One Year Ago

It is the day before my son’s first birthday. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to post his birth story here. I originally posted this on a forum for mommies and those hoping to be mommies.

One year ago today everything was different.

I have no memory of what that was like.

On Monday May 11th at about 5pm I started having contractions and they were about 20-30 min apart. No biggie, really. As the day went on they got closer together. House started at 8, and by 830 they were 5-7 minutes apart. I was getting PISSED, because 24 started in 30 minutes.

I sat on the sofa and watched 24 anyway. No real point in driving to the hospital or anything, given my history. I would breathe through the pain, and when the show went off at 10 I called the answering service, and they called the doc who called me. She told me to head on over, so we got things ready and left.

When we got to the hospital the nurse who greeted us asked me if I was sure this was the real thing. I told her I had no idea, but that I was 5 min apart for over an hour, and I was on the waiting list for an induction from the previous Wednesday. She told me that did in fact make a difference, and they got me into a room in L&D to be monitored. I got all hooked up and comfy, and everything started to slow down. Again. I was a bit peeved, but I continued to lie there. The nurse came in to check me, and I was still between 2-3cm. She left the room, and a little bit later I had a whopper of a contraction. A literal minute later I had another one. And then another. She came running back in and said, “Well those were right on top of one another. Are you ok?” I told her I was, but agreed that they had sucked. She left me all hooked up and told me to call her if necessary.

So at that point I laid there on my side and said Owie Owie Owie (I literally did say that. Swear to God) and gritted my teeth and breathed through my left nostril every 60 seconds for HOURS. Every time the nurse checked me I was still 2-3cm and about 60% effaced. By 3am I was exhausted and wrung out, so the anesthesiologist came in and told me it was time for my epidural. I sat up on the side of the bed and leaned forward, and a whole lot of nothing happened after my novocain shot. She then said, “Do you have a curvature of your spine?” I said I did, but it hadn’t presented a problem the last time. A whole lot more nothing went on back there, other than repeated novocain shots to keep the area prepped and a bunch of feeling up of my spine. She then attempted a few times to insert the tube, while I shivered in the cold and tried not to be scared to death of becoming paralyzed. Rich said later that at one point she had shaken her head “no” at the nurse. She did, however, get the tube inserted, and about 15 minutes later the pain eased up and I got some relief from it all. All of that was VERY odd given that with Livvie my dude got it inserted on the first try.

I laid there and tried to sleep for a bit but nada. At 5am Dr Anya came in and said she was going to go ahead and do an AROM. She checked me and I was still only 4cm. So she popped me with the crochet hook and moseyed on out. I continued to hang out and watch TV.

At 7am there was a nurse and doctor shift change. Dr Gaines, he of my ligamentitis diagnosis, came on, and when he checked me I was still at 4cm. He was concerned that while very regular and hard, the contractions were not very productive. He left us alone, and we watched TV and junk. Every once in awhile I looked at my monitors and wondered what was going on.

At 11 Rich had gone out to the parking lot to have a smoke, and my nurse came bustling in and said that Jonas’s heart rate was concerning them. She slapped an oxygen mask onto my face and was getting ready to check me again when Rich walked in and looked visably shaken at finding me that way. I was at 7cm at that point, but when I turned on my side Jonas began to crash so they really quickly flipped me onto my other side. He started to level off again. Dr Gaines came in and looked at my strips and everything and turned to me, and I said, “If this is going to C-Section can we get my tubes tied while you’re in there please?” He told me that while they could indeed do that, he wanted me to take into account that even though they would do their best given what was going on with Jonas’s heart if he crashed he might not be revivable, and did I really want a permanent sterilization? I told him that I did indeed, and that I was never, ever going through any of this ever again. Jonas’s heart rate decelerated again, and they grabbed a consent to surgery form for me, a consent to tubal ligation, and hollered up to the OR to get the room prepped for me because we were coming NOW.

The twit that shaved me did NOT get every hair. More on that later.

As another aside, I was oddly calm throughout all of this. And I have no idea why.

They got me down to the OR and I met my surgical staff. I loved them. The anesthesiologist got me pumped up again, and this time it was lovely. I felt ZERO pain at all. We chatted about how hungry I was, and someone finally brought Rich in all gowned up, and they got to cutting. They had draped me, and when I complained about it I was told that some people had a tendency to want to get all touchy feely up in the surgeon’s business so they made it impossible to see. Bummer dude. At one point Dr Gaines was literally leaning into my abdomen with his elbow throwing his weight into it, and I was DYING to see what was going on but no dice. I felt some pulling and yanking, and then I heard Jonas crying, and tears squirted out of my eyes, and I bonded with my kid for the first time since I got the second line on that stick that said “oopsie.” He was full of fluid and needed oxygen, so they grabbed Rich and told him to go with them for all of that. They brought Jonas to my face, and I placed my lips on his forehead and said, “Make it,” and they ran off.

Dr Gaines removed the placenta, and the cord blood people snapped up their prize and ran off. Then he got to tying my tubes. Staff kept running in and giving me updates as to how Jonas was doing. The anesthesiologist kept stroking my head and telling me how great I had done. All of a sudden I got clammy and felt like I was going to black out. I said, “I am going to vomit in a second,” and she helped me turn my head to the side and stuck a suction tube in my mouth. I gagged several times, and then I finally barfed up about 2 oz of fluid, since my stomach was totally empty. When I barfed I pursed my lips and spit it directly into the suction tube. The anesthesiologist said, “I can’t believe I just saw you do that.” I said, “I didn’t want to make a mess.” They gave me some Zofran, and within seconds everything leveled off, and I felt a thousand times better. Dr Gaines finished up, and they wheeled me off to recovery.

I thanked everyone whose eyes I could manage to catch.

Rich found me in recovery and told me that they had suctioned Jonas out about 15 or 16 times. He was apparently quite loud and let them know how much he hated all of that. While I recovered and regained feeling in my lower half Rich ran back and forth between us, keeping me updated. Then they rolled me up to my room, and about 5 minutes after we got settled in they brought Jonas in.

My first thought was “Whee! He looks like Rich!” Then I snatched him out of his basinette and very rarely let go of him while we were there.

Dr Gaines came in and told me that Jonas had been pressing down on his cord, and when he tested his blood gasses afterward he had actually been in some quite serious danger. His take on it was, “We prefer to do everything we can to ensure that your baby keep all of his brain cells, so I’m confident the surgery was the right call.” I agreed with him.

So that’s that. When I was in the shower on Wednesday pulling off my dressings as directed I took quite a bit of  hair with it. It ended up being one of the most painful aspects of the whole experience.