The long-overdue story of his birth

The last time I saw my doctor, on Tuesday March 6th my doctor said, "Oh, by the way, don't have the baby this weekend because I won't be here." I said I had no intention of doing so because my mom and dad were gone and had to get back in time.

On Saturday March 10th I checked in at 10:00 AM or so, and then they hooked up the heartbeat monitor. I was checked and was 2 centimeters. Time to get up and make the contractions harder.

So I walked in the hall. The the contractions went away altogether for about twenty minutes! Crap, I thought, a sinking feeling taking over. Maybe this wasn't it?

The nurse prepared to check me again and she warned me, "Your doctor is not on call today. The doctor who is taking your case won't let you stay if you aren't making progress. He'll send you home." And then she said I was still only two centimeters. Time to go home.

I was bummed. But hungry. So I got a burger with the works and felt a million times better (hadn't eaten yet). We were feeling like we was robbed when we walked back in through the front door. Then about two hours later, the water broke!

That was a pretty exciting moment. It was like my golden ticket; they couldn't throw me out now.

Checked back in at six thirty p.m. Now I was 3-4 centimeters. The doctor came in and suggested petocin since even though I was in authentic labor they still were not going by the book because they were too irregular. Before they started the drip I remember the contractions starting to get really painful. Like I planned I dealt best with the pain by not breathing so that I could concentrate. Ben already knew that I liked silence and not to be touched or be coached. I had a different nurse and she said, "take a deep breath," and I ignored her. I held my breath the next time and she looked at Ben and said, "You can be reminding her to breathe and talk her through it." So Ben felt a little uncomfortable for a second and then when the contraction started he timidly said, "That's it, remember hee hee hoo hoo." And I found that incredibly distracting. The next contraction I got my chance to reestablish order; everyone was engaged in small talk so no one individual could be targeted and I said "SHHHHHHHH."

"I need to concentrate," I explained civilly.

There. So the contraction came again and I still wasn't breathing so the nurse said, "Okay, you have to breathe because the baby needs oxygen to cross the placenta during a contraction." That immediately made me breathe through every one from that point on, even though I didn't like it.

There was a moment when something happened with Elijah.... All of a sudden he did the mightiest kick against my tummy during a contraction and since the monitor was turned up loud already there was a huge "boom!" It scared me and I started to cry and I asked the nurse what that was and she said "what was what?" So I explained what I felt and she didn't answer. Then she said "Maybe you want to remove your children because it's been proven to cause trauma to children to hear their mother be in pain." I thought, okay, maybe I should think about that. Then I reasoned that if I could keep perfectly silent as I had been then there would be no need for it.

Time began to drag and I asked if I could be checked to see how I was progressing. The nurse told me that I should try and be checked as little as possible because interfering is always a bad thing. So I waited some more and then I said, well, what if we talked about some of the non-epidural pain-relievers to take the edge off? She said, "Okay, you need to know that they are all narcotics."

"Oh, that's right, there's a consequence of introducing that to the baby and that's not good; okay."

"No, what I want you to understand is that the first time you get injected the effect is very powerful but each time you take it subsequently its effectiveness wears off. So if you want to pace yourself you may not want to start it now."

So I thought that was good advice. The contractions went on for a bit again and I thought I better get an idea of how I was progressing through this petocin stuff so that I could pick the right time to start meds, if they would be needed at all. The nurse left the room for a little bit and I said to Ben, "I need you to help me. If you think you know what I really want, and it's not happening, I need you to speak up for me. Can you?" He said he would do that.

"So, how long then do you think I have left?" I asked her.

She answered, "I have no idea. My guess is, if you keep it up you could be having your baby by maybe 12 or one o' clock." It was only about 8 PM. That seemed like a really long time to me. More contractions went by, and I said, "Maybe I should be checked." And she replied, "If you want to be checked it's up to you. But remember that it's not good for keeping down the risk of infection." I turned my head away, feeling at a loss of what to say. I waited about twenty minutes and then suggested being checked again. No positive response. I thought of my girls, sitting over to the side of the room. I was starting to get tired, and the contractions were starting to have a new additional pain to them. I knew that if I had the epidural, then I could smile the rest of the time, and enjoy my girls, even have them sit with me. It wouldn't matter if it were one or five hours, once it was in. No more worry.

"What about an epidural?"

She became silent. "You want an epidural?" she asked with a tone of disbelief. More time passed. I looked at Ben. He looked at the nurse and said, "We're getting an epidural." He had a little twinkle of protectiveness in his eyes. She said, "Okay, I'll start the paperwork." Five or ten minutes passed and I asked, "Did you call the epidural guy? Is he on his way?" And she paused and said, "Um, I have a lot of paperwork to do and when it's all done then he will be called. Why don't you get ready to sit up now."

When I did sit up I was in jaw-trembling pain. The epidural guy came and put it in, and the girls were sent out while he did that. The nurse said, "okay let's get you laying back down so that it can administer." The epidural-guy was still in the room. She layed me on my back and roughly put in the catheter very, very fast. The epidural guy comforted me with his words, "In about 10 or 15 minutes, you should start feeling the effect. Maybe 20."

As soon as the catheter was shoved in she snapped on gloves quickly and checked me. "Hmm, I'd say, 9, or 10, good job." Then she jogged over to the nurse's phone and said, "I need the doc, I need ___, STAT." I said, "So, this means it's time to push?? I had my last baby with two pushes." The doc came in and she said to him in a faux-calm tone, "She had her last baby in two pushes," and he started rushing, putting on his stuff. "Feeling a lot of pressure?" Um, maybe, I thought, but whatever I thought could be pressure I had been feeling for maybe an hour.

I thought of the nurse and wondered if maybe she would say no to my girls coming in so I looked at Ben with the most commanding voice and said "Ben, go get the girls!" I didn't want her to tell me that I couldn't have them.

So it was time to push. About ten minutes into the pushing all the pain of the contractions went away. But it didn't deaden the pain of delivery, and that one got worse and worse. I got to the point where I didn't feel that I could push any longer. It was starting to tear. So I kind of quit. Then the nurse said, "You are the only one who can push this baby out." She was right. I realized that if this baby was bigger than the other two and I was going to tear, I'd have to choose to tear, so I set for it for the remaining ten minutes. Each time I pushed I screamed and I didn't care if I was loud. The nurse told me to stop screaming, and I ignored her. In those ten minutes I was thinking the doc was regretting not having the option to prepare with an episiotomy, so instead he was massaging the area. He kept rubbing his fingers in a circle between me and the baby's head. In my mind I pictured it more like someone hanging off the rim of a basketball hoop. Just hanging out. And the second or third time he did this I yelled "Get your hands off me!"

I was told later that he immediately threw his hands up like he was being arrested. He remained calm and didn't get mad. What a cool guy.

Things were a whole lot easier once he quit that, though. The baby came out in a total of only 20 minutes, twice as much as the last baby (still, pretty quick). Then, it was all over! Elijah cried immediately robustly but not too loud. When he looked in my eyes, though, he stopped crying. What I good baby. After I greeted him I said, "Did you hear your mama screaming baby? Well, it's all over now." He was born at 10:18 PM.

After they took care of Lijah it was just me and Mel and the nurse in the room. She said, "I need to get you upstairs now." So I said "Oh, my husband just took the girls downstairs and he'll be here in a just a moment." She replied, "Well we can't wait we need the room." So Mel packed up the stuff and the nurse said I had to go to the bathroom. She came over to help me out of the bed but my legs truly were dead. I went to stand up and... nothing. So I locked my knees and somehow made it. She came in and said, "Now if you can't go to the bathroom I'm going to have to cath you again," and walked back out. So, I had my marching orders apparently.

Before she left me in my new room I said, "Thanks for helping me get the pushing done. I really needed that." I was truly grateful for the help she had given me. But later I thought through the whole experience and realized she must have been upset when she realized I was right about needing to be checked more frequently. In one hour I went from 5-6 cm to 10. We could have followed her anti-meds, anti-epidural advice if she would have only checked me sometime after the petocin was started. That epidural was absolutely useless except maybe five or ten minutes of relief. Her goal was my goal so it makes no sense that we were at odds. I don't know what it was about me that she decided wasn't right. But in the end it doesn't matter. I was floating and peaceful and so pleased that I had a little boy. Everyone was quiet. And I was content.