A Non-Graphic Account of Labor

What is this I don’t even

I’m actually quite proud of myself for how labor went. No one was maimed or scarred, no one died, and I was so determined to not make an ass of myself that I stayed completely focused. Didn’t even CRY. I think I can write off labor as my Biggest Moment of Badassery Ever.

Granted, towards the end I cheated and was drugged out of my mind, but I digress.

Midnight on February 18^th the contractions started. Like right at midnight. It was weird. They started off as uncomfortable, kindof painful cramps, then by 3am had escalated to “I need a heat pack.”

I had let Megan know somewhere after midnight that I was pretty sure labor was starting, so she could get a head start on the four hour drive to Pittsburgh. By 9am, those annoying cramps were not fucking around and it was time to go to the hospital. Megan showed up at 9:30. Pretty sure she strapped rocket packs to her car. Or at least broke a law or two.

I was hooked up to an IV and drained two bags of fluid and the contractions slowed down. The nurse had me get up and walk the halls for an hour, though I got super bored and quit after maybe thirty minutes of wandering the same eight feet of hall over and over with an IV pole.

At 2 in the afternoon they finally sent me home to suffer on my own. David and Megan took naps to catch up; we were pretty sure something was happening soon anyway. I washed the dishes, cleaned up the house a little, took a bath, tried to take a nap but was contracted right back up on my feet again, and made sure I ate something. By 7, contractions were 2 minutes apart and they were BITCHIN. Back to the hospital.

I was finally admitted and wheelchaired into a labor room (just like in the movies!) and left to suffer while hooked up to another IV and all kinds of monitors for two hours. It was somewhere in this time period that all sense of shame completely disappeared.

Around 9 the epidural was discussed. The anesthesiologist didn’t show up til 9:30, and the nurse who kept saying “I don’t know where he is, I don’t know why he’s taking so long... I wish he’d get here” was about to draw some ire but I kept my trap shut. When he finally showed up, everyone was ushered out of the room.

The epidural is one of the weirdest feelings ever. I could still move my legs and feel pressure when touched but there was no sensation to it. Like moving or touching your arm when you sleep on it wrong, without pins and needles. Maybe like trying to test your motor control when exceedingly intoxicated.

After that sucker was working, though, not even an hour later it was go time. I pushed for about twenty minutes before the nurse stopped me and oxygen was strapped to my face. No one spoke and the doctor was called.

The baby’s heart rate dropped every time I pushed. So the bed was wheeled out of the room and into the OR and I just kinda laid there and let the world go nuts around me. The doctors laid my arms out to either side, gave me a Super Epidural, then another pain med via IV, then ANOTHER numbing shot to the stomach for good measure. They didn’t discuss their tools or anything that was going on, and I stared at the light over me and listened to everyone chat about their day. I felt a pop and some shaking and knew they were already cutting; David was not in the room, and the SCREEN WAS NOT UP.

When the screen was up, David was finally allowed in the room after what felt like forever, and as soon as he sat down, they waved him up. “Here she is!” It was 11:05.

After a couple seconds, they brought her around the screen so I could see her, and all doped up on God Knows What I made some mental quip about her being an Eskimo child for how purple she was.

Then she was gone; all human contact around me was gone. I later learned David followed the doctor over to where she was getting weighed and he was allowed to cut off a portion of her umbilical cord. The doctors had no idea why her heart rate dropped during labor since the cord wasn’t wrapped around her neck and everything looked normal. I’m convinced she was determined to burst through me to get to David ever since she started hearing him in utero. I heard her screaming and telling the world what she thought about it, and David talking to her. That was the only time I cried.

The doctors took turns coming back to where I could see them and holding my hand and talking to me while everything below deck was getting closed up. David and the baby were gone to the nursery for her first bath and the table under me suddenly inflated while everyone in the room swooshed me onto another rolling table.

I was left in the labor room alone for a few minutes, and everything was swimming like I had been drinking for DAYS. Megan and David came back after a little while and were witnesses to the ridiculous uncontrollable shaking that I still don’t have a reason for happening. I was given MOAR DRUGS to try to calm the shakes. When I quit looking like a heroin junkie Kelsey was brought into the room, somewhere after midnight. We took turns holding her for the first time, and the nurse helped introduce me to breastfeeding. Everyone remarked how pretty of a baby she was, and they were right. We’re still not sure where she came from, being related to both of us.

Mmm drugs.