the gory details (Part I)

Aside from the cloth diapers and my brief foray into the idea of natural child birth, I wouldn't really call myself earth friendly (i.e. hippie). I mean, sure, I try to be environmentally conscious, eat healthy foods, get my pets at animal shelters, and try not to medicate too often. But for the most part I like modern conveniences. It used to be that I didn't even have a cell phone, but I live with Mr. Gadgets now and I've gotten used to the easy life. And one day soon, now that we have 3 dogs and a kid, I know that I'll have to break down and probably buy a car that gives less than 30 miles a gallon. I do what I can but have no problems giving up an ideal for convenience. Plus I'm a huge believer in science and modern medicine.

Despite all this, I had a vision of how my labor would go. When we were in our birthing classes, a lot of women said they're biggest fear was having a c-section. I had no such fear. Honestly, I felt that at the end of the day, I would do whatever needed to be done to get the baby out. And if my doctor felt that a c-section was necessary, then that's what would happen. I didn't WANT it per se. I didn't even want the doctor to make a slit to help the baby come out if it came down to it, let alone a c-section scar. Ideally, I decided I'd rather tear (I know it sounds terrible, and there are really no advantages to either, but see my previous post about the Kool-Aid) and heal naturally than with a cut and stitches. I didn't even want to be induced. So definitely a c-section is even more invasive and definitely not on my "must have" list, but I barely thought much about it.

But it was easy not to think about it because in my head, I always felt that it would never go there. I mean, how on earth could I possibly have issues delivering a kid? Child bearing runs in my family, and I always just figured I was built for it. I never really thought much about it but I think it was a source of pride. And when the moment came that the c-section became necessary, that was probably what stuck in my craw the most.

And the moment was a LONG time coming that day. Because I went into the hospital Monday morning at 7 am to be induced after being almost a week late. The baby apparently did not want to come out. Actually, we were supposed to go in Sunday night, but as we were walking out the door, the hospital called and said that they had no more beds, that it was a crazy night, did I want to come Monday morning instead. Sun, they were supposed to give me this drug to help my cervix dilate. By the end of labor, my cervix is to have dilated 10 cm, a lot of women start the process during the last weeks of their pregnancy. As of my last doc appointment, I was completely closed.

So all night, I was supposed to hang out while the meds did their thing, then, when it was time, they'd give me drugs to induce contractions. That was the plan. I could probably sleep while I was dilating and wake up ready to start feeling the pain. But everything got pushed out and we came in Mon morning armed with videos for entertainment. To my surprise, it turned out that I had started having contractions and was dilated already without knowing it. 3 cm, one third of the way there! So they decided to skip the drugs altogether to get my cervix dilating and went straight to the pitocin to induce contractions. A few hours went by, nothing happened. We watched videos, updated facebook every few minutes, caught up on emails. If you're planning on going to labor, a hospital with WI-FI is key.

A few more hours went by. The nurses would occasionally come and examine my cervix (OUCH, that was probably more painful than contractions). They kept upping my pitocin and I still felt nothing. They kept asking if I wanted an epidural. I said, very proudly, no.

At around 3 or 4 pm, I was still just at 4 cm. My doctor came and broke my bag of water around 4:30 or so, and they assured me that things would much more quickly after that. At the next cervix check a few hours later, the nurse said I was at 4 cm. Then she saw my disappointed face and said, "Well, maybe 4 and a half." Awesome, a whole half cm. And still I felt nothing. My doctor said that 4 cm was a good time to get the epidural, but I said no. Well, I still hadn't felt anything, so it seemed silly to get pain killers.

The timing starts to get a little fuzzy, but at some point, they inserted this wire up me to try to better monitor the strength of my contractions. That made it a bit harder to pee. Then suddenly, maybe around 9?, without any warning, I felt my first contraction and it was a doozy. I don't even know how to describe it except that it was pretty much hell AND I felt like pooping. Plus my lower back hurt which I don't think is normal or a good thing. There was no gradual easing into them either, one second I barely knew I was having a contraction and the next minute I couldn't miss 'em. All day, they had been occurring every 4-5 minutes (which is what you want), but all day, they'd been trying to increase the intensity and suddenly they succeeded.

So as I mentioned yesterday, I pretty much broke down right away and asked for the epidural. But it turned out that some one else was having an emergency and the anesthesiologist was busy with her and couldn't get to me for a while. So I ended up gritting my teeth through contractions every 5 minutes for over an hour before God came and inserted a long ass needle up my back.

To be continued . . .