Birth Story (For Shannon) or Alternately Titled “Go Get a Snack, Marge. This Is A Long One.”

The night before I was scheduled to be induced, we went to eat at Cheddar’s with my parents and my friend Tracy and her roommate. I started having intense pain in my lower back. The pain was pretty close to what a gall bladder attack feels like, only lower. It would come and then fade away and then come back fifteen or so minutes later. Back contractions. Nice. Since I was dilated at my previous visits, I thought that maybe I would go into labor during the night. We went home though and it went away. I did some last minute packing and had Elvee shave my va-jay-jay with the electric clippers. If I was going to end up pooping on the delivery table then it wasn’t going to be with a hairy booty. We went to bed around 2 and got up around 6ish. We had to be downtown for 8 and in Austin that means leaving the house at 7.

We got to the hospital a half an hour early and it was pretty cold outside that morning. My husband parked and let me out in the parking garage so that I could find my parents while he parked. I was nervous and his making laps around the garage was irritating me. So I stood outside and froze while waiting.

We went to the labor and delivery floor and checked in and got assigned to our room. I was already thinking that I wanted my epidural and I wasn’t even in labor yet. I had decided long before that this would be a pain free birth. I am not the I-am-woman-let-me-feel-this-beautiful-natural-process type person. Not-uh. Not me.

I had the most awesome nurse named Nancy that informed me that giving birth was extremely messy and I should just put my little nightgown (that should actually read huge one-size-fits-all Wal-Mart nightshirt that would scare the piss out of anyone) that I brought from home back in my bag.

I laid in the bed and she hooked me up to the fetal monitor and the contraction monitor. I have Group B Strep so I had to get an IV. I think she did that as well. Dr. Uribe showed up about an hour later and broke my water with what looked like a knitting needle. They made my Dad leave the room. Warm water gushed out went all over the blue pad they had me laying on. Everytime I moved for the next eight hours I would feel some more leak out. Nancy was right. This was messy. They started me on the Pitocin to make my contractions start and then I made sure to tell them that I wanted the epidural now, please thank you.

The epidural guy shows up and everyone has to leave except for my husband this time. I think that my parents went to lunch around this time. Lunch. I wanted lunch so bad. The doc pulls out his kit with the huge needle and he has me sit on the edge of the bed. I am supposed to hug Elvee and he supports my weight while the needle is inserted. So, I’m supposed to instruct the doc as to where the epidural needle is going if I feel it too far to one side or the other. I do. It’s too far over to the right. He moves it and we continue on. It really wasn’t all that bad. I wouldn’t want to do it again any time soon but it wasn’t deathly painful either.

I start to get numb. You can still feel though sort of. It’s very weird. You can feel pressure of the contractions but not the pain part. My parents come back from lunch and my mom starts poking me and asking “can you feel this? how about this? right here?” I make her sit down. I make a mental note to blog about it. Then the real contractions start. I have a computer monitor next to me that shows a graph that monitors the contractions. My parents are all over this thing like their lives depend on it. They apparently got medical degrees by reading Prevention magazine. I make them both sit back down.

At around noon I start feeling the contractions in my back. Really bad. The pain would get really intense and I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. By this time, I have a new nurse. There is a boom of babies being born and all the nurses are being called all over the place until more nurses arrive. The new nurse tells me that I can hit this little button to deliver more morephine to the epidural if the pain gets too bad. I can push the button every fifteen minutes. Why didn’t Nancy tell me that? I begin to like Nancy a little less. I start pushing the button. Every fifteen minutes. The pain just sticks it’s tongue out at me. My Dad is standing next to me telling me that he sees another contraction coming on the monitor. I make him sit down.

I am not progressing very far each time they check me. I get the feeling that this is going to take a while. The back pain is so intense that there is no way that I can even imagine pushing. Dr. Uribe shows up and I am in tears. He checks me again and tells me that the baby is posterior (face up) and he is still in the same position. He thinks that the baby is pretty large and it will take a while for the baby to move down, if at all. So, to sum up…. a few more hours until baby moves down, a few hours of pushing and possibility of eighth degree tear. All that and I would still more than likely end up with a C-section. How about I skip all that crap and just go straight to the section part? Dr. Uribe says okay and we start making plans. Yippy. I can see the end now.

Nancy is back and is apparently very pro natural child birth. She knows that I am starving so she plays that card. If I get a section it will be 36 hours before I can have food, she says. Shuddup, Nancy. Not helping. Nancy has also suggested that I stop eating my ice chips a few hours before I have the section. Has she lost her freaking mind? The ice chips are the only thing keeping me from hurting someone. The ice chips are my only nourishment. The ice chips love me. Everytime she isn’t looking, I eat some more ice chips. My Mom also sneaks me a cheese cracker. Just one. It was divine.

They bring Elvee an outfit to wear into surgery. It is the biggest size they have and it is way too small for him. We have to cut the arms to fit his in. He looks very uncomfortable. Like a sausage wraped in blue paper towels. It’s getting so real now. I’m about to have a baby. God.

They wheel me to surgery and Elvee is already crying. He does that. They transfer me to the surgery table and it takes alot of work. It’s very hard to move your entire body weight without the use of your legs. The table seems way too narrow to hold me. They strap my arms down next to me. The curtain goes up separating my upper body from my lower body. I feel them pushing on my tummy and I say “um, I can feel that.” The doctor wants to know if I feel pressure or pain because I should feel pressure. How am I supposed to know? I’ve never had a baby. I do know that I can feel you touching my stomach and I don’t want to feel you cut me. That I do know. Dr. Uribe shows up and says that I am not numb enough on the left side. Something about how your skin should look if you are numb enough. The ansthestist is behind me and he accepts a phone call from his wife on his cell phone. I hear him tell her that he is working late and “to get over it”. They let Elvee in the surgery room with me and he is next to my head, sitting on a stool. I ask him if they are doing anything yet and he is scared to look in case my guts are on the table next to me. I feel some pushing on my stomach so I think they may have started and just not told me. Elvee and I are discussing if we should look or not. Seconds later I feel them pulling Gage out of my ribcage area. It was the strangest sensation ever. It seemed like he was crying before he was even out all the way. It was a raspy little cry and he sounded like a puppy. He looked enormous. I was thinking he had to be at least 10 pounds.

My first thought was “huh, a baby was really in there.” I don’t know if I was expecting a sack of oranges or what I thought would come out but I was almost surprised that it was, indeed, a baby. All I could say was “wow”. Elvee was crying and going over to look at Gage and telling me how adorable he was. He scored 8 and 9 on the Apgar and he weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces. They brought Gage over to me and I really thought that he looked like an alien. A cute alien that was mine to love forever, but an alien nonetheless. I was so worried about his little nose not having a bridge.

To Be Continued….

Part Two – Healing from a C-section and Being Allergic to Morphine or “My Freaking Face Itches and Please Stop Talking, Nurse Lady”