and no one can prepare you for, but I'm going to describe it because I think there are some things that need to be said, if for no other reason than that it is therapeutic for me.
It was a Wednesday night. I had gone to sleep around 10:30, but I woke up when Husband came to bed around midnight. I sleepily realized I was having some odd cramping sensations in my back. Not too bad, I thought. The baby is due in 5 days, this must be Braxton-Hicks. I told Husband I was having some pre-labor symptoms and tried to go back to sleep. An hour later, I thought, you know, I should time these things. They were coming at regular 5-minute intervals.
We tried to call my doctor's pager, but our internet was down (yay for what is essentially a local monopoly--crappy service for lots of money and very few options--and what is worse, we rely on our internet signal for phone service because our provider has bad coverage in our area, and we use a microcell). Fortunately, it came back up after about half an hour. Sometimes it is down for as long as 11 hours.
The doctor said I was definitely in labor and should come in and get checked. The pain was getting more uncomfortable, but I could still easily breathe my way through it, so we grabbed the hospital bag I had so carefully packed the preceding week and took off.
The check indicated that I was dilated 2 cm, and the doctor felt the best thing to do was go home, try to rest, and come back in the morning when things had progressed more. We agreed. By this time, it was about 4 am. We went home, while the contractions came stronger and faster, and Husband made me some breakfast, which I promptly barfed up.
At that point, he was trying to help me with pain management—we learned all about pressure points and massage in our birth class, and he is a good man. For the next hour or so, it did help quite a bit, but by about 7 am, I was screaming and writhing while the contractions came at 1-minute intervals. We called the doctor back and went in again.
That ride back to the hospital was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. We got stuck in morning traffic, and I yelled and cried the entire way. Then we got temporarily stuck in the revolving door on the way inside the hospital, which was completely not fun.
As soon as we got back to the "triage" room, I told my doctor I needed an epidural. How quickly one can change the mind! I had drunk the Ina May Gaskin koolaid and convinced myself that I could give birth the natural, hippie way ... after 8 hours of that labor, I never want to hear another word about how your body knows what to do and you can breathe your way through the pain. I'm glad it works that way for some people, but if it weren't for modern medicine, I would never let my husband near me ever again.
It took a while to get wheeled into the labor/delivery room and wait for the anesthesiologist to show up and take care of things. By that time, I was dilated to 6.5. Once the epidural kicked in, I was ok for a while. The contractions, of course, slowed back down to 4 minutes apart instead of 1. And then, we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Husband's parents both showed up in the early afternoon expecting to see a baby. I had not expected his dad to come, but I was glad to see him. They were great, and we had a nice time conversing. At that point, the epidural had made me comfortable enough to breathe through the contractions. Still uncomfortable, but manageable.
Then it was nighttime again, and still no progression. The epidural was wearing off, and my legs were completely numb. Our excellent nurse changed shifts, and we got another excellent nurse. It was a good thing we were at a teaching hospital, because the nurses all had students there to observe and help. It took both of them to lift my dead legs and shift my position in several attempts to get labor to progress again. Plus, some pitocin, which made the contractions even more uncomfortable.
It turns out labor did not move forward because Baby's head was sideways. I had always worried about either a breech or posterior baby. This didn't sound nearly as bad, but unfortunately, it was bad enough that my body couldn't manage to relax enough to allow her to descend into the birth canal; it was the wrong fit—I didn't know until afterwards, but she was banging against my pelvic bone (she ended up with a nasty, scabby bruise on her poor little head).
The doctor punctured the water bag so that it would drain slowly, in hopes that that would turn the baby. It did work, but it still took several hours and lots of assisted changes in position. In the meantime night fell, and I got sick to my stomach and threw up two or three more times. It was particularly vile, considering I hadn't eaten anything all day and had been sustained by IV fluids. I told husband I was going to vomit, and that, apparently, is the one thing he is squeamish about. I paged the nurse, and he ran to find something to catch it in—which was great, because he got back to my bedside right as it all flew out of my mouth (and splattered on his clothes). I felt so bad for him, but he handled it like a champ.
In addition to the vomiting, I also started having panic attacks. The room was dark, my legs were numb so I couldn't move, and I just felt claustrophobic and stuck. I couldn't sleep because every time I did, I would startle myself awake and freak out. Again, Husband was amazing. He just sat by me and held my hand and helped me breathe my way through. It was torture for him, because he hates to see me in pain.
Early, early in the morning I started to cry and told the doctor I just needed it all to be over. The epidural wore off several times and I had to ask for more and more. And finally, they had given me their strongest dose and had to switch to a different drug (yikes!).
One of the weird things that happened was the representative for cord blood donations kept coming and bugging us to read through the materials and sign the form. I wanted to participate and told him so, but I was a bit preoccupied with other things, so reading and signing didn't quite work out on his timetable. That was a major nuisance.
Then around 7 am on Friday, after 31 hours, I started to feel the pressure moving away from my back and into my pelvic area, and I was pretty sure the baby was coming out. The doctor came in to talk to me about it. She said I had been stuck at an 8 for long enough that they were concerned that we would need to discuss a c-section. They don't bring that up lightly (our hospital has very low c-section rates, and doesn't like to perform them at all), but if we couldn't make the baby come out with what we had already done, it would be necessary. I told her I thought the baby was moving into the birth canal, and I wanted her to check. She was also concerned to do that too often, because once the water is broken there are risks of infection if they poke and prod too much. But she did just look down without reaching in, and she saw the baby's head.
That was a great boost to my self-confidence—knowing that I had been able to correctly identify where the baby was, even as drugged up as I had been.
So, around 7:45 or so, they got everyone (EVERYONE) in the room and ready, and I started pushing. A few comments on that—the epidural had completely worn off by that point, and I let them know. They said it doesn't numb the parts that hurt during the actual delivery, so it wouldn't help to give me any more. She told me, very compassionately, that it was going to be terribly painful. I'm glad—I like to be prepared. The other thing was that there were suddenly a dozen people in the room. Nothing like being completely naked, with your business exposed for everyone. They called in a NICU team because there was some meconium in the fluid, and that is a potential problem (turns out it was fine, though); there was the nurse (our third one), her student shadow, our resident doctor, the resident doctor relieving her of duty (they change shifts at 8 am), their supervising doctor, Husband (of course), and some other random people he said were hanging out by the curtains.
The surprising part was that I didn't feel any pain while pushing, just lots of pressure and an urgent need to get it done. They all cheered me on and helped me focus on doing it right. Husband said it was very quiet and very spiritual. This part can last for hours, but fortunately, we got her out in about 30 minutes. Yay!
They gave her to me immediately. It was surreal. All this waiting. A lifetime of waiting. And then there is a wet, crying baby in your arms.
I didn't feel the placenta come out. I didn't feel the doctor stitching me up (I had a second-degree tear). I could only distinguish a few snippets of conversation. They were all anxious to know the baby's name, because we had kept it to ourselves until then. It was fun to finally tell people.
Baby was 8 lbs, 7 oz. A perfect size in my mind, considering the 36-week ultrasound predicted she would be close to 10 lbs. She had to get her glucose checked several times (she hated it and ended up a bit traumatized—for the first several days she screamed every time anyone even touched her feet, after all the times she had to be stuck) because of my diabetic condition, but we had controlled it so well, she was completely normal and fine. She was perfect.
I had some help getting into some crazy mesh underwear and some gigantic pads, someone came in to measure the baby, and then we went to recovery.
That was interesting as well. I can't say enough in praise of our hospital staff. I loved every single one of our nurses and attendants. But it was a trying time. They said they could take the baby to the nursery so I could get some sleep, but I was unwilling to part with her. Partially because I was completely in love and wanted to be with her every second, and partially because a woman I know told me that when she had her son, she let them take him to the nursery, and he died some time in the night, and no one ever found out why.
So we did not sleep much in the hospital. Baby is of the sort that likes to be constantly held. She screamed every time we put her down. Breast milk doesn't come in for several days, but colostrum is supposed to be there immediately. I think I got too dehydrated to make much of it, because feeding in the hospital did not go well, in spite of several lactation consultants and an excellent nurse.
Husband was exhausted at this point, and he went to sleep on the couch next to the bed, but eventually I had to send him home because he was snoring. And between that and the crying baby I was not doing well. That was a sad, sad moment.
We went home a day early because I was done with hospital life. The food, oddly enough, was excellent, and I could ask for whatever I wanted, but the bed was uncomfortable, and just thinking about another night in tight quarters like that made me anticipate more panic attacks. It was actually really hard to say goodbye to our nurse—she was more like a friend than anything by then.
There was a flurry of activity to get our discharge paperwork completed, then Husband came for us and there was an issue with getting the car seat properly installed (again, help from our excellent nurse). He only had enough time to drop us off at home before he rushed off to work.
We were fine until the middle of that night. Then the post-traumatic stress really hit hard. I started re-living the labor emotionally, and having a physical response to it. It wasn't physical pain, but my body reacted as if it were—screaming, crying, writhing. We called the doctor for help, but we had to do it several times, because it took them a while to realize from what we were saying that it was me and not the baby who was having the problems. Baby was fine, even though I was convinced she wasn't. I thought I would never be able to take care of her and would have to give her to someone who could. Husband called his mom, and she came over, because he couldn't handle both me and the baby at the same time.
I don't remember a lot of what I said during those days, but I do remember hysterically pleading with Husband to be satisfied with just one child, because I couldn't face ever having another baby. He, of course, said I didn't need to worry about it, that one baby was enough.
We did get through it, but it took a few weeks, some prescription meds, and a visit to a psychiatrist for the attacks to go away. And did you know newborn babies are completely bizarre? Little girls bleed from their mom's estrogen, so it's almost like they have a mini period. Plus, there's a lot of choking going on in the first few days when they get the fluid out of their little lungs. Both of those things freaked me out and caused another call to the doctor.
Also, some people may not have any trouble whatsoever figuring out how to breastfeed, but it did not come naturally for me. My milk came in around day 4, which is pretty good, but it was slow going, and baby had trouble latching. The lactation consultants won't say this, but I am convinced it's because she has a tiny mouth. After lots of soreness and bleeding (I was ready to start calling her my little bloodsucker, because it seemed she was getting more blood than milk a few times), we got some prescription cream and a silicon shield. It helps a lot. She did not regain her birth weight during the recommended timeframe, so we had lots of follow-ups with the nurse and lactation consultants. I was desperately trying to feed her regularly, the way the books say—no more than three hours from the beginning of her feeding to the next. But how do you do that when it takes two hours to feed her? And then when she finally does go to sleep she wants to stay asleep and nothing, nothing will wake her? All their recommended tricks for getting/keeping her alert were complete failures. Also, it's impossible to tell if a breastfed baby is getting enough to eat, because you can't measure input. After 3 weeks of all the following up, we did some letting go. I refuse to put her through the stress anymore, and I just let her sleep. That has improved things quite a bit, even though there is still a lot of frustration with her efficiency in eating. She seems to be finally gaining weight, though, so I don't worry as much as I did.
My physical recovery went much better than I expected. The bleeding was not nearly as heavy as I was thinking it would be, and it was mostly gone after a few days. The stitches hurt, and I had to use a squirt bottle instead of toilet paper for a week or two, but that was all. I lost the baby weight super fast, mostly due to my diabetes diet, I think—within two weeks my pre-pregnancy clothes were a little too big. There is still a bit of a belly, but I'm not concerned about it. And I have this impressive array of stretch marks that looks like someone tried to draw a campfire on my tummy. I am told the marks won't go away, but their purple color will eventually fade.
So there you have it. I'm sure this is TMI, but really—why don't people talk about it? I thought I had been sufficiently warned! I would never discourage anyone from having a child, but I do think sometimes people don't talk realistically about how it works. There is plenty of warning about labor pain, but it's buried under so much cliche that it can't really sink in for someone who hasn't experienced it. Obviously it's different for everyone, and a lot of women say it wasn't that bad. Wow. Either they are much stronger than I am, or I was just not cut out for motherhood. We survived, obviously, but at a great price. I don't know if I would have survived if not for modern medicine. Pain like that is no joke. The part that was the biggest surprise, though, was the post-partum hormone drop. I knew it would happen, but I had no idea it would make me such a crazy mess.
In spite of all of that, or maybe partially because of it, I am completely in love with my baby. She is the sweetest and the cutest as far as I'm concerned. She mostly looks like her daddy, especially in profile, and I love to see them together. We are taking one day at a time and trying to enjoy every minute we can while she's still little. Being a mother is the best thing ever, now that we're past the crisis, even though it is so very difficult. It is one of the most bonding experiences we could have as a couple to be parents together, and I love Husband even more than I did before ... if that's possible.
