Home from the hospital for over a week. Hard to believe; the eat-sleep-diaper change cycle (or sleep-diaper change-eat or diaper-change-eat-diaper-change-sleep-diaper change-diaper change-eat-diaper change cycle) has made the days and nights all sort of blend together. With grandparents temporarily in residence, it is quite possible that Miss Elisabeth Lucy is the most adored baby on the planet. As it should be.
Yet somehow, off-hand comments about “the next one” have snuck into conversation. The next one? Are you kidding me? I’ve been told that women simply forget the uncomfortable-ness of pregnancy and the pain of labor – or else why on Earth would anyone ever put themselves through that again? I am skeptical.
My contractions started on Sunday evening. Of course – that way I got to stay up all night before going into active labor! Three cheers for sleep deprivation! My hospital’s rule was to come in at 4-1-1: When contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasted 1 minute each, and had been this way for 1 hour. Screw your rules, I say! My contractions showed no consistency in length or time apart, so after a very unpleasant and sleepless night, I determined the hospital would just have to admit me anyway, and off we went around 6:00 AM.
What do you know, but the doctor I had seen my past two appointments happened to be there.
“Hey! Good to see you in here before the holiday!” Yeah, good, let’s move this along. In triage, the nurse had determined I was 3 centimeters dilated (that’s all?!), 90% effaced and at zero station. I didn’t really know what any of that means, but judging from her chipper tone, I took it to be a good thing. Except for the only 3 centimeters. The doctor confirmed all this and sent me on a walk to move things along.
Walk? After the longest hour-walk in the history of man, I was re-admitted and told that absolutely nothing had changed. Of course not.
“You have two options,” the Doc informed me. “You can go home and come back a few days later once you’re more dilated. Or you can stay here and we can administer Pitocin to strengthen your contractions. But I know you wanted to do things as naturally as possible.”
Hold the phone.
Go home? And endure this agony for DAYS? More alarming than that prospect was his use of the word “Natural”. I hastily corrected him.
“Oh no, no. I was hoping not to have to be induced, but now that things have started on their own, please do whatever possible to make this be over as fast as possible. Except the foley bulb.”
I won’t go into what the foley bulb is right here, but it is positively medieval.
“Also,” I continued, “I want an epidural. Just so we are clear.”
With that, I was whisked away into Labor & Delivery, hooked up to the IV, and pumped with that devil of a drug Pitocin. Ouch. After three hours of that stuff coursing through my veins, intensifying and elongating the contractions, I had dilated all of 1 centimeter more. “But you’re at zero station and 90% effaced!” a nurse announced excitedly.
“But that’s what I was when I was admitted!” I wailed.
“Oh.” Silence.
The kind doctor decided to put me out of my misery and go ahead and give me the epidural, even though he would have preferred I be a little farther along. I did not protest. Through the uncontrollable shaking and husband hand-squeezing (which I thought was terribly cliché, but actually quite helpful), I could not for the life of me imagine why anyone would choose to do this naturally.
The epidural was bliss. Pure bliss. I napped. It was glorious. Until it wasn’t. Somehow, it stopped working and the contractions returned with a vengeance. (Okay, they never went away, but you know what I mean). My little personal pain pump thingamajigy wasn’t working! And the anesthesiologist was in an emergency c-section and unable to fix it for another hour and a half. I tried to keep a brave face for the nurses, tried to seem strong, but it was pure torture. Again I was struck by the question- why do women choose do this naturally? And what about the women who don’t have a choice! I cannot imagine! Good for you, gals. And I thought I had a high threshold for pain.
Damon – forever the optimist – left a voicemail for my dad, saying something to this effect: “Diana is doing great, the epidural really kicked in, blah blah blah”.
This prompted the following text to my father: “Damon mistaken. Epidural WAS working but stopped! This is the only grandchild you’re getting.”
Eventually I was administered something that completely numbed my legs for a good 12 hours, at least. So worth it. And a few hours later Elisabeth entered the world.
And it was joy.
But joy enough to consider doing it again anytime soon? Ha! Well, okay, yeah, probably. But hold your horses, people, and give me my time to “forget”.
Oh Diana…what an awesome story of your birth! I loved the drugs also. Labor is exactly that…LABOR. How is Baby Wise going?