Matthew James 2/13/2006
Yes, that date is correct. A little over two years and I'm finally opening up about my son's birth. I'm really good at procrastinating and repressing. -.- Anyway, under the cut.
I woke up on the morning of the 12th to waddle to the bathroom. My husband had just come to bed maybe an hour or two before then because he had to go in for a mid-shift that night. About 2 feet from the toilet I start to feel liquid descending, do a quick scuttle and sit down. Water's broken. Joy. I sigh and sit there for a bit- having a little trouble in my sleepy state discerning whether I have to still pee or if I'm just still leaking- pondering whether to wake up the husband now or wait a bit to see how things go. I decide to wake up the husband (poor guy) and he calls up the hospital to double check on what we should do. Even though we educated ourselves and there was a little voice in my head saying "Chill out for a while and go in when you start feeling contractions," when we actually got into the situation we had amnesia I guess. Something like that, anyway. So, we pack ourselves and my bag into the car and head to the Navy Hospital. Thankfully it was still kind of early on a Sunday morning so we didn't have to fight the usual San Diego traffic. We make it to the maternity ward and deal with triage.
The triage nurse was a bitch, just to let ya'll know. She didn't give me even a half a chance to relax before intruding with a speculum and then looked at me like I was stupid when I refused the pitocin all four times she suggested it. Grumpy and protective husband made her go away and we got a sweet old lady nurse who was incredibly understanding of how we wanted things to go. They got us set up in a room and I got to argue with them over the IV and the monitors. They won unfortunately, but it was only because they made sure to remind me that they don't feed laboring women. I think I actually growled at one of the corpsman at that point. Once I got them to leave me be for a while, I tried to get Ben to take a nap so that he would be more helpful. He did okay, but was a bit wound up and couldn't get comfortable to really get any sleep. That combined with the doc intruding every two hours to do a pelvic exam when there was zero change on the monitors made things very distracting for me. Yes, argued with her about the exams as well. Growled at her every time she came in to do the exam, too.
In between all that, I was doing my best to help things along and make myself comfortable. Laying down was useless so I tried to walk around as best I could with all the cords and tubes hanging off me. That was no fun either because by this point in my pregnancy I had become so swollen that walking from the couch to the kitchen made my feet feel like they were going to split open (no preeclampsia, just serious water retention). But, it was better than laying down. After several hours (about eight, I think, because the doc that was on duty started talking about her shift ending), talk of not progressing fast enough and pitocin started up again. Ben and I had been planning on him smuggling in some food, but we couldn't get the timing right. At this point I hadn't eaten since fairly early the night before. So, probably at least 12 hours with no food. I grumbled and consented to the pitocin.
Things go down hill from here. The monitors are saying that I'm having good contractions but I don't feel a thing. In fact, I told the doc that I'd had menstrual cramps with more oompf than that. Even with the pitocin I didn't feel any change. They decide to up the dose a bit. Matthew's heart rate starts dropping a lot with the contractions. They reduce the pitocin and his heart rate stops suffering during the contractions but then I stop progressing like they thought I should. Labor moves into my back. Screaming pain. I try to handle it the best I can with the husband assisting as best he can. Pain + anger at intruders + overall stress = call for an epidural to try to take at least one of the stressors away. That was no big deal. It was odd not being able to feel part of my body, but I thought that I could at least get some sleep since it was about midnight or something by now. Nope. They still insisted on poking at me and Matthew's heart was still having pitocin-related issues. At about 8:30 on the 13th they called in a surgeon who had the audacity to tell me that my son wasn't going to fit through my pelvis. Bastard said I was inadequate. If I could've, I'd have kicked him in the head for that comment plus his very non-gentle examination. My thought at the time was, "Hey, fucker. I'm not a cow. You won't make it to your elbow no matter how hard you try."
Oh, what I'd forgotten was that shortly after they placed the epidural, Ben had gone down to the McD's to get something to eat. That was a bad idea. Within a couple of hours he was trying to die and he took his butt down to the ER. He was coming back just as they were packing me up to head to the operating room. I got no time to consult with my husband at all. They declared it an emergency c-section and took me away, tears rolling down my face from disappointment and anger.
At 9:05 on the 13th, Matthew was extracted. He weighed 9 pounds, 7.5 ounces and was 22 inches long. I have a mutant belly resulting from the swelling and c-section, although my scar has faded and you can hardly tell I even had surgery. The sheer frustration with being chewed up by the medical machinery when I felt and still feel that I knew what I was doing still gets to me. Even though I'd lost all pregnancy weight plus some and deflated by my 6 week check up, I gained back roughly 30 pounds through stress eating even though I couldn't ever say what I was stressing over. Never occurred to me before now it might have anything to do with the birth of my son.
So, that's my story. It took me a while to post because I couldn't get over my feeling that it wasn't bad enough to post or that I should just get over myself.
I woke up on the morning of the 12th to waddle to the bathroom. My husband had just come to bed maybe an hour or two before then because he had to go in for a mid-shift that night. About 2 feet from the toilet I start to feel liquid descending, do a quick scuttle and sit down. Water's broken. Joy. I sigh and sit there for a bit- having a little trouble in my sleepy state discerning whether I have to still pee or if I'm just still leaking- pondering whether to wake up the husband now or wait a bit to see how things go. I decide to wake up the husband (poor guy) and he calls up the hospital to double check on what we should do. Even though we educated ourselves and there was a little voice in my head saying "Chill out for a while and go in when you start feeling contractions," when we actually got into the situation we had amnesia I guess. Something like that, anyway. So, we pack ourselves and my bag into the car and head to the Navy Hospital. Thankfully it was still kind of early on a Sunday morning so we didn't have to fight the usual San Diego traffic. We make it to the maternity ward and deal with triage.
The triage nurse was a bitch, just to let ya'll know. She didn't give me even a half a chance to relax before intruding with a speculum and then looked at me like I was stupid when I refused the pitocin all four times she suggested it. Grumpy and protective husband made her go away and we got a sweet old lady nurse who was incredibly understanding of how we wanted things to go. They got us set up in a room and I got to argue with them over the IV and the monitors. They won unfortunately, but it was only because they made sure to remind me that they don't feed laboring women. I think I actually growled at one of the corpsman at that point. Once I got them to leave me be for a while, I tried to get Ben to take a nap so that he would be more helpful. He did okay, but was a bit wound up and couldn't get comfortable to really get any sleep. That combined with the doc intruding every two hours to do a pelvic exam when there was zero change on the monitors made things very distracting for me. Yes, argued with her about the exams as well. Growled at her every time she came in to do the exam, too.
In between all that, I was doing my best to help things along and make myself comfortable. Laying down was useless so I tried to walk around as best I could with all the cords and tubes hanging off me. That was no fun either because by this point in my pregnancy I had become so swollen that walking from the couch to the kitchen made my feet feel like they were going to split open (no preeclampsia, just serious water retention). But, it was better than laying down. After several hours (about eight, I think, because the doc that was on duty started talking about her shift ending), talk of not progressing fast enough and pitocin started up again. Ben and I had been planning on him smuggling in some food, but we couldn't get the timing right. At this point I hadn't eaten since fairly early the night before. So, probably at least 12 hours with no food. I grumbled and consented to the pitocin.
Things go down hill from here. The monitors are saying that I'm having good contractions but I don't feel a thing. In fact, I told the doc that I'd had menstrual cramps with more oompf than that. Even with the pitocin I didn't feel any change. They decide to up the dose a bit. Matthew's heart rate starts dropping a lot with the contractions. They reduce the pitocin and his heart rate stops suffering during the contractions but then I stop progressing like they thought I should. Labor moves into my back. Screaming pain. I try to handle it the best I can with the husband assisting as best he can. Pain + anger at intruders + overall stress = call for an epidural to try to take at least one of the stressors away. That was no big deal. It was odd not being able to feel part of my body, but I thought that I could at least get some sleep since it was about midnight or something by now. Nope. They still insisted on poking at me and Matthew's heart was still having pitocin-related issues. At about 8:30 on the 13th they called in a surgeon who had the audacity to tell me that my son wasn't going to fit through my pelvis. Bastard said I was inadequate. If I could've, I'd have kicked him in the head for that comment plus his very non-gentle examination. My thought at the time was, "Hey, fucker. I'm not a cow. You won't make it to your elbow no matter how hard you try."
Oh, what I'd forgotten was that shortly after they placed the epidural, Ben had gone down to the McD's to get something to eat. That was a bad idea. Within a couple of hours he was trying to die and he took his butt down to the ER. He was coming back just as they were packing me up to head to the operating room. I got no time to consult with my husband at all. They declared it an emergency c-section and took me away, tears rolling down my face from disappointment and anger.
At 9:05 on the 13th, Matthew was extracted. He weighed 9 pounds, 7.5 ounces and was 22 inches long. I have a mutant belly resulting from the swelling and c-section, although my scar has faded and you can hardly tell I even had surgery. The sheer frustration with being chewed up by the medical machinery when I felt and still feel that I knew what I was doing still gets to me. Even though I'd lost all pregnancy weight plus some and deflated by my 6 week check up, I gained back roughly 30 pounds through stress eating even though I couldn't ever say what I was stressing over. Never occurred to me before now it might have anything to do with the birth of my son.
So, that's my story. It took me a while to post because I couldn't get over my feeling that it wasn't bad enough to post or that I should just get over myself.