Prelude to a Raspberry

Help! In a strange reversal of roles, E blew a raspberry on my tummy, and in that moment we switched bodies. Now I'm stuck in this (adorable but) mostly-useless little body, and E, now with access to all the fine motor skills he'd been lacking, keeps running up and down stairs and slicing tomatoes with sharp knives.
And I think I've soiled myself.

Amazingly, I was able to type this whole thing using one finger and the predictive text on my iPhone.

Spoiler Alert

From my upcoming album of children's music (tentatively titled "Rock a Fly Baby: Songs for Ultra-Cool Post-Millennial Punkins"):

"Spoiler Alert"

There's a baby in the mirror
Peep that baby in the mirror
You're the baby in the mirror
Spoiler alert

Yesterday, on the changing table, an infant who shall remain nameless piped 3 kids-cones' worth of warm, baby-made soft-serve directly into my hand. In the moment, it was really upsetting.

As soon as twenty minutes later, I was looking back on the incident as a sweet and cherished memory.
"Hey," I said to him, tears rimming my crazy eyes, "remember that time you pooped in my hand for like five straight minutes? Wasn't that great?"
He just kept chewing on his squeaky duck and staring at my chest. He never wants to reminisce.

Birth Story, Part Two

The contractions were getting further and further apart.
I know now that the Cervidil had a hand in starting my labor -- or at least had intensified the contractions, because it was when the Cervidil was taken out that everything slowed down.


But I was still sure my labor was going to go quickly – after all, I fell out of my own mom after one hour – and I was going to tough it out. So I lay there and whined. And I walked around and whined. And I leaned against stuff and I whined. And I threw up and whined. And I listened to my meditation track and omed and breathed and whined. And I stayed awake. All night. And whined.

Dawn came, and the baby hadn't. I’d been in labor for nine hours and had slept a cumulative 20 minutes (Darling Husband having slept an estimated no minutes). I was still barely dilated. They were going to be starting me on a Pitocin drip after all, which would intensify everything, and I realized I was going to need to rest if I was going to forcefully evict this guy and still remember his joyous eviction.

Son and I were both in the fetal position. I looked at my husband and, with an exasperated chuckle, breathed the word "cacao," our code word* for epidural.

So we called the anesthesiologist in, and he stuck a tube in my fat old back, and I got an epidural. I wasn't angry with myself. I try to never go to bed angry.

I don’t know how long I slept, but it was more than none, which was fine by me. Husband stayed awake as I got my Pitocin drip. When I woke up I was contracting at a hearty rate again – I could tell by looking at the monitor – but I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move. And as if a 9-months pregnant woman needs additional help feeling like a beached whale, once you get the epidural, it takes a 4-man team and a sheet the size of a parachute to tilt your body even 5 degrees.
It seemed incorrect, like I was no longer an active participant in my own labor. I felt nothing. And I whined.

And my whining did not go unanswered. The epidural, after a couple of hours and a couple dozen contractions, started to wear off. The feeling started to come back, aggressively, but only on the left side. I was an active participant again, or at least half of me was. My left side was jackhammering a diamond sidewalk in 100-degree weather, while my right side was napping in a hammock in the shade of a cherry tree.

It was perfect the partnership of progress and Pitocin – contractions at 50% at 2 pm seemed exponentially more painful than contractions at 100% at 2 am. I had exhausted my personal anesthesia supply; the button at my bedside that was meant to dose me did nothing. I already had at least three fluids I couldn't identify flowing into me through tubes (and one fluid I could identify [urine!] flowing out of me through a tube). I believed myself to be approaching the hardest, most painful part and thought to myself, "Well, I already got one epidural, what’s a few more between friends?" The anesthesiologist came back in, went, "Hm," as if this didn't happen all the time, and he gave me another mega-dose of the good(?) stuff. I felt the cold fill my veins, and my left side was sort of more numb-ish. For about 45 minutes.

From that point on, every hour and a half or so someone would come and push more cold into my back. I’d labor for an hour with slightly lessened pain, and then the epidural would wear off on my left side again, and an anesthesiologist would come in and try again. Husband and I commented that this was perhaps a shit-ton of epidural and wondered aloud if this was maybe a bad idea, but someone in scrubs always replied, "I think it's probably fine," and I would say, "Yeah, OK, you’re the one in scrubs, and I’m the one hurting, so ANOTHER ROUND ON ME!"



Baby's heart rate started dropping. 
They turned off the Pitocin drip and called in the team to maneuver me into a different position. I was leaned all the way back and an oxygen mask put over my face. 
I was scared. I wished I could feel more.

His heart rate started to come back up, but he was getting impatient. Every time I moved, his heart rate would drop and I would be taken off Pitocin and put on oxygen. And I couldn't not move, because I kept vomiting. Vomiting up the last of my melted ice chips**, apple juice, and courage.

So they gave me Zofran for the nausea.

Pitocin off again. Oxygen on. Pitocin back on. Push anesthesia. Push Zofran. Pitocin off. Oxygen on. Pitocin back on. Push anesthesia. Push Zofran. Push buttons. Push all the buttons.

Every time the Pitocin was turned off, I felt the process drawing out even longer. I just wanted my son's heart to beat.

They told me that because I'd been laboring for more than 18 hours after my water had broken, my son would need something about antibiotic something. I don't know; I wasn't paying complete attention. My midwife had arrived, and some sort of side conversation was happening that I was not a part of. I was sure they were going to insist upon an emergency c-section. And why not? I'd had every other intervention. I didn't want to think about it. I was feeling afraid and disappointed, and I didn't want to feel that way. I asked for another epidural.

My very last epidural worked. Beautifully. 
I couldn't feel the left side or the right side. I couldn't feel disappointment. I was impervious.

No one even said "c-section" to me once.

After an hour I was still all numb, which was starting to trouble me a little because I sort of felt like I had to poop. 
The midwife had told me that when it was time to push it would feel like I had to poop, and here it was, poop-thirty, and I was still numb. I had not planned or expected to be numb for the pushing. Numb pushing, I'd read, can go on for hours; it's too hard to feel how and where to push.

My midwife was elsewhere, so I told the nurse I was going to have to push/poop soon. She asked me how soon, like I knew, like I knew my fetus's ass from his elbow.
"I don't know. Soon I think." 
She sent for the midwife.

And then the pain came back. On the left side first, naturally. I was never so happy to feel pain before. The pain was back, and the midwife was not.
And then soon was now. And the poop was definitely a baby. And his heart was still beating. And he wanted to come out. I could feel him on my left and right side now. The excitement and urgency was such that I didn't even have time to dread that I would be imminently ripped open by a person I had made on purpose. It was time.
The midwife was still not back, so the nurse talked me through the first few pushes. Then her eyes got big, and she said something no one had said to me in 24 hours -- that no one had said in 9-ish months and 24 hours:
"This is going really fast."

My midwife came back then, very busy and flustered -- too many pesky women having pesky babies. After helping me through one push, she turned to the nurse and said, "This really is  going fast." I was going to have this baby before the day was over.
I could feel everything now. It was horrible and wonderful and I was in the zone and I very much hated the zone and thought I wouldn't mind if never saw that zone again and--
--someone's cell phone rang. 
I poked my head out of the zone long enough to see my midwife stepping back to answer the personal phone call, as another contraction rounded the bases for home and I had to push again. I looked, panicked, around the room, as if to ask permission to push without coaching. The midwife gestured, Yes, go ahead and push, duh.
I pushed (duh), and she ended her phone call and re-approached. Probably apologized, I don't know; I was in the zone.

And after a few more minutes of (really hard) pushing (pushing's really hard, guys!) I ejected this perfect little turdlet***, beating heart and everything:

I got to hold him, squalling, to my chest, and it was all so worth it. I wouldn't have changed a thing.


Then they whisked him away for a wipe down, while I unceremoniously pushed out the placenta (more painful than the baby, probably because the epidural had finally actually worn off all the way and my cheerleaders had lost interest), got stitched up, and had my catheter pulled out (which was somehow the part I was dreading most of all. It was fine, compared to having a baby).


It took 282 days to build my son and 25 hours to deliver him. And because I've been soaking him up (and his bodily fluids, let's be frank) so much, it took six months to document the story of his birth, a story that wouldn't be remarkable at all, if it weren't for the ending.

Baby E (for Exclamation point!), born June 4, 2014, at 11:07 p.m.

P.S. I had a numb patch on my right foot for six weeks afterwards.



*Shamelessly stolen from a Portlandia sketch. I wonder how many people use "cacao" as a safe word because of Portlandia.

**Water.
　
***I was sure I had released an additional turdlet as well, but everyone assured me that the poop on the table was my newborn's not mine.
　

　

　

　

Birth Story, Part One

Disclaimer: This is a pretty detailed account of my experience giving birth to my first (and currently only) child. It is intended for those who are interested in birth stories and/or people who care about me and my family and don't mind references to my own anatomical correctness. The following includes words like "cervical ripening," "fluid," and "catheter." You have been warned. Placenta.

I didn't have a birth plan, per se. I had a birth idea; I had a way I would pretty please like labor to go. I wanted to be unmedicated, but I wanted it to feel pleasant. I wanted to be able to hold and feed my baby right away, for as long as possible, but I wanted to be able to immediately sleep for 12 hours. I wanted to be able walk/waddle around, but I wanted to be able to forget I had feet.

But you and the Internet know -- this sort of thing never goes according to plan. So I constructed a vague mental "birth outline":

• Have a healthy baby.
• Love the crap out of that baby (then clean up the crap and repeat).
• Don't beat yourself up about it.

And anything else would just be a bonus anecdote.

So here's my bonus anecdote.

I was going to have a hospital birth, at the hospital where I was born. I didn't have any great love for my OBGYN office but didn't realize how dissatisfied I was until it was too late to get to know another group of people, so ultimately we were like, "Whatevs, it's just our first pregnancy!"

I was also sure we would take some sort of childbirth and parenting classes, but the weeks flew by, and home and work projects came up that we didn't anticipate, so by the time I was 36 weeks pregnant, we were like, "Whatevs, it's just our first childbirth!"

I spent the last month of the pregnancy meditating on an exercise ball in front of streaming videos of natural child births. I counted that as "prepared."

I had tested positive for group b strep at my 35-week check-up, which meant I would have to be on drip antibiotics for the duration of the labor. This was an element I couldn't control, so I focused on the things I could control, like YouTube playlists of doulas answering questions.

My son was due (oh, by the way, I was pregnant. With a boy!) on June 1st, my mother's birthday. And June 1st was a great day  -- Dunkin Donuts accidentally made two of my latte, my mom turned old -- but the baby didn't come.

The next day, at my final prenatal appointment, the midwife checked me out and said, "Well, you're one day overdue and your blood pressure's mildly elevated. We should induce you tomorrow night."

I was heartbroken. I had wanted to go into childbirth naturally and was convinced that she was being overcautious. But I couldn't really argue with the midwife. I was a day overdue, and my blood pressure was mildly elevated. So I thought of my primary aim --

• Have a healthy baby.

-- and agreed to the induction.

This is how the induction was supposed to go: I go to the hospital in the evening and they give me a Cervidil -- a vaginally inserted "cervical ripening" agent -- after which I get to sleep a full night in my cozy Craftmatic hospital bed. I wake up refreshed, with a now-well-dilated cervix, and they start me on a Pitocin drip to kick-start my contractions. After, say, a couple of hours of very rewarding effort -- during which several fun-loving nurse-types poke their heads in to ask if I'm "laboring hard or hardly laboring, ha ha" -- I push once and an angel baby eases out of me, gazes into my eyes, and says, "Mama."

I of course would prefer to go into labor on my own, but the explanation of the induction sounded pretty good and still met all my bullet points.

So I went to the hospital on Tuesday evening after a day of bed rest. I got in my PROPERTY OF KENNESTONE HOSPITAL gown and complimentary (and complementary!) yellow socks, and the nurse once again explained what was going to happen and then inserted the Cervidil.

Now the Cervidil is a vaguely parasitic-looking strip/tampon/acid tab full of some chemical that makes your cervix open up. And when inserted it feels like your vagina is biting on one of those plastic things you chomp on when you get dental x-rays (Wikipedia tells me these are called "bitewings," which is pretty rad).

Then the nurses hooked up my IV drip, strapped on the baby heart monitor, plugged me into ALL THE MACHINES, and turned out the light and wished me good night.

I settled in. We had movies (Labor Day [ha ha.*] and 12 Years a Slave, for some reason) and the Internet. It was 10 o'clock, and Perfect Hero Husband pulled out his laptop so we could stream the latest episode of Fargo. I could tell right away it was going to be a great episode -- that Lester Nygaard says the darnedest things!

And then, at 10:15 pm, I had a contraction.

I'd been having Braxton Hicks (i.e., pretend) contractions for weeks, but this one felt different. Hurty. Real.

And five minutes later I had another one. And then, five minutes later, another.

Now you're considered to be pretty well into the swing of things once your contractions are five minutes apart. And the closer they get, the sooner the baby is coming. I didn't get the nurse, though, because they'd just started, and I was watching my stories.

Four minutes later I had another contraction.

Three minutes later another.

There were five minutes left in the episode when my water broke (incidentally, and not trying to give any spoilers, but it happened to be the moment we see one of the characters pregnant for the first time). We decided to close the laptop and invite the nurses in.

~Side note -- I was not prepared for how much "water" "breaks" and how long it comes out of you. For hours I had a fresh warm burst of amniotic fluid escaping me with each contraction.~

The nurses confirmed I was in labor and took out the Cervidil. I was psyched, genuinely. I had gone into labor on my own, I thought. I wouldn't have to get Pitocin for my contractions, I thought. I was already well into labor and this was going to fly by, I thought.

I labored (literally, lolololol) under these delusions for hours.


TO BE CONTINUED... dun. duh dun.



*I have recently learned that Labor Day is not an appropriate movie for someone actively giving birth. Or someone eventually giving birth. Or someone who recently gave birth. Or someone who was born.