THE BIRTH STORY - PART 1
I suppose now that Amanda is going to be four months old tomorrow, it is about time I finally tell the birth story, huh? Or at least start to tell it, as it could take a few posts. Not that anyone necessarily cares to hear it anymore, but if you DO care to hear the story, please read on. (And I also don't plan on holding any details back, so read at your own risk of being grossed out!)
"This is SO not how I imagined this going," I said to Anthony on our drive to the hospital. It was pitch-black outside at the early hour of 6:00PM, but it was December and it gets really dark this time of year in New England. We were both as calm as could be. We were in no hurry whatsoever. Looking at the clock on the dashboard, we realized that, if anything, we'd be early.
We had been preparing ourselves since the day we found out that I was pregnant for that frantic ride up route 128 North to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Hell, I had been sleeping on two towels for the past month, convinced that my water would break and that I would ruin our brand-new mattress. My overnight bag had been packed for weeks, knowing that we could end up racing to the hospital at a moment's notice. But once we scheduled the labor to be induced in the back of our heads we knew that this baby was absolutely going to take her sweet old time. She apparently wasn't in as much of a hurry to be born as I was to have her OUT!!!
We spent most of the drive just discussing how strange it was to calmly be driving to the hospital, knowing that most likely the next time we were in the car together, there would be a little person riding in the back seat. I say most likely because the doctor had been vague about whether or not I would be kept overnight or sent home. We were praying that once we got there, they'd keep us there, since we live an hour away.
We checked in and immediately we were given a labor and delivery room. Our minds were put at ease when they told us that yes, indeed, we would be staying overnight and that this was the room I would be in until the baby was born. Again, Anthony and I were calm, but we'd get giddy over the notion that a real baby was coming soon. It was still as if the reality of it all hadn't fully sunk in yet.
At 8:00PM they inserted my cervix with the drug "cervidil" using something not unlike a tampon. The cervidil needed to remain in place for 12 straight hours, to hopefully speed up my dilation. Upon check-in, I was only a 1/2 centimeter. I had to be very careful when peeing not to dislodge the device. Sleep that night was very uncomfortable because, after all, I was in a hospital bed (miserable!) and I had a baby monitor strapped to my belly, to check the baby's heart rate and for uterine contractions. One nurse hooked me up to the monitor, but overnight there had been a shift-change and another nurse was checking in on me periodically. Anthony was given a cot, which he pulled up right alongside my bed, and he slept very well. In the morning, I informed him that I slept horribly, that his snoring kept me awake, and that I hoped he enjoyed it because it was the last good night's sleep he would be getting for a long, long time.
At 8:00AM yet another nurse came in to remove the cervidil and give me the big news. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to hear how much I had dilated!
And then she told me. I was 1 centimeter.
?????
I was so upset. All that medicine, and I had only progressed a 1/2 a centimeter? Right then and there I got it in my head that Amanda wouldn't be born until the next day. I assumed I had a long, long road ahead of me if I was truly dilating this slowly, even on meds. I called my mom and told her, and even though I thought she was nuts she insisted she'd be coming to the hospital by 1:00PM anyways. I told her she was probably wasting the trip but she said she didn't care, she was coming.
At 9:00AM, they started the pitocin drip for the induction. And not long after that my doctor poked her head into my room to say hello, and she said she'd be back in to see me around lunch time to check on my progress. "No problem," I told her. Again, I had it in my head that things would go slowly.
Now, somewhere along the line in my pregnancy I came up with the notion that one is supposed to be at least 3 centimeters dilated BEFORE receiving an epidural. I don't know if I heard that from someone, or if I thought I had read it somewhere, but this number of "3 centimeters" was in the back of my mind that whole morning. I figured I couldn't even ASK for an epidural until I hit the 3 cm mark. I also (stupidly) had made up my mind that I would not ask for an epidural before it was offered too me. I think I was so afraid of looking like a wuss for asking for it "too soon." So this was my brain - 3 cm, don't ask for it until they offer it.
After one hour, my contractions were every two minutes, and they were starting to get intense. Not painful, just powerful. Like, I'd be mid-sentence talking to Anthony and would have to stop talking until the contraction passed. My mom called me back to see how things were going and when I stopped talking to her she very abruptly said "what's going on?" "Nothing, just a contraction, mom, they are every two minutes and I cannot talk through them, it is too hard." She nearly dropped the phone. "I'm coming RIGHT NOW!" It was all I could do to convince her that she wasn't going to miss anything, that this was still going to be a long, long haul. She reluctantly agreed to still come at 1:00PM, the previously agreed upon time. I mean, what was all the panic about, the contractions didn't even hurt yet!
My nurse came in and said "I am SO sorry, Dawn, but I am going home. We're DEAD in here today and they offered me the rest of the day off, so I really want to try to get some Christmas shopping done." Honestly, what did I care? But she felt SO bad about it. She introduced me to my fourth nurse, who said she would take excellent care of me.
And just like that....the contractions began to hurt.
It was approximately 10:45AM, and with each contraction my sounds would change ever-so-slightly.
"ooh..."
"OH!"
"Wow."
"Ohmigod."
"WOW!"
"holy shit!"
"aaaarrrggghhhh...."
And so on. With each contraction, the pain just grew stronger and stronger and stronger. I wish so much that I could describe pain of labor accurately, for the benefit of all those women out there who have yet to experience labor and are scared to death (like I was) because all they have ever heard for their entire lives is how painful this is. But I can't. I can't describe it, although I remember the feeling so vividly, like it was yesterday; it is a pain I will NEVER forget. The best description I can come up with is it feels like the worst possible menstrual cramps ever, while having your uterus squeezed as tightly as possible in a vice, times 100. Seriously.
But in my mind, I still kept thinking I couldn't ask for meds yet. "Do you want to try the rocking chair?" the nurse asked. "Yes please," I stammered, because I figured if she was offering a rocking chair, then a rocking chair must magically help the pain go away, right? WRONG!
After ten minutes in the chair, and my noises getting louder and more interesting-sounding, she offered the birthing ball, to "open up" my pelvis. "Yes please," I whispered, yes, maybe the magic ball will help pain..go..now. Straddling the ball (looks exactly like an exercise ball), I gripped onto the handlebars (handlebars?) at the end of my bed. I would be fine, and then the minute that contraction would hit I would moan and grunt and groan until it passed, all the while massaging my hips on the ball from left, to right, to left again. Magic ball my ass, everything still hurt like a mother-fucker.
Anthony, all the while, is carrying on a conversation with the nurse, barely aware of me (or at least that is how it felt at the time). I guess I had been moaning in pain for so long now that he was used to it, and honestly I don't know if it was Anthony's apparent indifference to my ridiculous pain, OR if it was simply that the pain was getting unbearable, but I finally broke down and started crying - something that I had been trying with all my might NOT to do.
And why not? I think again I didn't want to appear to be a wuss, and I figured if I was crying and the epidural had not yet been offered, then I was the worst patient ever...or something.
Then the nurse held up that stupid-ass pain chart. It has ten faces on it, going from very happy on the left (1) to VERY upset on the right (10). You are supposed to use this guide to be able to tell them where your pain falls on their chart. "Where are you right now, Dawn?" I studied the chart through my tears. How the fuck was I supposed to know? Was this a test?
"Five I guess, I don't know," tears streaming down my cheeks.
"Really?" the nurse said, "Because you seem more like an 8."
Wow, so she understands that I am in a world of pain, that is a good sign.
And then she said my favorite thing ever.
"Would you like an epidural now?"
"YES! Yes please!"
And with that, it literally seemed as though anesthesia was in my room in seconds. I don't remember the needle hurting as it went in to my back; if it did hurt, I certainly didn't care. What I DO remember is as the anesthesiologist was placing the needle in my back, my doctor walked in hoping to check my cervix.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Well THIS is a good sign, I guess things are moving along - I will come back in a few minutes to check you."
As the anesthesiologist left my room, I sincerely called out to him "I love you," because the pains were 100 percent GONE. The machine was still recording mean contractions, fast and furious, but I felt nothing. Nothing! It was wonderful!
My doctor never came back to see me as promised, but the nurse checked my cervix and I was 3 1/2 cm - better, but still had a long, long way to go....
