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.
No comments:
Post a Comment