Labor, Delivery, and Time Warps

 Babies warp time. There is no other explanation that my son is a one year old. I have raptly watched him go from a wriggling new arrival, to a bobble-head baby learning neck control, to a caterpillar-like creature doing “the worm” to propel, to a life-is-a-heart-attack-a-minute walking reaching getting-into-everything tiny bipedal human. Yet I look at the calendar and here we are. Somebody make me another espresso please.

How am I the mother of a 1 year old?!

In celebration and recognition of having birthed an amazing little human, I thought I would share what I can remember about my birthing experience. Here goes. Trigger warning: birth is primal and messy and I pull no punches.

Originally I was to be induced on October 12^th. I was lost in a sea of fluid retention and was having blood pressure spikes that would wake me up at four in the morning with head-stab headaches. When I would check my own blood pressure, I would get readings in the realm of 200/100. Weekly urine and blood tests confirmed all was well. I even did a 24 hour creatinine test. This is when the hospital gives you a large bright orange container, and you save all of your urine in it for a 24 hour period. And you keep it in your refrigerator. Yum.

I woke up around 4 am with the kind of excitement children feel Christmas morning. I kept calling the L&D floor of the hospital with instructions to call back in a few hours. After several go rounds I was told the floor was full. They rescheduled me for my original due date. My other half saved the day by declaring it a beach day. Baby boy would have to stay in the mom jacuzzi a few more days.

The day did finally come, and I was on the L&D floor bright and early. To start things off, two different nurses tried five times to get an IV started, blowing every vein on the way. When I was down to one last possible IV site, I insisted they call in the anesthesiologist. He got it in one try. I was hooked up to a rolling wet bar of lactated ringers (a common IV fluid) and Pitocin to start labor. My OB came along at some point and performed a procedure to get labor rolling. My body was holding steady at a “hard one” so far, meaning my cervix was soft, but I was only dilated enough for my OB to slide her finger through my cervix and touch my baby's head, but that was it. One centimeter. A catheter was inserted through my vagina and into my cervical opening, and then a balloon in that catheter was filled with water to about 30 milliliters, to about the size of a ping pong ball. This eventually did nothing besides serve to be really uncomfortable.

After about 12 hours of labor, I was only dilated to 4 ½ cm, and contractions started rolling one on top of the next. I remember I was trying to watch the fabulous indie movie Ink, and lost my ability to be distracted. Mixed into this approximate portion of the process was much heaving and vomiting into a bucket even though I had not eaten anything. I held my bucket like we were drunken buddies and filled it with stomach acid. I was allowed three doses of morphine upon request, as long as they were an hour apart. Plenty of research was done on the dosing and timing, because that is exactly how long they last. When I was down to my last available dose and not even quite half way to fully dilated, I “caved” and requested an epidural. I really wanted to do it all natural. I really wanted to read the pile of books about having a baby that came to me with loving intent (CAN'T HAVE THIS BABY TILL I READ ALL THESE!). I really wanted to live through child birth.

I had purchased a new sports bra for the big day. I also wore a loose swingy spandex skirt for modesty. The anesthesiologist that had gotten IV access into my hand reappeared. Details are fuzzy but I'm not sure where my skirt had gotten to. My sports bra was the sort that had to go on and off like a top, it had no hook opening like a conventional bra. My last dose of morphine was wearing off. Rapidly. I could no longer cooperate and be still and remove a clothing item overhead. Duncan was given a directive and then my beloved was holding me still and cutting my short-lived bra off of me. The only thing I wore from this point until my baby was born was a baby monitor strapped around my ample body.

Strangely enough it registered to me that the doctor that came to give me an epidural looked middle eastern in a way I could not quite place, and I wondered if the sight of a naked keening white woman in labor was offensive to him. Not that I could have done anything to change the situation. The man was a dark skinned angel sent to get me through. For all the surreality of the situation, his disposition was no different than if we were just sitting down to have tea at an outdoor cafe in Paris. He calmly explained everything he was about to do or was doing, politely pausing between the not bashful vocalizations of my current physical state. The relief was instant.

And then.

My blood pressure is naturally low, usually running about 106/60 at rest before I started getting spikes towards the end of my pregnancy. A possible side effect of spinal anesthesia is hypotension- a drop in blood pressure. I felt myself slide down to somewhere around 80-90 over 40-50. This is low. Pass out low. The nurse and anesthesiologist quickly administered several doses of epinephrine to bring my pressure back up.

The ensuing night was a strange twilight of me being rolled from side to side because the baby was showing signs of distress. I didn't really sleep and I was also not fully in reality. My Pitocin dose- which had been gradually increased was lowered a bit to ease the strain on my son. Duncan slept uncomfortably in a hard recliner in the room while my mom restlessly stalked the hospital hallways. As the next morning's light was coming through the window I had attuned myself to the sound of the baby heart monitor and was turning myself when I would hear his pulse slow before the nurse could get to me. I was gently scolded for this. My job was to have a baby and let the nurses do their job.

At some point during all this, my OB broke my water. I remembered there was an ultrasound somewhere near the end of my pregnancy to measure my amniotic fluid level. The minimum safe number was five (whatever that meant) and I came in at 12. My water was with out end. I lost count of how many times the nurses changed my bed pad under me.

My OB checked me again and told me the right side of my cervix was opening, but the left side was not passing over the baby's head. I told her to push it back manually. She put her fingers in place and when my next contraction hit I pushed against her fingers, and she pushed back. There was a pop and a give.

I was so close but it was taking too long, I needed to open the last two centimeters. The OB started talking about a C section, for the baby's sake. I went cold. I wanted my son safe, and I did not want major abdominal surgery. I did not want to be cut open. I asked Duncan to come close and pray with me. He was at my right bedside. The light playing across his face created light and shadow that made the left side of his face look like it was made of metal. Or maybe it was the fentanyl in the epidural. Definitely the fentanyl.

At some point Duncan went in search of food, and just about the time he put the first bite in his mouth, he got the call that it was time for me to start pushing.

The epidural had taken more on my right side than the left, so I really needed that foot handed to me during contractions. I could feel contractions coming on my left side before they registered on the monitoring equipment. Duncan started on my right leg, but quickly handed off to my Mumma Gail after I yelled at him for doing more texting and communicating with family than handing me my foot. YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! For the next three hours, my nurse coached me on my left and my mom had my right. When a contraction would hit, I would grab my feet (as they were handed to me) and pull them roughly chest high while spreading them apart until my knees touched the bed on either side of me while pushing with all my might for a slow count of ten. Yes, my knees were being pushed to the bed approximately in my armpits. At some point a mirror was brought in for me to visualize baby's head while I pushed. It was put in place just in time for me to see my skin tear- from my vaginal opening up to my urethra, and down to my rectum. I watched the rivulet of blood well up and flow while I pushed.

Some time shortly after that my son popped into the world. Once his head cleared the body rocketed after, followed by another small geyser of amniotic fluid. I wanted delayed cord clamping but he was pale and wild eyed and in need of some respiratory support. I made eye contact with him and noticed how perfect his little ears were. My umbilical cord was thick and short, so he could not be placed on my chest, only reaching my stomach.

(And let me just take a moment to acknowledge the nurses that tended to me through the entire process. The encouragement, the support, the endless bedding changes and the aftercare. Not to mention the RN that held my right leg and coached me through three hours of pushing after 27 hours labor. 12 hour shift to shift I had the same two nurses through all of labor and delivery – 4 overlapping shifts – and have a whole new appreciation for what out L&D nurses do. They do most of the work and the Doctor comes in when “it's time.”)

As I was being stitched up I craned my head to see him, but the bed rail was in the way. It was taking him too long to cry, and then it was the most beautiful sound I ever heard. The sound of my son. I am a mother.

Duncan and Mom with a brand new Duper

18 hours old