As I draw closer to the end of this pregnancy I find myself, naturally, very contemplative of not only birth in general, but of the one birth experience I have had thus far. I think over how David’s birth unfolded and how it was empowering (though not the way I had imagined it) and how it changed my life forever. I have started to write down his birth story a hundred times, and yet every time I stop. I could not write out his story without my bitter hatred of the situation flowing into it. And while, yes, it was a very much less than wonderful birth experience, it still brought me the little boy around whom my world revolves and I didn’t want that much bitterness tainting the moment of his arrival, even in the written word. This pregnancy has been a time of healing for me, of returning to what I instinctively wanted and of sinking deeper into knowledge gained. I have come to accept that I can’t provide the distinct lack of bitterness that I wanted, and that perhaps I’m not supposed to. David’s birth was awful, horrible, and a series of abuses pushed on by what has become medically normal. It was also wonderful. Perhaps most importantly it was the catalyst that finally made me stand tall and do what I should have done all along – trust myself and my body, take my stand as a woman and a mother, to seek knowledge to protect myself and my children.
Before I get into the actual birth story it is vital to understand one thing: I hate hospitals. I loathe them with every fiber of my being. It is the type and power of hatred that can only be born out of anger and desperate fear. My grandmother suffered horribly in hospitals, forced to relive childhood abuses through hallucinations, strapped to a bed, because the doctors and nurses wouldn’t listen to our warnings that certain pain meds caused her to hallucinate. They gave her the meds anyway because that was what “normal procedure” was. It stressed her so much that she slipped into a coma and never awoke. They didn’t necessarily kill her, it was her time, but they made her passing much more horrific than it ever needed to be. I have never liked doctors and never been a very trusting person, but my grandmother’s death broke something inside of me and slashed a huge scar across my soul. Even prior to David’s birth the mere act of driving past a hospital would cause my heart to race and blood pressure to rise. The sterile smell of a medical office was enough to send me into a quaking panic, struggling to hold the contents of my stomach inside.
I mention this aversion, hatred, phobia (call it what you will) because I had to face it when I became pregnant with David. I managed to avoid having any official prenatal care until 20 weeks before pressure from both Lawrence and my mother pushed me into making an appointment with a local OB and going in. I knew it was unavoidable – Lawrence was terrified of birth and going to an OB was just what one did. The idea of birthing at home appealed greatly to me, but at that point the only people I knew that had done it were a great deal more crunchy that I was. I was scared and just wanted everything to be okay. I reasoned out that I could keep myself under control for the 30 minute OB appointments and privately planned to labor as long as possible at home, hoping to deliver not long after arriving at the hospital or even accidentally having the baby at home and then transferring. Because of this I didn’t bother to really screen the OB, instead picking the one with the office closest to my apartment (we didn’t have a car at that point). I suffered through the appointments with this somewhat offensive OB and his twisted sense of humor, clinging onto the fact that if all went according to any number of my top birth plans that I wouldn’t have to deal with him at all, or at least very, very little.
And then the day arrived. I was 37 weeks 4 days. It had been hot enough that anything (food, water etc) sounded absolutely nasty. I was in taking only enough to sustain myself. I knew I was somewhat dehydrated and tried to get enough water, but found it hard to choke down. It made me so nauseated.
We went in for our scheduled OB appointment. The nurse took my blood pressure (normally somewhere between 115-130/something in the seventies) and it was 145/90. She completely freaked out and went running to get the OB. He took my blood pressure again. I knew enough at this point to realize all my dreams of an relatively hands off birth were going down the drain so fast I didn’t even get a chance to wave good-bye. The stress of the nurse’s freak out, coupled with the knowledge of the suggestions that were sure to come next, raised my blood pressure even more. 154/94. The OB sat us down and on blood pressure alone told me that I had pre-ecclampsia and that I’d either need bed rest for weeks with my bp checked hourly or he could go ahead and induce me that day. He preferred to induce me, especially because he had a hiking/camping trip planned with his adult sons for that week.
I didn’t want to induce. At all. But I looked over at Lawrence and knew that I didn’t have any other choice. Lawrence was almost as terrified of birth as I was of hospitals and the OB’s words did nothing to convince him that the baby and I weren’t about to drop dead on the spot. He had a huge final paper and presentation coming up. If he was busy worrying about me his grades would suffer and he wouldn’t get into his program. Feeling like I wanted to throw up all over everything I made my voice not shake and agreed to an induction.
4:30pm found us at the hospital settling me into one of those hateful, uncomfortable bed. Nurse inserted IV to keep me hydrated (because, don’t you know, eating or drinking during birth is BAD. Mutter.) took my bp (it had gone down some) and left us alone for a little bit. Came back after 45 minutes or so to start the pitocin and check my bp. My blood pressure was back at normal levels. “Oh, you probably don’t need to be induced. It was likely elevated because you were dehydrated. Let me go talk to [OB]“. I could have kissed that woman for the brief ray of sunshine. Don’t worry though, the OB was more than happy to rain all over my parade. I was already admitted to the hospital, hooked up, and ready to go – of course we still had to induce.
Bastard just wanted me out of the way so he could go hiking.
So they started the pitocin. About an hour and a half later I was just barely starting to have contractions. Barely as in “hardly could tell and wouldn’t have guessed if the nurse didn’t show me how to read the stupid monitor”. OB comes in to check me (Nurse just had and found me to be dilated to a 2/2.5 – what I had been upon admission) and tells me that we should get things moving. So he breaks my waters. He doesn’t tell me until after he does it and there’s the huge gush of escaping fluids, as if somehow I would have never guessed if he didn’t explain it to me. That made me furious. Especially because now I was on an inescapable time table – 24 hours before everyone on God’s green earth started freaking out.
OB left. Evening continued. I talked with Lawrence, read some, and tried to retreat to my happy self-hypnosis place. Carefully I built my grandparents garden in my head. There were the trails that Papa had designed, and the raised beds in which he grew a small amount of vegetables. There were the steps leading down to his shop and around the corner was the flowering cherry tree set among a small field of ferns. And there, there most of all, was grandma’s rose garden, with the bushes we had planted and pruned together – their bright colors waving in the soft breeze, their perfume filling the air. I retreated and I breathed and I willed the contractions to become stronger, to be more effective. But my body and my baby wasn’t ready. And I knew it.
Lawrence popped the Netflix movie into the computer and we watched that. The nurses checked me off and on and reported that I was maybe a 3, but they weren’t sure. They came and they scolded me for twitching and disturbing their precious external monitor. They turned up my pitocin. I furiously munched on the allotted tiny bit of ice. The contractions picked up a bit around 9:30 – probably because they’d turned my pitocin up so high. They had birth balls available so I requested one. I wanted out of the bed and not only did the birth ball sound like a more comfortable idea I figured that since they were offering me one it meant that they might just leave me alone and let me move around. I knew if I could just move and stretch and do what my body wanted that I could make this contractions more effective.
The ball was wonderful. I felt, for the first time since entering that stupid place, that I was actually doing something productive. That my body was actually working. I found a bit of peace in that and hoped for a better evening.
No such luck. The nurse that had been attending me had another patient that was actually giving birth and was attending her. I got stuck with a replacement who was so uptight and by the book that it made me scream. Literally. Within ten minutes she was in there badgering me for moving. They had to keep track of the heart beat. I had to stop moving. I was going to kill my baby. And all of this at the top of her voice in a shrill, screechy voice. (David was fine, btw, absolutely no signs of distress). I could have strangled her, happily, with my bare hands and a grin on my face. Arguing with her stole away any peace and progress that I had made. In that moment I came to realize that I could insist on my rights as long as I wanted but that I would never get anything but arguments and shrill voices telling me what to do. I didn’t want to do what was “normal procedure”. I didn’t want the pain meds and the cliche moaning and yelling. I wanted to be left alone to listen to my body. God forbid it actually do what it was designed to do all. by. itself.
I gave up and climbed back into the bed. I had Lawrence put in “Chronicles of Riddick”. A strange choice, perhaps, but I found Vin Diesel’s voice soothing. It was my only comfort in the dark spiral of my thoughts. If the Devil had shown up, contract in hand, my soul for getting me and my baby out of that hospital I would have signed it, no questions asked.
The night wore on. My pitocin was so high that my contractions had no choice but to be exceptionally intense, though still highly ineffective. At midnight I was barely dilated to a 4. The nurses came and went and occasionally the OB poked his head to shake his head and glare and tell me to get on with it. I knew I could make my contractions more effective. My body wanted to get up and move around. It wanted to walk, it wanted to squat, it wanted to lean over the edge of the bed and rock back and forth. I didn’t even try. It would get me nothing but a yelling, screaming, witch of a nurse. It would get nothing but a husband, provoked into an extreme panic by the nurse’s actions. It would get me nothing but back in that stupid bed, consumed by all the things I hated. I was exhausted and starving and I would have done anything for the brief comfort of a single swallow of water. But I could have none of those things. So I just lay there and cried to myself.
At midnight I agreed to an epidural. I knew it wouldn’t work. A small part of me hoped it would, but I knew it wouldn’t. Pain meds never work for me. Childhood dentists were scared to fill my cavities because of the extremely high (and frequent) doses of Novocaine needed to keep me barely numb enough to work on. It would make Lawrence feel better though. It would allow him to exist on the illusion that everything was okay. What I forgot about was that an epidural instantly equaled internal monitoring and a catheter. God, I hated the catheter. It was, without question, the most physically painful part of my birth experience.
I managed to drift in and out of sleep from about 1am to 5:30 am. I was woken every 15 minutes by the machine taking my bp. It got to the point were I was just barely regaining feeling in my arm between each time. Lawrence slept a little here and there in the chair beside my bed. Every conscious minute I prayed to wake up and find this all a horrible nightmare.
A new nurse came at 6. She was kinder, more involved, and much more genuine that the previous yelling witch. I felt a little ray of hope. Desperately I tried to explain how I could still feel everything, how the epidural didn’t work. Could I please move around? Could she please take the catheter out? She brushed it off, though obviously more out of “I don’t know how to react to this, this has never happened before” than from any desire to play it strictly by whatever twisted book they shove down a nurse’s (or OBs) throat during their education. She just told me to use my little button and turn my epidural up as much as I wanted. I sighed and clicked it once to satisfy her. If she wasn’t going to help me I wanted her to get away from me. 6:30 am and I was dilated to a 5.
I continued to complain whenever the nurse came in to check on me. Eventually she removed the catheter, thinking that it had been put in incorrectly. Oh, sweet relief. Then, finally, she believed me. But, that didn’t matter. I had an epidural. Hospital policy dictated that I had to have a catheter. So, after about ten minutes, she put in a new one. Not long after that the anesthesiologist arrived and, without asking, put a dose of something in my IV with the words “this should pretty much paralyze you from the waist down, you shouldn’t feel a thing”. He gave it a minute and then asked me brightly “Can you wiggle your foot?” Glaring, I wiggled, moved, and kicked both of them, just to be sure he got the point. His face fell with a puzzled frown. “You shouldn’t be able to do that. That shouldn’t be possible.” A curious look crept onto his face. “I have something else I can try,” he turned, clearly intending to go and get it.
I caught his gaze and glared. “No. Get out.”
10:30 am, still a 5. I was so hungry, so thirsty. Physically I knew I was hydrated but I longed for the comfort of a sip of water. I would have killed my own mother for a glass of orange juice. I had Lawrence bring me ice chips which I’d encourage to melt with the heat of my hands, stealing sips when no one was looking. I called my mother. I sobbed. I was trapped in one of my worst nightmares, and worse, I had voluntarily locked myself into it. I hated myself, I hated that place. I just wanted out. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be somewhere where I felt safe.
The reality of my emotional and physical state began to sink in for Lawrence. The fears and worries I had expressed to him over the course of the pregnancy, things he had brushed off as me simply being nervous, suddenly were much more serious and much more weighty. I don’t cry, hardly ever, and here I was sobbing my eyes out, trying desperately to escape. He tried to calm me, he tried to be reassuring. When that didn’t work, he called my mom and had her try to calm me.
At ten to noon I called my nurse and told her that I wanted a c-section. I had to get out of there. I had to. She got a hold of the OB. He was busy at the moment but could do a c-section at 1pm. I agreed and hung up.
This, of course, hit Lawrence like a load of bricks. Throughout the entire pregnancy I had been quite clear that my “worse case scenarios” went something like: 1) Baby, myself, or both die during birth, 2) C-section, 3) Induction. I remember him trying to talk me out of it, telling me that I could do it. I knew the truth though. I knew that it had been 19 hours and I’d only dilated from a 2 to a 5. I knew that I only had 5 hours left before they’d cut me open anyway. I knew that I couldn’t physically, mentally, or emotionally take 5 more hours of “standardized care”.
I looked at the clock. Noon. I didn’t want to be induced and yet here I was. I didn’t want a c-section and yet I just requested one. What had this god forsaken place done to me? What had I done to me?
I have never, ever prayed so hard in my life as I did in that moment. And God, thankfully, heard and took pity upon me.
At not quite 12:30 my senses jarred out of depression. “I’m feeling the urge to push,” I told Lawrence. “You should probably let the nurse know.” He did. She didn’t really believe him (and, honestly, I can’t really blame her). I sent him back out to tell her. She came in, gloved up, and checked me out. The look of shock on her face was priceless. I was fully dilated. That’s right. From a 5 to pushing in just under 30 minutes. She put my feet up in the stirrups (so, so useless! But at that point, I didn’t care, I felt pushy! I was getting out of there!) and went to get the OB. I pushed for a while. It wasn’t horribly effective. My body knew it was in the wrong position. The urge to get up on my hands and knees was stronger than the urge to push. But that wasn’t an option. Nurse came back with another nurse and they started setting up equipment. OB arrived and sat down. “Finally, lets get that baby out of you!”
I could feel David starting to crown. This is it, I thought, I’m going to have my baby. I’m going to even get to do it vaginally, and despite the drugs they’ve pumped into me, I’m still going to get to push him out. OB had other plans. As soon as he could see the head in went the forceps. Rip. Out came baby. Apparently the small amount of time that it would have taken to push the baby out at that point was too much for him to bother with. With one hand he handed David off to the nurse, who clipped his cord and took him away. I got to see my baby for just long enough to tell that he was definitely a boy and then he was gone, screaming his head off and being shoved under bright lights. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the OB loop the cord around his hand and I could feel him yank. Hard. The only thing that saved him from me leaning over and gouging his eyes out as I started to bleed heavily was the fact that David’s cry of distress grew louder and the mothering instincts kicked into over drive. I couldn’t punish the OB because I was too busy trying to catch sight of my baby. Mine. He should have been with me and not all the way across the room.
Lawrence bounced back and forth. Yes, literally bounced. “It’s a boy!”, “He does look like a David.” “Definitely a David.” I could hear the click of the camera taking pictures. The OB shoved wads of gauze up me to hold back the hemorrhaging so he could stitch me up. His nifty move with the forceps had given me a 3rd degree tear. I must have flinched because he looked up at me. “Huh, you really can still feel everything.”
“Yes.” I replied shortly and then I ignored him. I wanted to see my baby. They brought him over to me. I got to hold him for just long enough to look at his face and give him a hug and then they were whisking him away. He had a cough, a little fluid in his lungs (obviously, since he hadn’t had the benefit of having it pushed out during the actual birth process) and needed to go to the NICU for a bit. Not long, they promised. 30 minutes to an hour, tops. I watched him go and sent Lawrence with them.
The OB finished stitching me up and then left. The nurses put away all of the sharp, shiny tools and left. The nurse actually assigned to me brought me some water and some orange juice. 32 ounces of each. I drank it all while I called my mom to report that she had a grandson named David. He was born at 1:15pm, 7 lbs 13 ounces, 20 inches long.
At 2pm they moved me to the maternity ward to my recovery room. Lawrence came back, almost dead on his feet. David should be returned to me momentarily, he said. I sent him home to shower, change, and eat. And maybe take a bit of a nap. When David still hadn’t been brought to me by 2:30 I started asking for him. The nurse, increasingly annoyed, kept telling me that he was in NICU and would be brought to me later. I ate disgusting hospital food. A different OB came to check on me. My OB was already gone. He’d left the hospital for his hiking trip by the time they moved me between rooms.
At 5, still no baby. A different nurse answered my call this time and I demanded that someone tell me what was going on. I had been promised my baby after a short, supposedly less than an hour, NICU visit. It had been almost 4 hours since his birth and I still hadn’t got to really hold him in my arms. What was going on, what was wrong with him that they weren’t telling me?
“Nothing,” the nurse said, looking surprised. “Your son isn’t in NICU, he’s here in the nursery and has been for at least three hours. I’ll go get him for you.” Apparently the other nurse had decided that I needed to rest, and that rest could not be accomplished with a baby in my arms or in my room. I told them, in no uncertain terms, that he was to remain with me at all times. End. Of. Story.
FINALLY. I was furious, but all of that rage vanished the second he was placed in my arms. Cuddling him close I settled down into the uncomfortable bed to gaze at his face and kiss his fingers. Here he was. He was mine and I was never letting him go.
We got to leave the hospital and go home Friday morning. Lawrence was convinced that I’d die if I didn’t stay the maximum 48 hours to get my “rest” at the hospital. I was happy to get out of there, to go home, to get away from that living nightmare. I was happy to go home and rest, because the truth is that I would never be able to rest in a hospital, much less after an experience like that. Having to constantly steal my baby back from the nurses (who tried to take him away to the nursery every time I closed my eyes or got up to go to the bathroom) and threaten them with kidnapping charges was not my idea of resting.
As they wheeled me out of the hospital and we loaded our precious little boy into the car and I climbed in beside him I heaved a sigh of relief. The door was shut, the car was on, we were pulling away. I was free. My baby was free. We had made it out of there without death or an unnecessary c-section. We were going home.
And I would never, ever give birth in the hospital again. Not unless it was 110% life or death. That was my promise to myself and to my future babies.
Never. Again.
