Birth story, Part III

Eventually, the pain was so unbelievably horrific that they offered me an epidural and I accepted, though I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do at only 4 cm. The anesthesiologist, who was a very jokey fellow-—if I wasn’t too delirious to remember correctly, he called himself “Dr. Feelgood”—-came in and did it for me. Now this part was very hard. I had to sit up and lean forward, during a contraction, and try to hold still, despite the screaming pain, while he did things to my spine. I think he did a local anesthetic first, and then the epidural insertion. When I did as I was told, and leaned forward into a nurse’s arms to prepare for the epidural, my mom let out a loud gasp of horror that made me almost fall off the table. I later learned that she thought I was pitching forward in an out-of-control freefall. Unfortunately, the loud gasp flustered everyone, including the anesthesiologist. I think that with one more episode like that, she would have been ejected from the room.

The epidural insertion was kind of uncomfortable, and it was weird to be on a catheter, but I clung to the hope that afterward, I would not be in so much pain. Everyone had told me the relief from an epidural was so good it was almost euphoria-inducing. Here is where you will probably feel sorry for me: the epidural didn’t quite work. The left side of my body went numb, but I could still feel pain on the right side. I thought it wasn’t such a bad thing, because when the time came for me to push, I’d still be able to feel the contractions. But the pain went on, and I went on having to breathe through the contractions, which the nurses told me missed the whole point of the epidural. Eventually, we called the anesthesiologist back-—it was around 4 pm and another one was on duty—-and he tried to help me by upping the dose of medication. But this did not help either. The pains in the right side of my body continued. So finally, he was summoned back yet again and he re-did the epidural. I was afraid he’d be annoyed but he said he had decided on his own that my level of pain was not acceptable and that something wasn’t working. He removed the old epidural, which involved ripping pieces of tape from my back (and, I’m pretty sure, ripping a layer of skin from my back, too). I burst into tears, I am sad to say. After all that I had been going through, you wouldn’t think the tape part would have been the thing to push me over the edge, but it was-—well, the tape part, and the fact that I was now going through the horrible experience of having yet another epidural. Again I had to sit up, with terrible contractions racking me, and try to hold still while the epidural was inserted.

This time the epidural worked, and all of me went numb. I could barely feel the contractions at all anymore. For the first time since Wednesday afternoon, I was feeling no pain, though I was completely exhausted and weepy. I was also dying of thirst, but they told me not to drink anything; I couldn’t even suck on ice chips. This, I gather, is because if they have to do emergency surgery on me, involving general anesthesia, it is better not to have anything in one’s stomach. They kept reassuring me that I was not dehydrated, because I was on an IV, but I couldn’t believe it because of how thirsty I was. I have never felt thirst like that in my life. I chewed on gum and used chapstick to comfort myself a bit, but I couldn’t get my mind off of thirst. To be frank, I wanted a Sprite. I wanted one really, really bad. I wanted a Sprite more than I wanted a baby, at some times.

For the record, the epidural is a very weird experience, when it works. I stopped being able to feel much of my lower body. For the short time the epidural was working, I felt only the slightest sensations of the contractions, and had to look at the monitor to see when a particularly big one was coming on. At some point or another, I can’t remember when, the doctors broke my water bags with something that looked exactly like a long hook. The hope was that this would help me progress, but I was a little worried when they told me the baby had taken her first poop already and there was meconium in my waters; I remembered from childbirth class that this could be a sign of fetal distress.

The doctors checked me again and again; I was at 5 cm, finally, and possibly 5.5 cm. After that, however, the “no progress” theme was repeatedly reinforced. At last the doctors told me I had a fever and an infection (corteo-vaginal-something), and, what scared me the most though I have heard it’s not so unusual, they said the baby was “tachychardic” (?) and in danger of getting whatever infection I had. Now they said decisions had to be made, and all the doctors went to consult with each other out in the hallway. They came back and told me they wanted me to have a C-section. Actually, the doctor now in charge of me, who was very nice, said, “Prepare to meet your daughter.” Pretty exciting, though the news that I wasn't going to deliver vaginally was of course disappointing after 26 hours of labor.

The official reasons for the C-section: failure to progress (of course), despite the fact that the doctors said my contractions were regular and strong enough to “drive the labor”; for some reason, I wasn’t dilating and the baby wasn’t moving down the birth canal, either. She remained at -2. Also cited was the conviction that I had that pelvic disproportion problem—that my pelvis was too small to fit the baby down it. And finally, of course, the fever and infection were factors.

So they decided to do the C-section, and the nurses wheeled me down the hall to the operating room, being careful to bang my gurney into every single wall, door, and corner they encountered. I realize this sounds whiny and ungrateful, but it is true, and was particularly awful because I was trying not to throw up. Then they banged me roughly into the OR and tried to turn my gurney in such a way that I could be moved onto the operating table, but a wheel was jammed so that when they made jerking motions with it, it didn’t move. They kept jerking it ever more violently and saying that it didn’t work. It was very surreal, like they weren't aware that I was lying there right below them and experiencing all this bumping and slamming. But I want to add that in general, the nurses I had were wonderful and I'm pretty sure some of them are headed for sainthood.

I can't believe how long this is turning out to be. I think I'll save the end for a Part IV, which will be the last part of this riveting narrative. Thanks for your patience!