I suppose that I should say how different this labor was from my last one. With Bean, my induction was orderly, progressive, and controlled. My epidural was administered early enough that I never really felt out of control or scared at all. My epidural was given at 4 centimeters: by way of comparison, I was waddling around dilated to 4 centimeters for a few weeks this time around.
This labor was everything the first one wasn’t: primal and painful. Painful is not the right word. Papercuts are painful – this was skull-crushing AGONY. The nurse asked me to pee in a specimen cup, and for the first time in my pregnancy, I could not pee. There I sat in the hospital bathroom, naked from the waist down, moaning, and I couldn’t pee. I started to cry. If I couldn’t manage to push out liquid, how the hell am I going to manage a baby? It seems so silly now, but I felt so inadequate right then, squatting, naked from the waist down for God and everyone to see, unable to do the one thing I could do pretty much on command every ten minutes for the prior three months.
The nurse says never mind, and get out of there before you have the baby on the toilet. She gets me up onto the delivery bed and checks me: 8 centimeters. This is really happening. She asks if I want pain relief, and I say as demurely as I can “UUUURRRRRGGGGGHHH!! AAAAGHHH! GOD, YES!!!!!” A gaggle of nurses come in and apologize, but need me to sign paperwork. Seriously, isn’t this why I pre-registered? I’m initialing paperwork with my left hand and grabbing the rail of the bed with my right, groaning through contractions when the anesthesiologist comes in. THANK GOD. He explains that he can either do an epidural or a labor spinal. He’s talking calmly and rationally, thinking foolishly that I am in a mental state to respond in kind.
He recommends the labor spinal, since the effect is immediate. Sounds delicious, I’ll take three. He warns me, though, that the labor spinal will only last between two and five hours. “I’m not going to last that long! OOOOOOooooHHHHhhhhhh!” I yell while gripping the rails of the bed. “I don’t think so, either,” he says, and prepares the injection. He asks me if I can feel the needle, and if it’s right, left, or center. I start to cry again. I don’t understand what he’s asking me to tell him, and HE’S STICKING A NEEDLE INTO MY SPINE. Aren’t you the one who went to spine school, man? Can’t you see I’m in no position to give directions? The nurse tells me that he’s just trying a “distraction technique” and my eyes open long enough to see her throw him a look that says “Dude, lay off.” He shuts up and finishes the injection.
And may I just take a moment to say: AAAaaaahhhhhhhh.
Except that only my left side is numb. My right side is still hurting like hell. It takes about ten minutes for whatever manna the guy shot into my central nervous system to get to the right side of my body. That was a funky ten minutes, I’ll tell you what. Half of me is getting relief, the other half of me wants to writhe away and hide in the corner. After ten minutes, I’m good. I can feel my toes, I can move my legs, and the frightened-animal mania has passed. I can crack jokes. I can ask the nurse’s name – Denise. There, that’s better. Are the contractions gone? No. My pain has returned to the morning's cheese steak levels. I can manage them, and that makes all the difference.
I can relax. The lab flunky takes blood. The nurse sets up a saline IV. I eat ice chips. It’s all good. I get a visit from Haze, the totally awesome nurse that delivered Bean. She says hi and chats us up for a bit. It’s all lovely. I tell Denise that I feel pressure, and she asks me what kind. I say “Not kid hanging out of me pressure, but pressure.” She says “okay, that means you’re complete. I’ll tell them to get the doctor.” She gets the go-ahead to break my water, but she wants to wait until she can get confirmation that the doctor isn’t far away because she thinks that I’ll go all Cape-Canaveral-Rocket-Launch as soon as she does it.
The doctor had just finished a C-section, I hear one nurse tell Denise, and moved her next c-section back 30 minutes. She was on her way.
Okay, I think to myself. I’m going to have a baby in the next 30 minutes. Hooray. Awesome. And ow.
Wait, ow? But it’s only been like an hour. Why are my contractions starting to hurt like a mother again? SOMEone flunked spine school.
This will not be fun.
(more later)
Awesome story. I'm so glad both you and Chris made it through the experience!! Ok. Every female sex ed teacher I can remember always told us pubescent and terrified girls that "you forget the pain" from childbirth and, with a wistful gleam in her eye, "It is totally worth the pain." Were they totally or only partially full of it?
Posted by: Shannon at March 13, 2008 5:22 PM