Labor and Delivery...Sorry Boys!

A woman screams in agony. Sweat drips from her furrowed brow as she pulls her knees to her chest and obeys the nurses order that she pushes. And there is always a complication. Is it any wonder that pregnant women have anxiety about the day they go into labor? The birthing process is always portrayed as horrible experience – long, painful, and fraught with risks. But, in reality, the women out there who have this supposedly “typical” kind of birth are few and far between. Giving birth is something that has, quite literally, been happening forever. And more often than not, it is a process that goes smoothly. My own birthing experience was not entirely smooth, but I know for sure I was not screaming my head off at any point during the 29 hour process. I take you back to approximately 14 months ago…

I was, and still am, a firm believer in giving birth naturally. Not just vaginally, but naturally. Women have been doing it in my family forever, and so to me it was, no pun intended, the natural choice. I was disappointed to find that while looking for some classes on birthing, most included a detailed “menu” of drugs that were made available to the laboring mother-to-be, and little to no techniques on preparing for a natural birth. So after a lot of online research, I found and later took a class called Hypnobirthing, which is actually a course on breathing techniques and visualization for drug-free pain management. There is no hypnotizing involved. The class, along with my mother at my side as my doula (or labor coach) prepared me for the day I would give birth to my son. Let’s jump ahead to the day I checked into the hospital…

So there I was, waddling into the E.R. at 7 am, sick of being the size of a Geo Metro, thinking THIS WAS IT! After more than 10 months of being pregnant, I was finally going to get to meet my Jack Thomas! The date was 9/24/09, and I was a full two weeks overdue. My drill-sergeant doula had me walking to try and induce my labor naturally (25 miles in 4 days), but to no avail. So now I was on my way to be induced with Pitocin. I got up to my birthing suite and was hooked up to an IV, my drugs, and a monitor to watch my baby’s vitals.

It was 12 noon before I felt a thing, and that apparently concerned my nurses. So after four hours of stubbornly refusing to comply (in true Osgood fashion), I agreed to let them break my water. Then it really started hit the fan. I for one would not call labor painful, but rather very, very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable in fact, that when any of my many wonderful nurses touched my huge stomach , I slapped their hands. After 20 some hours of contracting and slapping, I was begging for an epidural. The nurses called for an anesthesiologist, and I don’t know if it was the long day of laboring, but I swear it was Mr. Clean. So Mr. Clean prepared my epidural, and after a poke it was administered. Except I still felt everything, and for those who don’t know, an epidural is suppose to leave you numb from about the bottom of your rib cage down. After giving it a half an hour to kick in, Mr. Clean was called back to administer another one. Two minutes later, I was conked out. There’s a reason they call it labor- it’s work! I slept for five hours, and woke up to bad news. I had thick myconium(basically Jack pooped from all the stress of labor) in my fluid, and my temperature was rising. The doctor came in and told me that a cesarean section would be necessary if I did not deliver soon. After four more hours of contracting, I was told that if they did not get Jack out soon, both he and I could be in danger.

I was crushed to hear it, but the last thing I wanted was to put my baby in danger, so I reluctantly agreed to have the cesarean. I was wheeled in my bed to the operating room, where I was then asked to sit on the edge of my bed with my back hunched so that they could administer my spinal. My epidurals must of worn off at that point, because that is one part of my labor that I would describe as painful. After 20 minutes of being hunched the anesthesiologist had to call in another anesthesiologist, because apparently I am difficult to anesthetize. Once I was finally numbed up, I was strapped to the table, and a nurse who I swear looked like Dr. Grey from Grey’s Anatomy commented on the fact that Jack was still kicking. Apparently babies normally stop moving during labor, but not my Jack! All of the sudden I could not breath, so I told Dr. Grey and she said that my spinal had “crawled up.” That meant that instead of numbing only my lower body, my spinal had also numbed up my chest so I could not feel myself breathe. So I was put under general anesthesia.

The next thing I know, I was being told by a very excited new Grandmother “Wake up Atlanta! Meet your son!” I couldn’t believe it - I had a son. I still can’t believe it sometimes. It’s a whole wealth of emotion that no one can know until they experience it. I had made it. I had given birth. It was not the way I wanted it to go, and I still am disappointed that I did not get to see my son come out all gooey and hear him take his first breath. But I’ll say this - it was no scene out of a horror movie either. And there is always next time. But it’ll take me a few years to forget just how hard having a newborn is before I’m brave enough to go down that road!