A Birth Story

My son was born a year ago at 1:40 AM after 24 hours of labor. He's 6 years old today.

It's my own fault the labor was so long. I had him induced. He just wasn't ready to exit the warm confines of my womb and fought it for quite awhile. His original due date was January 14, but was later changed to January 7 due to his size. At the time of my induction, he was due on January 7. So he was induced a week early, but being my first child, he may have come later than that had nature been allowed to take its course. I don't have any good reasons for booting him out of me--he was due so close to the end of the previous year, and I needed the money that would come from claiming him on my taxes. That's it. Crazy right? My OB agreed however, and my January baby became a late December baby. Post Christmas at that. I've been making th post-Christmas thing up to him his whole life.

My mother and I arrived at the hospital around 8 PM that night and I was given something to soften my cervix overnight around midnight. It didn't work. That next morning at 8 AM I was still shut up tighter than Fort Knox. So that's when they decided to give me the Pitocin drip, which is a drug to start artificial contractions.

Pitocin-induced contractions are much stronger than the ones your body would create on its own. Within an hour or so, I was begging for drugs, but I still hadn't dilated one bit. They told me I had to be at least 4 cm to receive an epidural. I pleaded and finally they agreed to give me a shot of pain medication, but only after my water was broken. Artificially of course. Everything about the labor was artificial from start to finish.

Having my waters broken by sticking what looks like a crochet hook up my tightly closed cervix was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. I did it with no drugs. That's when the first and only tears of my labor were shed. A nurse held my hand and whispered encouraging words until I felt a warm gush of fluid between my legs. My mother also tried to be encouraging and told me it would be over soon and that some part of labor had to hurt. Immediately after my waters were broken, I was given the shot of Stadol for pain. I guess they felt sorry for me.

The Stadol felt like a hallucinagen. It was very powerful stuff. I was feeling high and happy and was talking all kinds of craziness. The nurses just smiled at me and told me to sleep, and my mom read the Bible while I dozed. When I woke up, I had dilated a pitiful 2 cm and my contractions were steady and still indicative of early labor. He was determined not to come out. By this time, it was about 2 in the afternoon. I had been in labor for 14 hours, counting the time the suppository was inserted the night before.

Even though I wasn't quite 4 cm, the Stadol had begun to wear off and they decided to max out the Pitocin drip with the hope of speeding things along, so I was offered an epidural which I happily accepted. From that point on, it was easy sailing. I couldn't feel anything from my belly button down. I happily read and talked to my mother and sister, chatted on the phone with friends and my grandmother, and around 7PM that night my poor mother decided to go home to shower and get some rest. At that point she had been at the hospital for 24 hours wearing the same clothes with no sleep and was exhausted. She lived about an hour away from the hospital in another state and promised to come back soon. I was still 2 cm. The Pitocin was maxed out. No progress.

My OB came to check on me around 9 PM and reported I was now 4 cm. After 21 hours of labor, that was discouraging. She didn't seem alarmed though, the baby was doing fine. Too fine--he seemed quite content to stay in there forever.

I took a little nap and at 11 PM a nurse came to wake me up and asked me to put on an oxygen mask. She said the baby was showing a few signs of distress and that I was also running a fever. I felt fine but I guess they could detect all of these things from the nursing station down the hall. Modern technology is amazing. I later learned that they really like you to have the baby within 12 hours of having your waters broken otherwise you run the risk of developing an infection. The fever indicated that this was the case with me. I put on the oxygen mask and was asked to lay on my left side for awhile.

A few minutes later my OB came in with a concerned look on her face and checked my cervix. Still 4 cm. She looked me dead in my face and told me that if I didn't progress within the next hour or so, she was going to give me a Caesarean, for both our sakes. My mother was nowhere around (she was sleeping in Virginia) and I was terrified. As well versed as I am in medicine and the ease in which obstetrical surgeries are performed, I was panicked at the thought of being wheeled to the OR and sliced open with the child taken from me like that. I had horrible images of guts flying around and scars and dying. I frantically called my mother and told her to come NOW because they were talking about a c-section and I didn't want to go in there alone. She was on her way.

I was left alone for a little while and I prayed and prayed. Prayed that my mother would arrive in time, prayed that the baby would be cooperative and decide to come out all of a sudden. The prayers weren't so organized as all that--it was just mumbled, feverish words that were probably never spoken but ran throughout my head over and over nonetheless.

Within about 40 minutes, my OB came back to the room. She bent between my knees with a resigned look on her face, and all of a sudden she smiled. She said, "You're +2!", which I later found out meant that not only was I fully dilated, but the baby's head had descended into my pelvis and he was close to being out. The look of pleasure on her face made me smile. No c-section for me! In fact, she had to quickly assemble a team of nurses to prepare for delivery. One of the nurses stood next to me and looked at the contractions I was having on the graph and said, "You can't feel that?" I said no. She looked amazed and said, "You don't feel anything?" I thought about it for a minute and realized I could feel a dull rhythmic pressure, but no pain. I said, "I guess I feel some pressure?" and she looked satisfied with that. The contractions must have been mighty strong for her to ask me that. But apparently I had a great anaesthesiologist because I didn't feel a sliver of pain.

That was the good news. Baby on the way, no pain. The bad news was my mother still hadn't arrived. But I knew she would be there. I was asked to concentrate on pushing and I pushed while the nurses counted to 10. At least I thought I was pushing. I couldn't really tell since I couldn't feel anything, but I tried my best to bear down. There were lots of words of encouragement and my OB even told me that a woman next door was also in labor but had been pushing for over an hour with her first child, and she thought I could beat her if I kept at it. She must have sensed my competitive spirit.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my left leg, like an excruciating menstrual cramp but only in my leg. I stopped mid-push and said, "I feel the contractions in my leg!" The epidural was wearing off, but only on one side. But it was horrific. It wasn't the worst pain, but I knew that if I felt pain like that with all the drugs in my system, I would be in a world of trouble if that epidural wore off before I could get the baby out. I normally have heavy bleeding and severe cramping during my menstrual cycle, and occasionally will feel the cramping in my legs, but this was like a period cramp x100. But just on the one side.

It created a sense of extreme urgency in me to get the baby out. I began to bear down and push to the point that my doctor told me to pause and slow down while she eased his head out. I saw her reach for scissors and they came back bloody and I knew she had cut my perineum. An episiotomy for the medically minded. I could only think "He must have a big head" if she did that (to this day my son has a big head LOL). She asked me to push again and suddenly I felt a rush of pressure and he was out!

Just as my mother ran into the room :)

I remember every detail from that moment on. When he came out, he was a mottled blue color (which would have been alarming if I didn't know that blood is blue until it becomes oxygenated, so all babies are born bluish) and covered in vernix, a waxy cheese-like coating that babies have to protect their skin while they are in the womb. My doctor mumbled "Hmmm, a lot of vernix, maybe 2 weeks early" and plopped him on my chest. Just like that. I was holding a wet, slightly bloody and not-so-blue anymore baby on my chest...and it felt like heaven. His skin was butter soft. Still the softest thing I've ever touched. A nurse looked at the clock and announced "1:40 AM" and being the astrology buff I am, I noted the time because it is incredibly frustrating and difficult to do an astrology chart when you don't have an exact birth time, and I didn't want to be one of those mothers who couldn't remember.

My OB was doing some things "down there" but I didn't really notice. I was holding my son. He had a confused look on his face and mewled a few cries of protest, and then a nurse grabbed him up and said "I'll give him back when he's cleaned up" and smiled. My mother was cooing over all of his hair. I was watching them clean him up (his cries got a little louder at being handled that way), and then was asked to pay attention and push again to push out the placenta. That surprised me a little. I thought all the work was done when the baby was born. I gave a couple of half-hearted pushes and all of that was done.

The baby was weighed, measured, washed, and wrapped up, then handed to me with a hat on and a blanket. A nurse told me to offer him my breast and I did. By then he was quiet and observant. His eyes were wide open and he looked at me like "Are you kidding? I'm tired!" and yawned. I laughed. I was tired too, and he was beautiful. Every mother thinks her newborn is beautiful, but truthfully most aren't. Mine was though. His head hadn't been squished in the birth canal due to the rapid delivery (I believe it took less than 10 minutes to push him out, which is incredibly fast for a first time mother), and he had a head full of curly dark hair. He was pale yellow--the color of butternut squash, and had wide brown eyes. No bruising on his skin, or speckles or strange birthmarks...pure perfection. He didn't look confused anymore, just...bitter. Frowned up with furrowed brows. I imagine he was a bit miffed with me at being forced from his happy home before he was ready. I handed him to my mom to hold and smiled to myself at my triumph. He was perfect. It was perfect.

25 hours and 40 minutes or so of labor, and a child was born, who is now the love of my life. Happy Birthday Justin!

Postscript: A few notes--there is no mention of his father in this story because he wasn't there. Also, he didn't reject my breast forever. A few hours later he was ravenous, and breastfed so vigorously throughout the next few days that I was raw and sore, hormonal and tearful. We worked it out within a couple of weeks and he was breastfed until about 4 months of age, until he discovered formula with cereal in it...and became a greedy, fat little baby who wanted nothing to do with thin, yucky breastmilk. We spent a lot of time together in those 3 days I was in the hospital. He roomed-in with me and was only gone for exams and his circumcision (which I almost changed my mind on at the last second and ran down the hall to save him from it like a maniac, then burst into tears when I saw a baby crying afterwards, only to find out it wasn't him...my kid had already had it done and was sleeping peacefully a few bassinets away...). He wanted me to hold him and hold him, nurse him and nurse him...and I obliged. To this day, we are super close. I'll never let him go.

Blog finished at 1:40 AM. Perfect timing. Exactly 6 years old. And sleeping peacefully upstairs. Mommy is tearful of course.

The end.

Midnight Musings

I've got a lot on my mind tonight. Today is my son's birthday. He's 6 years old today. Actually, in an hour, it will be the exact time to the minute that he was born. So I've been reflecting on that. Time goes by really fast when you're a parent. I now know what they mean when they say "kids grow up too fast". He's already 1/3 of the way through his childhood yet it seems like yesterday that he was a newborn.

I've been thinking a lot about love too. LOL--aren't I always thinking about love? Possibilities seem endless right now, moreso than they have in awhile, and still I'm not content. There's an underlying ambivalence in my approach to relationships that worries me. I know what I want...or at least what I say I want...but am I being real with myself? I truly enjoy my solitude. But I don't want to be alone. That doesn't make sense...but then again, it does.

For the last week I have kept this blog hidden, even changed the URL, because I gave access to it that I don't usually give and felt way too vulnerable. But then I realized I can't live my life on other people's terms. This blog is about ME. I can only be me. A person can either accept that or judge me.

So the blog has been restored to its usual state. I apologize to those who look for it and couldn't find it.

It won't happen again. FIN.

Erased

It is so easy
to delete you from my mind--
you just don't exist.

Cute Kid Moment

My son definitely still believes in Santa. We are watching football highlights and he just saw someone on the screen dressed as Santa at the Jets game and he says, "Mommy! Santa's at the Jets game, I just saw him on TV!" LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

Those are the moments that make parenting great.

Venus in Scorpio

Only your own kind

can survive the deadly sting

of your mating dance...

Creature of Habit

I am so tired
and I'm miserably sick
yet...here's a haiku.

Note to Self & Readers

A blog is a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Even in the few short months since I've kept one, and despite long absences, I can see how much I've evolved as a person. It's a good thing--highly recommended, and I need to keep it up. Thanks for sharing this with me.