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[Previous entry: "That came out of me??"] [Next entry: "The Baby Daddy"] 06/08/2007: "The Greatest Story I Ever Told (also, possibly the longest)"
Dessa came home with us a week ago today. Dave describes this time as being marked by events, not days, and it's true. I cannot with any certainty tell you when I took the baby in to see the pediatrician who told us the bilirubin numbers that defined her jaundice were not high enough for her to need the lights but just to get her some sun (Tuesday? Possibly), but I know exactly what Dessa's first measured number was (16.1). I know that her cord fell off before she was a week old, which I believe means Wednesday, but since I didn't write it down I wouldn't take an oath on it. After calling Kaiser at 5 pm, 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm, I finally talk to a nurse who takes pity on me and just tells me to come in at 10 pm. Apparently it's a busy night on the ward and it will continue like this, though we don't know it yet. With a definite plan in place, we begin to scurry a little. It suddenly becomes imperative to put together the Pack 'n Play, for example. When it's done it's already 9:15 and we take everything out to the car, including the dog, who we drop off at my mom's house with promises to call her as soon as we know what's going on. When we get to the hospital I am shown directly into a large birthing suite. It's pretty posh I have to admit, with lots of room, a private bathroom with shower and everything we need right there. I'm told to strip completely and put on a gown. I'm immediately uncomfortable because I live my life in a bra. If you were a FF cup you would too. But I follow instructions and am soon hooked up to the familiar heartrate and contraction monitors from the NSTs. These monitors will become my constant companions through labor and I will come to hate them, but at first it is simply routine. It is a sign of things to come though, that the monitors go on since one of the items in my birth plan was that I only wanted intermittent monitoring. With an induction it’s all monitoring, all the time, baby!  At this point it’s about 10:45 and virtually nothing happens for the next three hours. My room is right across from the nurse’s station, so we get all the good gossip. When I hear someone saying, “She’s got a foot in the vagina and no prenatal care!” I know I’m in for a long wait. “Footling breech,” I explain to Dave, all that time in front of the Discovery Health channel coming to my aid in understanding triage. Anyone with a foot in the vagina (ouch!) is farther ahead in the line than I can even see from where I am. Finally, things start to pick up a little. A nurse comes by to do intake paperwork. I hand over my birth plan, which various nurses and doctors tell me they’ve read but I get the feeling they think it’s sort of cute. “This is all great for a spontaneous labor but for you? Not so much. We’re doing this by sheer force of technology “ is the unspoken message I receive when I’m given an I.V. instead of a saline lock as listed in the plan. I do ask why we’re doing an I.V. and the nurse, Dawn with the plumeria tucked behind her ear, offers to get the doctor to talk about doing a saline lock instead but I know it will take an hour before the doctor can get to me, so I just get the I.V. I’ll be happy for it later, as it turns out. Now tethered to the two monitors, which are beginning to irritate me because they slip and I lose Dessa’s heartbeat with annoying regularity (which doesn’t bother me, because I know she’s fine, but nurses keep coming in to resettle the thing), and the I.V., I am effectively stuck in bed. On my back. Out goes point three of the birth plan – wishing to be able to move freely. In order to go to the bathroom I have to unplug the monitors, which occasionally brings in a nurse, and drag the I.V. pole in there with me. This becomes more and more cumbersome as times passes. And because of the I.V. fluids I’m being given, I need to pee often. At about 2:00 am a doctor I haven't met before and won't see again comes in, examines me and says I’m still a fingertip dilated, just as I was at Dr. Laidback's office earlier. She wheels in an ultrasound machine to confirm that Dessa is still head down, since it would be stupid to go through the induction if she's turned breech. We immediately see the back of her little round head right where it should be, so all systems are go. The doctor inserts the Cervadil, which will help ripen my cervix and it’s not the most fun experience I’ve ever had. For one thing, all my internals hurt – my cervix is very posterior and it takes a good deal of shoving to get a decent feel for it. Further, the Cervadil has pointy edges and I can feel it scrape when it’s placed. This is now the long boring part of labor. The Cervadil stays in place for 12 hours and then I get re-evaluated. If we’ve made progress, I move on to Pitocin. If not, we do another round of Cervadil – maybe two. I could be here for 36 hours before we even start the Pitocin. I’m frankly scared about this, but there’s little I can do but hope. We spend a fitful night in the suite – Dave gets a little sleep on an uncomfortable pull out chair cum bed but I don’t sleep at all. My back is hurting and the Cervadil kicks off mild contractions. I’m also distracted by the monitors, trying to ensure that we keep the heartbeat showing, though Dessa doesn’t really like it. She kicks and moves often, and when I shift to my side to get some of the pressure off my back, I lose the heartbeat. I hate the monitors. Sometime in the morning (9 am, maybe?) Dr. Laidback comes by to say hi and remind me that I could be in for another round of Cervadil. He clearly thinks this is going to take a while. He also says I’m allowed off the monitors for a while so I can walk the halls. I am slow but it feels good to be out of bed and tied only to the I.V. While I’m walking, my mom and sister arrive. By this time, the contractions have stopped and I don’t feel confident that the Cervadil has done much.  I’m supposed to be checked around 2:30 pm or so but it takes about an hour longer than that. Finally I call the nurse because I can feel that the Cervadil has slipped and it’s uncomfortable. She removes it and tells me to tell the doctor it fell out if he comes in. I find this funny – is she trying to hide the fact that she removed it, or does she really consider it to have fallen out? In any case, she lets the doctor know that I should be checked. The problem with a slow induction like this is that I’m last on the priority list. Everyone else’s body is doing something, but mine isn’t, so I can wait. On my back. When Dr. Laidback arrives and checks me, he pronounces me about 1 cm dilated but more effaced and says we can start the Pitocin. I’m relieved to be moving on to this next stage because the Cervadil stage was tedious. The nurse hooks me up by 4:20 pm and now the party really starts. Because I’ve progressed slowly the doctor is being aggressive with the Pitocin. Every 30 minutes I’ll be bumped up by 6 units. This is double the 3 units by which I would normally be increased, according to the nurse. The effect is nearly immediate. Within 10 minutes I am having contractions again, comparable to the strongest ones I had overnight. 10 minutes after that I have to focus more. By 5:30 I’ve been increased twice and have to breathe with my eyes closed. Everything distracts me. When a contraction starts, my sister takes my hand and Dave usually takes the other hand. Several times he tries to talk me through the surge, but I can’t stand to have anyone talking to me. I have this need to go deep inside myself just to stay on top of the pain. The contractions are 2 minutes apart and last a minute. They’re very regular, and I begin to dread seeing the nurse because I know it’s her job to increase my pain. I lose track of time. At some point, maybe around 6 pm, the nurse and doctor come in and check me. I’m at a solid 2 cm and am encouraged by this. A centimeter an hour is good progress and I’m a little behind that. They tell me about some pain management options, like fentanyl or an epidural. Because I’ve made some progress and I feel like I’m coping alright, I refuse anything for the time being. I think I’m thirsty at one point and ask for some Crystal Light – the sourness of lemonade sounds like it might be good. This is a big mistake. I take only a small sip, but with the next contraction I am so nauseous I think I’m going to vomit. I have the watery mouth thing and all that. Now I not only have to concentrate on the pain but also on not ralphing all over everyone. This is the point where I almost lose it. I can feel panic clawing at me and I think this is when I tell Dave, “I want to go home.” I know I can’t, of course, but home becomes this abstract idea of anywhere at all that doesn’t involve contractions. The almost-panic, the nausea, the fact that I know this is only the early stages and this is only going to get worse… I start to think about pain relief. When I close my eyes to breathe, my mind throws up all sorts of strange images. I don’t know where they come from, but they give me something to think about. I am underwater with several contractions, in a green field full of wild horses with others. Sometimes all I see are wide red bars sliding past each other. The contractions don’t build slowly; they come on fast and hard and mean. I know I’m becoming more and more afraid of them, which can’t be helping me. I try to focus on staying relaxed during contractions, but they continue to scare me. It’s taking everything I have just to keep from freaking out. Around 7 pm or so I give in and ask for a hit of fentanyl. I hope that it will be enough to help me relax and make some more progress. I’m scared of the contractions but I’m still more scared of the epidural. The nurse comes in and gives me the drugs during a contraction, straight into the I.V. This is where I’m grateful that that sucker was already in place. The last thing I need is a shot, or the rigmarole of placing the I.V. before I get the drugs. It’s no wonder that fentanyl is a tightly controlled substance. I still feel the contractions, still have to breathe through them; I just don’t care so damn much about them. My sense of time is completely screwed up. My contraction pattern does change a little but it feels like a much longer time between contractions that it actually is. I drift in the space between them with no fear of the next one, no real sense that more are coming. If I could have gone through the rest of the labor in that doped up state, I might well have. I am filled with that drugged up gratitude that causes you to drunk dial your exes and I almost slop all sorts of sentimental love on AC and Dave for being with me during labor. I check myself, though. I am not quite far enough gone to start the “I love you guys!” routine yet. The effects only last an hour in any case. Soon it starts to wear off and I am back to where I started, only worse because the Pitocin has been turned up a few more cranks. Now it’s after 8 pm and with every contraction I begin to fantasize about the epidural. “I don’t want to do this, I don’t have to do this, they make epidurals because of this,” I keep thinking. Finally I give in and tell Dave I’m done. Surprisingly, things move very fast. Dave goes out to tell the nurse and within a few minutes, she and the anesthesiologist are in the room with the gear. They are getting me up and ready to rock before it really registers for me. I ask to go to the bathroom before we start, since I don’t think contracting and having a full bladder will make placement any easier for anyone (mostly me) and off I go – monitors, I.V. and all. While I am in there, of course, I have a massive contraction and have to hold on to the sink for dear life. Waiting for the contraction to pass I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Little hint for you – when you’re in labor, don’t look at yourself. I am gray and bear quite a striking resemblance to roadkill. For all that I am shaking and scared to death of the epidural, it isn’t too bad. Getting it placed certainly hurts less than the contractions I have while having to stay perfectly still. The worst part is that I am shaking – from cold, pain or simple fear I have no idea. Probably all three – and hunching over to give the doctor access to the space is really uncomfortable. Dave says the whole procedure takes about 30 minutes from the time the doctor arrived to when he left but I have no sense of how long it was. All I know is that when he is finished, the doctor says, “Now the relief isn’t immediate. It’ll take about 10 to 15 minutes” and I whip my head around to check the time because if I‘m not in my happy place in 15 goddamn minutes, someone is going to answer to me. At that point it is 8:50 pm exactly. I feel one more contraction and then nothing. For the first time since November my back doesn’t hurt. I can lay there, hooked up to everything in the room, and I don’t care. I can feel the skin of my abdomen, but nothing inside. My legs become dead from the thighs to the ankles, but I can rotate my ankles and wiggle my toes. I watch, fascinated, as my contractions continue every 2 minutes like clockwork and I don’t feel a thing. The next two hours pass comfortably. We talk, we laugh, I am tired but mostly what I feel is relief. I am sorry for a few minutes that my natural birth is out the window, but I’m not actually very sorry about the epidural. I was never that attached to a natural birth for spiritual reasons or anything – it just seemed like the thing to do if I could. I’m grateful for the absence of pain, not just from the contractions but the intense discomfort of being tied to the bed. I’ve been in this really uncomfortable hospital bed for almost 24 hours now. A catheter is put in place about 45 minutes or so after I get the epidural and now the Herculean treks to the bathroom are obsolete. Again, all I really feel about that is relief. At 11 pm, a new doctor comes in to check my progress. I am happy to let her do the internal, because this time I know I won’t feel a thing. I am still at 2 centimeters. Over 5 hours and I’ve made no progress at all. It is then that I bless whoever invented epidurals, because if I hadn’t already had one, the news of having made no progress at all would have driven me to one. As it is I’ve saved myself two hours of pain. The new doctor isn’t concerned about the news and just reiterates that this is going to take a while. Since nothing exciting is happening and it’s getting late, Mom and AC decide to go home for some well-earned sleep. After they leave, Dave and I settle in for the night. I am comfortable and can actually sleep. The night shift nurse, Lisa, comes by around 1 am to turn me from one side to the other and reattach the monitors. She returns at around 3 am to do it again. In between, I sleep, blissfully unaware of anything that’s happening. At around 4:15 am a bell goes off and I call Lisa. My epidural bag needs to be changed soon. While she’s there, I ask to be checked because I can feel some very vague pressure and I’m curious to know if anything has happened while I was sleeping. She changes the bag and putters around the room checking my I.V. for a while. I think she’s forgotten about the internal and ask if she needs to get the doctor for it. She’s really nice and tells me that she can do it and when she does, she murmurs, “You’re at 9.” I am shocked to the core. It is 4:30 am and I am at 9 centimeters. I went 7 centimeters in five and a half hours. Lisa looks at the clock. “You’ll have this baby by 7 am, I think,” she says with the confidence of someone who’s seen it all before. I call out to Dave to wake up and call my Mom. I can tell he’s surprised too and a little out of it, having been awakened unexpectedly. He brings me my toothbrush and paste and I brush my teeth, spitting into one of those blue plastic pan things that remind me of ice cream sundae bowls but that you only see in hospitals. Lisa comes in and out over the next hour and a half with things we’ll need for the birth. Nobody seems in any rush, everything is businesslike and efficient but I can’t help but feel excited. I worry for a bit that the epidural will be turned down and that this will all begin hurting again, but Lisa’s on top of things. The only thing I can feel is a vague sense of pressure deep inside of me, and I know - though it's hard to tell exactly how I know - that Dessa is moving downward. Mom and AC arrive and by 6:30 am the room is really hopping. The bed is set up, I am tilted back so that I’m laying flat, the monitors are moved to optimum position. My sister has to hold one of the monitors low on my belly because it slips too much otherwise. I'm never checked internally, but at about 6:45 I am told to try a push. It’s weird to push so hard and feel nothing. I try to focus on where I’m pushing, but it’s hard without any physical feedback. Nonetheless, after a push or two, I hear Dave laugh and ask, “Is that her head?” AC has moved a mirror into place so I can see what’s going on. At first I’m afraid to look but after I catch a glimpse of the darkness that is my daughter’s head, I am more motivated.  With each push, amniotic fluid gushes out, soaking the chux pads and getting Lisa a few times. I have the presence of mind to ask if it’s clear and it is. I feel tremendous relief. All this time and Dessa’s heartrate has been beautifully steady and she hasn’t passed meconium in utero. She’s not stressed and is tolerating the whole ordeal well. I’m not paying attention to the clock, but I know it’s not very long before the doctor arrives. I know this means we’re close, since the doctors only show up for the glory part. I am pushing with each contraction, though the contractions have become a little erratic and don’t quite come every 2 minutes like clockwork. Still, I am making good progress. I’m using handles on the side of the bed to pull myself up and curl around my body, and the next day my upper arms are really sore. My mom is videotaping and Dave and AC are counting with each contraction. I had thought that having people counting to ten over and over like that would drive me mad, but I find I like having the numbers to focus on. I count with them in my head. The doctor very matter of factly tells me I have a flap of skin that’s preventing the baby from getting out. “If I cut it, the baby will come out. Otherwise I think it’s going to tear.” “Cut it,” I say firmly. I am anxious to have the baby out and I don’t want to tear. An episiotomy is the least of my problems right now. With the next contraction I can hear the snip, snip of the scissors. I think I count four snips, which is a little alarming but my mother tells me later that the doctor was being very conservative, only cutting where he needed to. With the next push I feel a change, both in myself and in the energy in the room. Dessa’s head is born. I can’t see it because the doctor is blocking the mirror, but I don’t care. I ask if her head is out and everyone tells me yes. The only thing I can think is, “Please God, let her shoulders come out OK. No dystocia, please, oh please, oh please…” For me, this is the most frightening part of the birth. With the gestational diabetes, I don’t know how big she is and I’m terrified she’ll get stuck. One more push.  I hear her scream and when I look up, there is a bloody baby in the room.  All I can say is, “Oh! Oh!” over and over. I can hardly bring myself to touch her; she is too new and too small. She is remarkably small. This is not the ginormous baby of my diabetic fears. There are hands rubbing her and wiping her down, but in the midst of it all, she makes eye contact and takes my heart into her tiny little hands for her own. It is 7:14 am on May 31, 2007. Nothing in my life will ever mean more than this. I can scarcely breathe. Dave cuts the cord while I stare at this child who so suddenly and completely fills the room. After a few minutes Lisa takes Dessa to be weighed and checked out. She has us all make guesses about Dessa’s size. We all guess somewhere in the high 6 pound range. Only AC guesses over 7 pounds and she’s the closest because Dessa is 7 pounds, 8 ounces.  She is checked out and given her newborn procedures. She's 19 inches long, her APGARS are 9 and 9 and she's very alert. My birth plan had requested an hour before they did all the shots and stuff, but I don’t care that much at this point. I just want them to get finished with her so I can have her back. During all the fuss I hear Dave say, “Whoa” and I ask him what’s up. “The placenta,” he replies. So that motherfucking thing is gone. And good riddance, too. Troublemaker. I had hoped for a few minutes alone with it in a dark alley so I could kick it's gestational diabetes causing ass, but it's whisked away before I even see it, which is probably best for everyone involved. As I’m getting stitched up, they hand Dessa to Dave, who is quite choked up. It is beautiful to watch him meet his daughter, just as it’s been beautiful to watch him with her every day since.  Finally I am put back together enough to sit up and feed the baby. As soon as she’s latched and feeding, the phone calls start. Everyone’s on the phone – AC to my Aunt Ro, Mom to my Aunt Bean, Dave to his mother. It's pretty chaotic and funny and wonderful. In the middle of it all, we're a little island, getting to know each other.  I’m given the phone a few times but I’m so distracted that I don’t make any sense to anyone I talk to. I have a 30 minute old baby in my arms, three conversations going on and am trying to breastfeed. Not to mention the absolute high I am on. I couldn’t make sense on a bet. I don’t think anyone minds. I know I don't. |
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