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Zachary's Birth

While I was pregnant, I was seen at a military clinic. This meant that I saw a different doctor every visit. At about seven months, I noticed that I was swelling up alot. At times, I couldn't point my toes or close my hands. My face was like a balloon. We were out of state at the time because my husband was ordered to Florida for training; since I didn't have a driver's license, we thought it would be safer for me to accompany him. I arranged a visit with a local obstetrician. He tested me for toxemia, checked my blood pressure, etc. He told me my blood pressure was normal (140-something/85), but I knew it was a little high for me--my blood pressure was usually much lower(in the 100-something/50-something range). He also said my urine tests were negative. He told me to be sure to take two half-hour naps each day and try to eat well. I was eating my Best Odds Diet from a popular book religiously, but had already gained 45 pounds. Everyone kept telling me to watch how much food I was eating, because I was getting fat.

Moving right along, at 41 weeks gestation--back home--one of the doctors at the clinic sent me to the military hospital for a non-stress test. They couldn't get the information they needed at the ob-gyn clinic, so they sent me upstairs to the labor and delivery department. There, they did more tests and said the baby was fine, but I had really high blood pressure and borderline toxemia. I had gained 65 pounds by now. They told me that the baby looked about average--probably 7 and1/2 pounds, but maybe eight. I was admitted and around 4pm they put me in a bed with a catheter, magnesium sulfate and some gel on my cervix. My cervix was already 1centimeter and fully effaced when I got to the hospital that morning. The catheter had been inserted improperly and I was peeing evrywhere, so it had to be removed and re-inserted. I was very sore and bleeding alot from that and had to use an ice-pack to manage the pain (crazy that an experienced nurse messed up a catheter that much). After four hours, I hadn't dilated anymore and hadn't started having any contractions, so they gave me more gel. I was still seeing a different doctor every time. I finally started to have some mild, period-like contractions and they put in the pitocin-drip. I had planned a natural Lamaze childbirth and had a birthing plan in my chart, but was aware that things could change, so I was disappointed, but not upset by all the extras. I was mad about the catheter, but kept my mouth shut because the nurse was really nice and moved us to a bigger room.

The contractions were moving nicely, I was using the breathing with my husband, everything seemed manageable. They were coming every three or four minutes, hurt, but I was so excited about having a baby I didn't mind too much. By now, the doctors had given me several exams, stretched the cervix, poked and prodded at the membranes, but my cervix wasn't dilating at all. I don't know what time it was, probably around 11pm, one of the doctors came in and broke my bag of waters. After the initial gush of waters, she exclaimed that there had been an unusual amount of fluid and pushed up on the baby's head to be sure it was all out. There was a second gush of waters, bigger than the first. She pushed up again and there was a third huge gush of waters. The doctor seemed very surprised at all this and told us it was unusual that the ultrasounds hadn't picked up the excess waters. I was suddenly in alot of pain and my contractions were coming every one to two minutes, hitting the top of the contraction monitor. I think maybe the extra waters were stretching my uterus out so it couldn't contract as hard. It happened so suddenly, it was like being punched--Iwas sitting there talking to the doctor and then I was breathing for dear life!

For about two hours, I labored without medication. I really wanted to tough it out, but it was too much for me. My husband was trying to be helpful by telling me what to do and how to breathe, but he didn't know how much it hurt--he kept telling me to save the heavy breathing for when it really hurt, but I was already really hurting! Needless to say, I got a little irritable with him. Unfortunately, I couldn't talk because the contractions were so hard. It took a long time after I decided I wanted the epidural to get the words out. I had to pant them one or two at a time between contractions. The anesthesiologist was with a c-section, so I had to wait for him. It was about half an hour before he got there, and by then I was drowning in the contractions. I was not scared or mad, I was jsut in pain. It's weird how we turn into animals at times like this. I couldn't think of words, I couldn't scream, just stare into my husbabnd's face and grunt. My whole world narrowed down to living through this contraction, then living through the next. I was only about four centimeters dilated.

The anesthesiologist arrived with a student in tow. The student performed his first epidural on me. How exciting for me. The good part was that they let me sit up for the first time since I got inot the bed. Suddenly the contractions became bearable again. I sat on the side of the bed and hugged my husband and moaned. It was such a relief!! I wish they had let me do that earlier. Right as he was starting to put in the tube, I got slammed with a contraction that was harder than the others I had been having. I guess the change in position was moving things along. Anyway, everybody started yelling at me to be still, but I had no control over my body, the contraction was pulling me and I couldn't talk. When it was over, the anesthesiologist talked to me like I was a little spoiled brat and I was just faking the pain. It took his student three tries to get it in the right spot, and he wouldn't stop while I was having a contraction. It started working about twenty minutes (very long minutes) later.

Suddenly, I was happy to be having a baby again! I sat and chatted with my husband and mother. I was so excited, I couldn't stop talking. By the way, I was not allowed to have any water and I was miserably thirsty. I had to beg and bargain with the nurses to get ice chips and popsicles. They said that it could make my blood pressure go up higher. I had an allergic reaction to the narcotic in the epidural and they gave me Nubain to make me stop scratching. I was high as a kite after that and kept telling evryone how much I loved them. The nurses were getting worried because the baby's heartbeat disappeared evry time I had a contraction, so they put me on the oxygen mask. I took a heavenly nap.

When I woke up, I was only five centimeters dilated. I remember watching my husband sleep in the chair next to my bed, thinking about how much I loved him and how happy I was to be having a baby with him. He woke up around sunrise and we looked out the window for a long time together. The nurses were leaving us alone because they thought it would be a long time. From the time they started the induction, evrybody was telling us that inductions take a really long time and not to expect a baby any sooner than twenty-four hours after the gel. I was still only five centimeters dilated and nobody was in any rush. The oxygen mask was uncomfortable and I kept taking it off--I felt like I couldn't brethe with it on and would panic until I pulled it off. A couple of times, I started flopping around like I was smothering. Nobody was very interested in how I felt about the mask--I know why now, but at the time, I thought they were just being snots.

Around 8am, I started having these really hard contractions and I could feel them pretty well. I felt like I had to poop and I wanted to push. I thought that the epidural was just wearing off, so I called the nurse and asked her to check it. She said it was fine, but looked puzzled when I explained that I could feel all the contractions again. She gave me an exam and ran out of the room to get a doctor--I had dilated five inches in an hour! An intern came in and told me that the baby was still really far back and that I didn' have to push yet if I didn't want to. She said it would probably be easier on me to wait another hour. I tried one push, just to see, and discovered that during a push, the pain of the contraction went away! It felt good to push! The contractions were terrible when I wasn't pushing and my vision would blur and everything would be in a long tunnel. When I pushed, I would come out of it feeling like I was really there. You can see why I chose to push.

For the next two and a half hours, I pushed and pushed. Breathe, hold and push while the nurse counted to ten slowly, let it out, start over. The room was full of people, a nurse on one leg, a nurse trainee on the other leg, holding them way far apart and back, an intern stretching my perineum(I wanted to avoid an episiotomy) and saying, "Pushpushpushpushpushpushpush..." all in one breath through each contraction. There was one doctor there who came in a couple of times to threaten me with forceps if I didn't push harder. I was terrified of forceps and pushed harder.

After two and a half hours, his head was finally down the canal and close to being born. I was exhausted and in alot of pain. They kept telling me the epidural was turned up, but I still don't believe it, because I was feeling alot. I could feel my legs fine and every contraction, too. Another doctor came in and started getting ready to perform the delivery. The bed's electric controls were broken and it wouldn't move into the right positon. The doctor had to kneel on the floor between my legs. He was stretching me open with bothe hands and trying to get the baby out faster. Nobody told me, but the baby had been completely off the internal monitor for awhile and he was dying. At the time, all I knew was that this man was hurting me alot. I kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn't. The nurse had to watch me and keep putting the mask back on me, because I would panic and pull it off to breathe in between pushes. The intern tried to stop the doctor from giving me an episiotomy, but I told him to go ahead--anything that would get that thing OUT of me NOW was welcome!!!

Zachary's head was born at 10am. I remember feeling relieved because in the movies, the body just slithered out after the head without pushing. Everyone started yelling at me at once and I remember the old doctor(the one who had been threatening the forceps earlier) yelling with ropes standing out in his neck and looking scared. Two nurses jumped on my stomach and started pushing with all their weight--feet off the floor. The young doctor who was on the floorhad both his hands in me pulling. I was pushing with all my might and pushing more. Finally, the baby was born at 10:03am. I saw him being pulled out and away, all black and purple. They were already walking back to the incubator thing to resuscitate him before the cord was cut.

After that, the poor doctor on the floor started sewing me up and I felt every bit of it. I had been telling them all along that the epidural wasn't working anymore, but they didn't believe me until I started yelling at the doctor while he was sewing me up--I felt evrylast tug of that needle and was being oh-so polite until finally I got fed up and ordered him to stop RIGHT NOW. That got some attention and they gave me a local and I was fine through the rest of the repair. I was really sore, though and tired. I felt like I was floating and kind of dreamy. I was hemhorraging(spelling?) and the warm fluid felt soothing to my poor torn genitals. The doctor stuck his hands up inside and tried to manually pull the placenta out--it was partly detatched and causing the bleeding. That hurt even more than the sewing and I sat up and told him to stop. He told me that he had no choice, that I was bleeding too much. I told him that it was okay and it kind of felt good, but that his hands in there hurt. He told me I had no choice, so I started pushing again to help him out (so he'd get his damn hands out of there faster). In no time, the placenta was out, and they injected me with a blood coagulant. Of course, I was allergic to it and had a massive asthma attack (I hadn't had one since I was a kid) and had to be hooked up to this breathing machine.

Nobody told me that Zack was born almost dead and had to be brought back. Five minutes later, he seemed fine and they let me hold him for a few amazing minutes. I didn't have the strength to unwrap him of nurse him. I didn't fall instantly in love, either. I just sat and stared at this little human who had somehow , miraculously come out of my body! They whisked him away and took me to my room.

I was in the hospital for four days (unheard of anywhere but a military hospital). All the people who had had a part in our delivery came by to check on us--I was so proud of my amazinfg son. He was 9lb. and 13oz.--that's why his shoulders got stuck! He was about 22 inches long. He didn't have a pointy head like most babies do. I wonder if he was later than one week. By my calculations, he was three weeks late at the point when they induced. The doctors and I had argued about it several times during my pregnancy. I think I was right--if the ultrasound couldn't pick up the excess amniotic fluid and the large baby, why couln't it have had the gestational age wrong?

Anyway, my episiotomy tore some, they told me it was a third degree tear (it went around the side of the anus instead of through it--I guess that was because of all those Kegels I did). It healed perfectly as far as anyone could tell in an exam, but when my husband and I tried to make love, I was in excruciating pain. My ob finally gave me a shot of cortisone in the scar and that made it bearable so that we could stretch evrything out. We were not able to make love without pain for six months after our son's birth.

Zachary is now nine months old and perfectly healthy. He has remained huge. He is trying to walk and says Mama, Dada, and cat. He is worth every moment of pain. I didn't fall in love with him instantly, but when I fell, I fell hard. He brings me so much joy!