{Continued from Part 1}
6 am they woke me up.
Told me
to take a shower and gave me a hospital gown.
"After your shower you can go pick out your breakfast."
I asked if I could wear my underwear (thinking I'd take it off later) and the nurse smirked at me and said, "Babies aren't born through underwear."
(I was annoyed. "I'm not an idot!" But I didn't put the underwear on.)
After my shower I found that I could not figure out how to button that thing they called a hospital gown into a garment -- it was just a flat sheet with buttons as far as I could tell. So it took me a while to get it on.
When I came out the nurse seemed to think I took all-of-eternity to get dressed, and told me I took too long to be able to go pick out my breakfast, and so she listed some things I could pick from. I was starving so I picked the one that sounded the biggest. She came back with a tiny prepackaged blueberry muffin, that was to be my sustenance for the entire day. I was pretty let down and wished I had been able to at least look and see if there was anything bigger I could have eaten. Suck it up, Lydia, I thought.
I got hooked up to everything. IV. Wireless (but not waterproof) electronic fetal monitor.
*Did I tell you it crushed my soul to hear I couldn't use those big bathtubs, that they had talked up all through my pregnancy, just because I was being induced? I am a my-body-in-water-a-holic -- I wanted nothing more than to live in that bathtub during my labor. But I couldn't get wet. Suck it up, Lydia, I thought.
And they started pitocin.
It felt like nothing so far.
I put on some makeup while I sat in bed, because I wanted to be that "perfect wife, become new mother" who looked awesome, four seconds after giving birth.
The nurse teased me for putting on makeup. (Like she's never seen it before.)
Phhf. I look awesome already, right?!
And, yes, I'm hugely pregnant here,
but the electronic fetal monitor is holding my gown out even further.
Sorry. I'm still a little vain and had to share that.
Pretty soon after that, the sarcastic-abrupt-nurse's shift was over and a new one I liked much better showed up.
The back of my gruff nurse
(ha! Didn't know we'd got any pics of her.)
I wanted to do something to make the day disappear. I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to turn a blind eye to how hooked up to stuff I was.
I tried to watch TV.
I tried to watch CSI, but my mom was there and she was squirming at the creepiness of the show -- well cause yeah, the show is creepy. But I wanted something really-all-encompassing to remove me from the room. But with all the squirming, and the fact that the TV seemed like it was 40 miles from the bed. I gave up on that idea and turned the TV off. I asked my mom to read to me. That was nice.
I was just about to relax.
Then Blake's parents showed up.
I hadn't intended on anyone being there besides Blake and my mom, but... they started driving, and then they were in my room.
They were just excited to meet their grand baby, but I was full of anxiety trying to get her out of me.
Blake's dad asked if he could use the bathroom. I said sure, but after he got in there, I remembered how the nurses kept making me pee in a pee-catcher-bowl (who knows why that really matters -- no one has to do that when they do early labor at home!) so I was embarrassed that he was now locked in there with my pee, probably wondering how to actually go to the bathroom with that thing in there.
Then Blake's mom started talking on a cell phone, telling someone about my progress.
And
at that moment
I got overwhelmed.
I was trying to forget about all this induction junk, and I was instead hearing a play-by-play.
I told Blake to make her to go out in the hallway.
I told him, "I might not look like I'm in labor, but I am -- I'm in labor. I don't want people talking on their cell phones in here!"
I had gone from peaceful-book-reading, to facing head-on, how this was not the birth I wanted.
A fact I could not seem to ever really block out.
During the morning, the nurses would come in intermittently to turn up the pitocin. I would smile at them, and they would usually reply, "Its not strong enough if you're still smiling."
I tried to block this out, I wanted to have a positive attitude despite my fears and disappointments.
My midwife came in to check on me, but said she didn't want to do anything, but "let me do my thing." She kinda waved her arms in a magic-inducing-like circle as she left.
(I have a memory of her popping in at some point, when I don't know, and commenting on how she liked that I had music on and was "doing my thing." I remember that my pandora station had on a newer rendition of a group of soulful men singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at that point. And then she left to "let me do my thing.")
At that point it was just Blake and my mom with me again. We decided to walk the halls.
This was just ridiculously annoying for me. The IV post is absurdly hard to wheel around. (Isn't that a common use for these things, to get wheeled around by patients needing to walk? Don't you think someone would make one that moves well? Someone get on that and get rich!) So instead of being able to move about and get things going, I just felt like I was moving so slowly I might as well not be moving at all.
And dragging that dang thing around was no good for my hopes of having a positive attitude.
My mom would wheel it for me, but even that didn't make it much better -- we still ended up going so slow! It felt cumbersome no matter what. And I felt like I was inconveniencing people to ask for help.
And the hallway was only so big, and I had to circle the nurses, so it felt awkward and dumb going around them 100 times in 5 minutes.
This picture is actually from after Jasmine was born (I'm pushing her around.)
But that's the circle of hallways, and the nurses station.
I had started to feel some contractions now.
They were light and totally doable.
I just didn't know what I should be doing, so I would pause for them and hold the rail on the wall. I didn't need to, but I felt like I should be doing something "official" to allow them to do their job.
They scared me, because I knew it had to get stronger before I could be done.
Every contraction was a mental battle for me to not curl up in a corner and cry.
Maybe other first time laborers feel this way too, I don't know. But I was really upset about the mechanical nature of my labor -- how I knew they were just going to come back in the room and tell me they were "turing it up" and how I would then know it was going to be worse, and how it just really was a machine, not my body.
I told my mom I was getting scared of what was to come.
I can't remember what she told me, probably something about not thinking ahead because you can't know till you are there. But I could tell she didn't know what to say and was nervous for me too. So that was rough. I had to just do what I had been doing all along, shove my feelings down and just pretend not to have them and pretend to be ok. Suck it up.
It didn't take very long for me to be sick of the hallway and that tiny circle where I felt like I was eavesdropping on the nurses, and it seemed they were eavesdropping right back.
So we went back into my room.
And they brought in a birth ball, and I was really impressed with the contraption that they had with it, that made it so it didn't roll away, and gave it a back rest.
I sat on that, and the nurses told me to do figure eight circles on there to help the baby move down.
So figure eight circles, was what I did.
Blake rubbed my shoulders, which I thought was really sweet of him, but it didn't do anything in regards to the contractions.
There's the fancy Birth Ball with back rest. (And my new nicer nurse.)
The nurses kept coming in and turning it up.
And yep, like they promised, the contractions started to get bad.
I remember thinking right around then, as the nurse went over to the pitocin machine, "Okay, yeah, I don't want you to touch that thing anymore."
The only way I wanted to work with "my" contractions was stand up, lean forward, put my face into the bed, and bounce-squat over and over.
All I could do to stay sane was chant "ok. ok. ok. ok." during them.
I was soothing myself with the idea that I was ok, that I would be ok. And I was repeatedly saying, "Ok God, this is yours."
I think it was around there that the idea of a c-section and what I had heard days earlier after my bath, started to feel real, but I still fought for a regular birth in my heart, mind and body.
I was starting to lose the room,
I didn't know who was there anymore.
I didn't know what the staff was up to.
I did know that my legs were getting really tired, from all the squat bouncing already. They were really feeling the burn. I remember thinking how out of shape I was.
Sometime during this stage I thought I felt pushy.
In hindsight I think that was just the wishful thinking of a first-timer.
It was still really early in the day.
But my midwife came in and checked me.
Since I said I felt pushy she checked my cervix, I was at a 4.
Good news, but that meant I wasn't actually pushy.
I think I stayed on the bed for a while after being checked (I can't remember). But at some point I was on the bed, and all of a sudden I felt a burst of warm water. I was ecstatic! I finally did something on my own, my body broke my water, I was working!
I said to my mom, "I think my water broke, warm wet just came out!" I was saying it like it couldn't have possibly happened because it was as big a miracle as the world being made.
My mom said she had seen it.
I was so excited.
So back came the midwife to check me again.
Now I was at a 5.
But she said my water hadn't broken. She said it was my "fore bag" -- which I had never heard of, and I was totally irritated by because she was robbing me of the joy of my body having done something.
(Aside: I asked my beloved VBAC midwife later on what the heck a fore bag was, and she said that my water probably had broken, but that the way the baby was, she was blocking the rest of it off. But who really knows, all I know is warm wet did gush out on its own.)
This midwife asked if, since she was already there, if I'd like her to go ahead and break my water.
I didn't care anymore. That stupid crochet hook was no worse than the stupid pitocin IV in my arm -- "do your worst medical stuff! Whatever. " I thought.
I said sure.
I knew in the back of my mind natural birthing people didn't want to have the waters broken, but I knew I wasn't birthing natural, and since this was a midwife I figured she would be more "natural-ly" and that she wouldn't have offered if it wasn't good for "naturalness".
(This move, I do sort of regret in hindsight. *Manually breaking your water can surprise the baby, removing the fluid before they are ready -- not allowing them the room they need for getting into a good position while the waters are giving them space to do so. * But I'm still not putting full blame on any one certain thing that happen during this birth. But I have learned the term midwife doesn't guarantee "naturalness" -- really interview your provider.)
Anyway,
the hook went in and tons more water came out.
I can't remember if she left and came back, or if she just stayed. I think she just stayed and watched my next contractions.
They were much worse now.
I think she only watched one and then asked calmly, "How do you feel about pain medication?"
I didn't feel like I had any bearings, on any part of my existence right then.
"There's no prize at the end for toughing it out," she quipped.
I'm terrible at answering questions when I am in the middle of anything (labor or not) I just suck at it.
I knew I hadn't wanted to use any medication.
I said, "I don't know", feeling a bit like a caged rat --- all twitchy with no idea who to look to for help.
She said calmly, "Well I'll let you go through another contraction and we will talk."
I was still sitting on the bed, with a roomful of people starting at me, from the foot of that bed.
Everyone seemed close to me, in contrast to the length of the room, and yet they felt miles and miles away from me. I felt quite alone there on that bed. My mom was off to the right -- arms crossed, brow furrowed. I couldn't even really see her, I just knew from knowing her, and the shape of her in my peripheral vision.
Of course that contraction sucked.
It was hard, and I was starting to realize this was not going my way.
I looked at the clock and thought: It took me this many hours to get to a 5, so it will be the same number of hours to get to the end, but it will be full of this much pain, and then more later on, to get there. (I call this "the bad math" -- don't do it! It's inaccurate and totally defeating! Never look at the clock!) And I knew I couldn't do even this level of pain for that much time.
I said, "Ok what are my options?"
She told me I could do an IV medication that would not take away the pain, but might just make me loopy enough to not care; or I could do the epidural which would be total relief with 15 mins of receiving it.
"I'll give you another contraction to think about it."
*contraction*
I didn't see how anything could make me loopy enough to get through hours of that.
"I want the epidural."
I could feel Blake's total loss as to what to do then, since I had told him before hand, to tell me not to get one --- because... I was almost as terrified of the epidural as I was of a c-section. I DID NOT want a needle in my spine. But I think he could see I had now changed my mind and he didn't say anything. (He made a wise call.)
Actually, its really weird, but in that moment, I felt really proud of myself. I was proud of myself for adapting to a situation based on what was happening, and not based on a preconceived idea. I was proud of myself for staking a claim on at least one thing that day -- I got to make a decision that day.
(In hindsight, I could not regret that epidural if I tried! After feeling natural-made-by-my-body contractions for my VBAC, I give myself a trophy for getting that far without one. At that point, under those circumstances, I don't see how I could possibly have made it through without it. And once again, I'm not putting the blame of the c-section on just one decision made, so I don't feel like toughing it out would have saved me.)
(Also, in retrospect, I feel like God blessed me in this moment, because if I was going to need a spinal for the c-section, I would have been so scared to get it without it having been my choice. So I feel like it was a grace given to me, to be allowed to ask for it of my own accord.)
So they sent for the anesthesiologist. I felt like it took a long time for him to get there. And I didn't feel like I could pay much attention to him, but I do remember thinking he was sorta strange looking, almost like the guy who took care of Wesley in the Depths of Despair (The Princess Bride.) Well not really, but sorta.
I think I had to fill out a form, or answer questions for a form he filled out. I can't remember now.
I was still pretty nervous about getting this thing, I knew I didn't want to move a muscle while he did it, I was slightly terrified to paralyze myself.
I had to bend forward as far as possible-- which feels impossible when pregnant.
I tried to zone out during all this, so I think the memory fails me now because of that.
After he was done, I watched the clock --- I was so ready for those 15 mins to end, so that I could have that total reprieve I was told about.
15 minutes never took so long.
And when they ended, the contractions did feel better,
but they were by no means totally gone as promised.
I spoke out to anyone who could hear me, "I thought you said they would be totally gone. They still hurt."
The anesthesiologist came back and said I'm going to put something in your IV to help.
I watched him push the plunger down,
and within seconds I felt my eyes roll back they way they do when you are deliriously tired, I almost felt like I was spinning into oblivion, and I felt so much better.
My next thought was "This was the best decision of my life." Even in my mind it was said with the slurred speech of drunkenness.
I didn't know it, but I fell fast asleep for a while.
While I was sleeping they turned the pitocin way up since I couldn't feel anything.
After I woke up (which I hardly remember as waking up...it just seems like time went missing) I remember that I was so hungry and thirsty but all I could have was popsicles. So I was eating red popsicles like crazy.
And then I needed to throw up. (Transition I guess.)
My mother in law handed me the appropriate kidney shaped throw-up bowl (but at the time I didn't know that was the official throw-up bowl of hospitals) and I refused to throw up until she got me something else, something bigger -- how the heck was I going to puke into that tiny weird shaped thing!?
One nurse said, "You are never going to want to eat another red popsicle again!" and I was so flabbergasted that she would even be saying that to me 3 seconds after I threw up, because she was about to make me puke all over again. I begged her, "please don't say that." which was worded wrong -- it made it sound like I love red popsicles, but I just didn't want to throw up anymore, and that phrasing was the best I could to at the moment. I just needed her to stop talking.
Soon after that I was checked again they said, "Well we should have broke your water hours ago, your at a ten, its time to push."
It was really weird. I felt shocked, like this was way too easy, I couldn't be done yet.
Of course, I actually was very far from being done.
I can't actually remember the very start of the pushing process.
(Be warned TMI coming up -- this is a birth story after all!)
But something I can remember was,
being clearly aware that I pooped.
I could still feel pretty well. And I felt that! (I don't think my epidural was all that potent.)
I was pretty embarrassed. And I think that hindered my pushing a lot for a while. I was trying not to poop anymore. (Which is the exact opposite of what you want to do! I read, while studying for my VBAC, that you literally want to try to poop and pee at the same time -- not that you actually will, but that doing that will get you to use the right muscles.)
Maybe other people would be more embarrassed or freaked out by this, so perhaps that why she didn't, but I wish my midwife had said, "I want you to try and poop! Right here, right now!"
Eventually I was just pushing with everything I had, no matter what happened (poop or no poop), but I was still at a total loss for what I was doing.
Sometimes she would say, "Yes! Just like that! Push like that!" and other times she did not say anything, so I knew I wasn't doing it right. And I couldn't tell the difference at all!
I wanted to say, "tell me how!" -- but I was too busy!
I do remember at one point kinda breaking down and saying, "I don't understand. I don't understand." Kinda shaking like a toddler and almost crying. And she had to speak very calmly to me, "Lydia...I need you to... listen to me."
(She never made me feel like I knew what to do. But at least I wasn't losing it anymore.)
I pushed with every muscle of my body. (Not really what you should do.) I just pushed.
Now,
She was telling me to:
take a bunch of breaths at the start of my contraction,
push while she counted to 10,
take one great big breath,
and push again till she counted to 10
all during one contraction.
(Or sometimes she didn't count and I would just hold it as long as I possibly could, breath and do it again during one contraction.)
Right around then I promised myself I would never complain during a workout again, because "up until that moment, I had never work for one second in my life" I thought.
I had no idea how hard this would be.
Blake still talks to me to this day about how, he's seen power lifters (he used to be on the power lifting team) do similar sort of breathing things to lift their heavy lifts, but that he's never seen anyone do anything like that without passing out.
I remember thinking "Oh my gosh, why didn't every single person on earth stop me in the streets and explain this to me, so I would have worked out and got ready for this! This is crazy hard! I am not ready for this! I needed to be running marathons to get this type of training in."
I also remember thinking, "Sorry Jasmine, you are going to be an only child... or have adopted siblings....I am NOT doing this again!"
The only two things I remember from outside of myself during this time were:
Looking over at Blake and seeing him smile at me, this happy giddy, "we are having a baby" smile, and I got so hurt that he was smiling at me while I was in pain, that I mentally shut him out for the rest of the labor.
And
I also remember looking up at one point to see my mother in law holding up my sonogram photo of the baby to help cheer me on. But I just thought it was hilarious that she was doing that, because this was the first time I had even opened my eyes in who knows how long, and that picture was too tiny to see from that far away. But she was doing whatever she could to help me. (I think everyone was starting to realize things weren't going just right.)
Soon they were asking me to wear an oxygen mask between contractions. They explained it was for the baby, so she could get more oxygen from me. (Her heart rate wasn't staying as stable as they would have liked. But I didn't follow that in the moment.)
So I was doing the crazy pushing thing,
and then grabbing at the oxygen
to breath in as deeply and quickly as I could
to get Jasmine some "air"
-- which was sort of akin to hyperventilating --
while wiping down my brow in a frenzy, because I was sweating bullets,
just in time to throw the stupid mask off,
grab onto the sheet they had recently tied onto the squat bar, for me to pull on during pushing.
Like this photo (of not me.) Only my sheet was ugly and...
Blake held one leg and the nurse I liked held my other leg while I did that.
Over and over.
Over and over.
It was so hard.
I was starting to get into a rhythm though. I was starting to get into that "runners high" where I was transcending space and time.
And then,
I didn't feel a contraction to do it again.
I waited.
I waited.
And then, I felt confused.
I looked around the room.
I made eye contact with the midwife and made question marks with my eyebrows.
She said, "We turned down the pitocin to give the baby a break."
I felt weird.
Why didn't they tell me? So that I was just waiting around, cluelessly, to do what I had been doing?
The midwife is sitting to my left. Facing the monitors that were behind my back.
And I was laying on my side watching her face as she watched the monitors.
I could tell she was poker facing,
and that she was good at it.
But I was determined to read past her poker face to see if my baby was ok.
She let on to nothing.
I finally just asked, "Is she ok?"
"Yes, she is ok. I'm just watching her."
Eventually we tried pushing again.
Oxygen mask. Counting. Pulling while pushing. The works.
I was exhausted.
And that break had taken the edge off of my adrenaline, so I was going on my own unprepared and weary strength.
They said they could see her head. But she wasn't crowning.
I knew they had wheeled away the mirror, that I was going to get to see her with, because they were suspecting I never would see her this way.
The midwife showed my mom her head, by pulling me apart and way open and said, "See there she is" -- way up there!
My mom asked her if she should do an episiotomy, she told that would just make me bleed.
I know my mom followed her out into the hallway at some point and asked her if everything was ok.
More poker face.
After about two hours of pushing, she said she was going to ask a doctor to come in-- that they liked to have a doctor come in after two hours.
I knew then.
I sorta knew before.
But I knew then.
It was true, I'd be having a c-section.
I was laying on my left side, gripping the side rail. Not pushing through contractions because they asked me not to, to help my baby.
And it was so hard.
And I was so tired.
My hands were so tight on the rail.
And I began to pray, out loud, over and over,
"Please." "Please."
"Please. Please. Please. Please. Please."
While I chanted, I started to wonder:
"What if the doctor comes in and tells me to push again?... I can't do it! I've never been this tired in my life. I have nothing left."
And I realized
"Please. Please. Please. Please. Please."
that I was praying for a c-section.
I was praying for my greatest fear.
I was praying for salvation ---
I could not save myself.
"Please. Please. Please. Please. Please."
I chanted until the doctor got there.
Which was an eternity. (And not just in my mind, he stopped and talked to someone about the house he was building. My mom was in the hallway, she told me later. I guess I was not an emergency.)
I made myself stop chanting to save face for this new person in my birthing day.
He checked me, hand way up high, and said,
"Yeah, I have no tricks for this."
Somehow I was vaguely told the baby's head was titled and she couldn't come out that way.
I was at such a loss right then for what that meant. I mean, I believed them, I was sure trying to get her out, and she sure wasn't coming. But it made no sense. I was shown over and over how babies needed to tuck their chin so they could come out. I thought her head should be "tilted" at least in how I understood the word. And I also didn't know why he couldn't just take his hand and "tilt" her head back the right way.
I didn't think I that could have gotten her out at that point. But was at a loss as to how come they didn't check sooner so he could have fixed it while there was a chance -- before I was this tired. At least that's how it was all running in my mind at the time.
Then he started with the questions (I suck at questions)... have I ever had surgery before?
"No"
"So if we go in there, everything should be where it should be?"
"Yes" (What kind of a question is that? I don't know where my insides are, and I sure as heck didn't move them! ...I told you no one else did.)
I'm still having contractions.
He asked me similar things a few times over, perhaps because thats what you do with laboring women, or perhaps because I looked that lost.
Then he said, "I'm going to put something in your IV to stop your contractions."
Thank God!
And he handed me forms to sign for the c-section. I could have signed a paper that said I am giving you all the money I have now, and all the money I will ever have in the future, and you are now the legal guardian of my baby -- I would have had no idea - of course I am not reading it right then. I recognized that in the moment, but was so overwhelmed by labor, I just signed it on faith. (Thank goodness that stuff was not in the form.)
The doctor left the room. I was on my side, the midwife still near the monitors at my bedside.
I had read so many books saying, inductions lead to c-sections. I had so many crappy thoughts through my pregnancy... I must have earned this. Besides, clearly I am a terrible pusher, I have no skill. And I have no skill at going into labor.
I whispered to her, "Is this my fault?" --- as if she would comprehend the weight of the question and how far I felt it reached. (I would be coming up with reasons why it was my fault for years.)
She said, "This is 100% the position of your baby, and don't let anyone tell you differently."
I wanted her to say, "No." Just plain no. But I took what she said, as far as I could.
Soon after that, the staff cleared the room.
And Blake and my mom were by my side.
I told my mom, "Don't worry I'm not afraid."
(I knew hospitals had very much scared her and I didn't want to make her worry.)
It was only by God's grace, and his forewarning, that day after my bath, that I was able to maintain my composure and actually not be afraid. Without that peaceful assurance, I would have been in hysterics right then.
And Blake prayed for me.
I was starting to lose the room, and the world again --- falling into my mind.
I was being wheeled down the hallway,
it felt like we were going fast,
there was wind,
and clicking steps.
The florescent lights slide by quickly.
Suddenly,
every pregnancy photo we every took,
all the ones posted to Facebook,
started to invade my mind.
The photos where I was not "so tiny."
The photos that didn't get the kind of complements I had wanted ("So tiny!" "Number one winner!" "Best at pregnancy!").
All the photos of
the-not-number-one-winner-best-at-pregnancy me
that I never wanted to be
flashed in my mind's eye.
One
by
one
I saw them all.
And suddenly,
I wasn't seeing
me
in the photos anymore.
I was seeing
my baby.
*Photo does no justice to the moment in my mind.
Oh my gosh! I am having a baby!
There was a baby in my belly.
I wasn't fat.
I wasn't huge.
I wasn't ugly.
I wasn't.
It wasn't about me.
It was about my baby.
I was having a baby!
Without realizing it, the words started to fall off my lips --- "I'm having a baby. I'm having a baby. I'm having a baby." I started chanting it. Unabashedly. Without regard to the strangers wheeling me down the hall. And tears started to fall down the sides of my face. I was filling up with joy. I had a miracle inside me, and I was about to meet her. She was mine, and I was about to become hers. "I'm having a baby. I'm having a baby. I'm having a baby."
My nurse looked down at me and, probably fearing I was having a nervous breakdown, asked, "Are you ok?"
And the only words I could form outside of my chanting song were:
"I'm so... happy."
I could hardly get them out for the tears in my throat.
"Oh good." she said.
*God used this moment in such a deep and important way for me. I honestly don't know if I would have gotten over the pregnancy-bodily-changes that I was so disappointed by without it. (I would have died when seeing my postpartum body for sure!) I don't know that I would have forgiven my beautiful baby girl, for making me "ugly" if I hadn't had this break after pushing to stop, and reflect, and be shown.
Without this trip down the hallway to my c-section I don't think I would have ever been given the chance to look past myself, and see there are people and things so much more important than where my values had lain. And without a c-section, which cut open my body and caused me to feel, I don't know if I would have ever realized there was more value to my physical body than what it looked like. That moment proved most of this to me immediately but these lessons also continues to unfurl for me even today. I needed these things to be whole.
We were almost to the doors now.
And we went in.
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