01 November 2012

Knocked Up No Longer

"We'll just let her continue percolating in there until she's good and ready to come out on her own."

Wow, did that blithe comment ever come back to bite me in the ass. To recap:

23 October, 3am - Wake up with evil backache and need to pee every 30 minutes. Sleep: none.

23 October, 10am - Send Mon Amour off to work; useless for him to sit around and fret when it's not actually time to go to the hospital yet. Lay in bed feeling generally lousy.

23 October, 3pm-ish - I call Mon Amour at work to have him tell his boss that there's a good probability that he won't be back for the evening shift. Mon Amour immediately rushes home all a flutter.

23 October, 5.30pm - Contractions about 5 minutes apart and was that a trickle of amniotic fluid? Off to the clinic!

23 October, 6pm - contractions no longer regular and according to the very nice gay OB, I'm tighter than a twelve year old (vulgar phrasing mine, natch). They send us home. In the car ride home the contractions are back to 5 minutes apart, leaving me to bitch that they should monitor me in the car.

23 October, 10pm - Contractions stronger and more frequent, plus I am spotting pink. We call my anesthiesiologist friend to double check we should head back to the clinic; I will not be responsible for my actions if we get there and they send us home a second time.

Luckily they admit us, but I am only very slightly effaced.

24 October, 3am - Contractions stronger and I hunt down the OB on shift as instructed as the spotting has become heavier and is bright red. She says things are progressing slowly and I'm about 50% effaced. Rest of night spent breathing through my contractions. Sleep: zero.

24th October, morning - Hooked up to the monitor again. I will come to hate these machines by the time I leave. . Monitor shows little even though I am having strong contractions whole hooked up to it. Apparently happens sometimes, where a good reading is difficult due to the belly position. Doc on shift says I am fully effaced and its just a question of waiting.

24 October - Throughout the day the contractions lessen in frequency, but not strength. This is where I start to dread the monitor as I have some bitch tell me to walk the corridors unless I want to give birth "in a month" I manage not to say "Fuck you cunt" somehow. They seem to hook me up to the monitors when I am at a low activity period. In spite of one lovely OB who actually explains that contractions tend to diminish during the day, I continue to feel like a bad student at every monitoring session.

I send Mon Amour and my mother off with strict instructions to eat a decent meal and get some sleep; they both slept on the waiting room couches the night before and are exhausted.

25 October 3.30am - Contractions are back with a vengeance and I ring the on shift OB. She hooks me up to the monitor and I pray to the gods that it makes a decent reading.

It does and even better us the news that I am 3cm dilated. This means I can proceed to the delivery room and more importantly, DRUGS. Which I would do a happy dance about if it weren't for the pain and the fact that I am already exhausted.

I call Mon Amour and tell him to drive carefully back to the hospital.

25 October 4am - Sweet sweet epidural how I love thee. Mon Amour arrives and I know the pain has receded because he looks sort of hot in his disposable scrubs. They'll ne back to check on progress at 6 am, so we catch some much needed shuteye but not before I have a "Did my water just break?" moment. Answer: no, but the epidural is making your kegels useless.

25 October, 6am - still at 3-4 cm dilated. They try to break my water but can't get a good feel on it, prompting speculation that I've broken high in the placenta, leading to a slow trickle of amniotic fluid. She'll have me eat breakfast, walk around and try again.

7.30 am - no sign of breakfast. They unhook me from the monitor so I can walk around a bit. Sitting up breaks my water and I incontinently dribble all over the bathroom while mopping up. Amniotic fluid is apparently sticky as later my flip flops adhere to the bathroom floor.

And the rest of the day passes in a daze of sleep and dilation checks, where progress is being made ever so slowly.

Peanut gets in some last rounds of heartburn, one of which makes me hurl bile into the sink.

I'm allowed small sips of water but I'm dying of thirst. It becomes a game with Mon amour as to how much he lets me drink. I remind him a woman in labor is always right. I would kill for some ice chips.

At one of our walks up and down the corridor, I realize I am feeling slightly stoned and tell Mon amour as such. He reminds me he's seen me way more fucked up. Ha.

At some point they give me oxytocin or whatever to help speed the dialation along. I also have a fever, most likely from labor stress, so they give me something to knock that down and a water/glucose IV for energy and to rehydrate me. My mouth feels like a slightly arid oasis instead of the Gobi desert.

At 3.30pm-ish I am around 9cm dilated but Peanut is still too high up and hasn't started coming down the birth canal. The doctor says they'll give it an hour but a cesarean looks likely.

And that's where I sort of loose it. Ok, not sort of. I'm a blubbering mess. I don't want a fucking cesarean. I've been in labor (medically defined or not) for 2 fucking days and the idea of recovering from abdominal surgery for the next 6 weeks is not appealing in the least.

I'll also cop to not being entirely rational at his point; as Mon amour points out, I've been in full blown labour for 12 hours now epidural or no, and its important that Peanut and I are both healthy. Logically I get that but it doesn't stop the blubbering. Mon amour steps out to speak with the doc who says we'll give it an hour and make a decision then. In the meantime I should stand up to see if that helps position Peanut.

They also give me a shot of Ritalin as the left side of my cervix is thickening or freezing up. At this point I'm starting to feel the contractions a bit more but nothing a bit of breathing can't handle. Mon amour helps me stand up.

And motherfucking OUCH. Every contraction feels concentrated on the left side. Hitting the magic "extra drugs" button does fuck all. I have to lay back down. We wait for my friend to come up and check my epidural as she is on shift, but busy with an emergency. In the meantime they have me push a bit to try and move Peanut along. My legs start to shake uncontrollably from fatigue.

Through it all Mon Amour is superbly calm and coaches me through it. For someone who was super anxious that he would faint in the delivery room, he's become the rock I can lean on, the lighthouse I can focus on. Which sounds super cheesy but really I get to a point where I can only focus on his voice. The fever is back again.

My friend comes up and we determine that the epidural has moved slightly which us why I can feel everything on the left and nothing on the right. I'm given another megadose of epidural and I'm ready to chuck in the towel. Being on the cesarean, I can't do this anymore. They check me one more time.

Well well well, look who has decided to sashay down the birth canal finally.

A couple of preparatory pushes and I can feel her head pushing down (am feeling noooooo pain now after 13+ hours of epidurals plus the last mega dose). They ready the bed and give me something I can pull and hold onto. Mon amour holds my head up while I push. 6 or 7 pushes and she is out, and Mon Amour bursts into tears.

They put her on my chest and here's this tiny little bloody creature looking at me with Mon Amour's blue eyes.

I get to hold her for a bit and then they take her for observation due to my fever.

The rest is sort of a drug/adrenalin blur. I do remember looking at a blood splatter up on the wall and asking if I did that (it was from cutting the cord)

25 October 2012 @ 17.13
3,190 kg
50cm
Dark brown hair & daddy's blue eyes

Hullo Peanut.
You'd better belieeeeeve the story of your birth is gonna be repeated to you ad nasuem :P

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