Drugs?

So I guess it's time that I shared the birth story with you guys. I honestly didn't think I'd have a very interesting one to offer, but since my birth plan more or less went out the window, I can entertain you with it somewhat. If you recall from a previous post, my only requests were to get an epidural, and to get the baby out. Although the baby is in fact out, it didn't happen in the almost pain-free method that I had so been looking forward to.

When Pumpkin was born, there was plenty of time to prepare. My water broke the day before, so they had to induce me about 15 hours later. The happy-epidural-woman took care of my pain, and the nurse who was looking after me kept bringing me Jell-o, and talking to me like I was four, which I quite liked under the circumstances. I was in the delivery room for a few hours before it was time to push, and when Pumpkin finally came out, there was a whole team of doctors and nurses waiting to take care of both mom and baby. This is how I imagined that the birth of baby #2 would be.

Last Thursday, which happened to be Pumpkin's birthday, I started having contractions. By mid day they stopped, and then resumed in the evening, which sucked since they were going to screw up the good night's sleep that I had planned to have before delivering. I was supposed to be induced on the Friday morning. The contractions went on through the night, although they weren't strong or frequent enough to keep me completely awake. I woke up a lot, but still managed to get some sleep. I was supposed to get a call between 6 and 8 in the morning to come in to be induced, but by 7:15, I left for the hospital, even though I hadn't received my call, and even though the contractions were still not consistently five minutes apart. Some were only two minutes apart while others were as far apart as twelve minutes. I was actually concerned that they would send me home if my doctor wasn't ready for my induction, but I wanted to try, and my mother was practically pushing me out the door to ensure that I didn't deliver in the car on Leslie Street. The two contractions that I had in the car were seven minutes apart, and only medium on the severity scale.

In the assessment room, I was ignored for about half an hour. The pain was still controllable with deep breathing, so no one was overly concerned. Finally I was asked to go lie down so they could determine how dilated I was, and as soon as I lay down, the pain intensified. My moaning and groaning could be heard by the other people in the assessment room, but I couldn't control it. I even yelped out, "Help!" at one point. Finally someone came to check me out, and called another nurse over for a second opinion. I hate when a medical practitioner calls a colleague over to check me out. It wasn't the first time that this has happened to me and it has never been a good thing. "Yup, she's ready to go! You're fully dilated", she said to me. I immediately started begging for an epidural for the pain but was told that the happy-epidural-lady was in surgery and that the baby would be out long before she could tend to me. I begged for something else. They said that they could get me some laughing gas, but then never found anyone who could give it to me. They rushed me to the delivery room while I continued to groan very loudly, as everyone in the assessment room looked on. The doctor on call came in after about 10 minutes of intense screaming, broke my water, and had me push. I pushed for maybe five minutes before the baby was born. I had only been in the hospital for just over an hour at this point. That doesn't beat HBM's 11 minutes, but I wasn't all that interested in competing.

So I accidentally had a natural childbirth. In hindsight, I'm glad I had the experience of it, only to say that I did, and to discover how intensely I can actually scream, but I still wouldn't recommend it to my friends. It may have been a better experience if I hadn't been anticipating the drugs for the past nine months, or even if I had read the "irrelevant" chapter on drug-free births. At least it was quick, and the end result is still miraculous.