Birth Story #1 Part 2

I picked up the cold pay phone receiver, pressed the cold buttons, and shivered as I told my husband the news.  The pay phone made our conversation difficult to understand, he rushed to the hospital while I stopped by home to pack my bag and put some laundry into the washing machine.  When I finally arrived to reassure him, we were unceremoniously admitted to the hospital.

At 4 pm the nurses applied prostaglandin to my forbidding cervix (50% effaced and not even 1 cm.) The prostoglandin burned into my tissue, the IV dripped into my veins, my bladder swelled, and my sciatic nerve cringed as I was ordered to lay on my left side and not use the restroom for an hour--the longest hour of my life. The procedure was repeated at 10 pm for the second longest hour of my life.

My last childless night's sleep ended abruptly at 6 am with the nurses administering pitocin. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan was my breakfast.  While Captian Kirk was threatened by the earwig zombies the pitocin took hold of me.  Violent cramps gripped me every minute, just as one taperd off another began.  I'm was at 3 cm now and the doctor cleared me for an epidural at my will. H'e'd also like to break my water.

Okay...

(I was niave and uneducated. And it pains me to this day.)

The doctor sat with one knee up on the foot of the bed. And with a long, thin, flexible hook my baby's only world was penetrated and all our hopes of a normal delivery drained onto my socks.

Almost immediately the baby showed signs of fetal distress. The pitocin was sharp while the oxygen was smooth.  But nothing could comfort my baby now.  The doctor said this is the moment he's been preparing me for, it will have to be a c-section.  Inbetween overlapping contractions I signed the consent forms.

The mustardy operating room bustled with a dozen staff.  I felt like I'd been thrown back to the 80s when women pushed the boundries of femenity and roles.  I was stripped, preped and poked while nature looked on through the unbreakable hospital glass. The bustle died down and the surgery began.  While the doctor talked about golf and asked for pliers, I lay drugged while the smell of my cauterized flesh wafted in the air. I so wanted to be a part of my baby's births, but my utterances and questions were met with polite tolerance.  The doctor found the problem; there was a knot in her umbilical cord.

The baby was born and my husband was at her side. Eventually she cried. Like a bottle of wine she was shown to me, but the operating shield was up to my chin and the drugs made my head feel like lead so I had to cross my eyes to see her and then she was gone. My vital parts were replaced to their "approximate anotomical locations" and I was sown up and wheeled to my room.

Hours later the baby was finally brought to me for her first feeding.  I was too nauseous to move.  The nurse forced the sleepy head onto my breast like a child forces Barbie and Ken to kiss.  She would quicly learn to latch the next day (though her low blood sugar kept us in the hospital for a week) but at last I lay dreaming and sleeping with the 4 lb 7 oz bundle tucked in my arm, she was finally mine and I was a mother.