My First Birth Story

I wanted to help all of you get to know me and my birthing history.  I feel that it adds to the explanation of what it is I am doing now.  So lets begin with ::

September 15th 2002

My pseudo-surprise baby shower in my parents backyard was a fantastic day.  The weather was cooperating and everyone who mattered was there.  I looked like hell by the way, I was pushing 265lbs and barely looked pregnant let alone like me. My best friends from school had actually walked right passed me not recognizing me at all!  I had gained weight but was also retaining ALOT of water as even my hand and face were grossly squishy. 

September 16th 2002

Monday morning- 5am- I woke up to use the washroom - again....and notice more than the usual amount of pee....hmmm....suspicious.  But I went back to bed and there I stayed for the remainder of the day.  Up to this point I would occasionally have mild contractions in my lower back and today was no different.  I was incredibly tired and decided that today is as good as any to get those thank you cards written up.  Thankfully I had done them all in this one day, because it would be the last chance I would have to get to them!

Monday night dinner at the In-laws and the contractions in my lower back had not yet stopped, but hadn't gotten worse either, so I figured that it would happen soon enough.  My breathing had gotten thicker and heavier before the end of dinner so DH and I went home early to get some sleep.  Laying in bed helping DH write up a new job description for a new job he was starting the very next day, contractions starting getting heavier.  We had gone to those "birthing classes" and knew that if you could no longer hold a conversation through your contractions that it was a good indicator that it was time to go to the hospital.

But my contractions were coming every two minutes and I was still talking through it all, DH called the hospital to talk to the Maternity Nurse and while I talked to her she knew that I had a few contractions during it all.  "Come on in"

10pm- arrival to the hospital to be strapped down to a table, on my back (did I mention the contractions were all in my back??)  I didn't want to be in this position I wanted to be on my hand and knees, but I was Not Allowed.  DH left then to move the care from the drop off area to the parking garage, and was gone for almost an hour!  I was given the OK to move to a delivery room...thankfully they let me walk, and thankfully again those railings are held on the walls very well!  By this time it is after midnight...then the anaesthesiologist comes in...and the nurse asks me if I have one of those "tramp stamps" on my back with an awful tone in her voice.  When they see the I don't have a tattoo on my back they both say to each other "Thank God for that, cause we won't do it otherwise"  no tactful explanation.

I will never have one of those again!!

September 17th- wee early hours.
Crouch over your belly tightly and don't move a muscle.

Hmm...my muscles are moving of their own accord in the process of expelling a baby from its midst....very useful person- aka man

The staff at some point decide to attach an IV drip to my arm, when I expressly stated I did not want one, as I felt that the need to move around freely during my labour was important.  That was when I also learned that the drugs in my back were actually still attached to me...in my lower back....made the contractions worse for a while, until they stopped...and that does happen because the drugs they give you to dull the pain actually relax your muscles.  They then pump in another drug into my IV to make the contractions step it up a notch or a thousand.

By this point I am devastated.  I had so carefully avoided anything that may harm my baby, caffeine, excess sugar, salt, fatty foods.  I ate healthier than I ever had, exercised by walking often and swimming.  And here they were allowing my baby to swim in drugs.  Professionalism stopped them from telling me to shut up, but I felt the words hanging there in the words they did use...Oh he'll be fine, it's nothing.

My stomach does this strange morphing as my body feels calmed by the need to push.....DON'T PUSH!!

What?  Why??

They tell me when it is "safe" to push but I had to wait quite a bit longer.  Finally, just after 430 am he's born.

I am stitched up, because it turns out that my 4lb13oz baby tore me....does that sound right to you??

Then they check him out, check his blood  yaddda yadda.....I held him for a few minutes before they took him back and the entire room cleared out, including my DH.  I am still attached to the IV and the stirrups and I need to pee and I am all alone and shaking uncontrollably.

The thing in my back was gone and I was beginning to feel my legs again so I got up with great difficulty and had to jump off the dang bed it was so high off the ground and make my way into the washroom alone.  When I got out there was a nurse there and she started scolding me for not waiting!

Unreal!

I am then brought to my room and am happy to see a nice view from the window.  Things are looking up!  I was able to get some sleep but woke in a panic when I heard a baby cry in the cloth cubicle next to me.  My mild panic turns into a wave to terror and tears ad still no one I know is to be found near me...including my baby.  DH come to see me as I am trying to eat a hospital breakfast of crap tea and God knows what else!  And he is able to tell me that the baby has been brought to NICU.

If you thought the tears and waves of panic before were bad, look out!

When I was finally calmed down, DH brought me to see him, and I was promptly scolded again for not coming sooner!  How was I to know?  No one told me!  Remember me, anyone?

He was so tiny I was afraid of him.  But I held him and fed him formula from the most tiny bottle ever.  But by the end of the day I was finally able to bring him back to my room and keep him.  Then it came time for lights out and then he screamed and couldn't be soothed.  I wanted to feed him but the nurse came in and said "Don't feed him again....you need to feed him every four hours, he's already fed he's fine."  Then she took him out of my room and left me alone again "to get sleep"   I am not sure about you but being under 5lbs with a stomach that can only handle about 2-3 ounces a feeding, waiting 4 hours before the next one is too damn long.  But I am a first time mom and know nothing, right?

I couldn't breastfeed the poor darling, even though I tried so hard that the lactation consultant told me to give up.  He wouldn't latch on.  How can you blame him?  His mouth opened as large as a quarter and my nipple and area was the diameter of a pop can....proportions are wrong here.  So I pumped the meager amount that was willing to drop and that lasted two weeks before giving up completely.

But while the lactation consultant, whom had never had a child of her own and therefore could not understand why I was crying out in pain, was spending her afternoon trying to convince my baby how to latch on, the view outside my window had changed considerably.  I was now staring into the face and large torso of a burly man with a hammer.  I was on the 8th floor.  Not a comfortable predicament to say the least.

Needless to say that I was itching to get out of there.

September 18th

I was finally getting into the swing of things.  I was changing diapers, feeding him with a bottle (which the hospital gave me both of liberally) and even bathed him, even though the nurse did not want to show me the correct way to do this.  When a knock at the door provided me with my first unsolicited visitor. 

Over the next two hours I had the welcome wagon lady drop in, a life insurance lady drop in, the photobed woman drop in and countless nurses and students.  The photobed lady came in with her camera and infant bad step-up and we thought it would be a great picture to have, until she started poking him in the face with a bottle nipple on her finger to make him open his eyes.  She had told me not to feed him but she was on hour late, so he fell asleep and scolded me for not listening to her instructions.  Sigh!  Who's the child in this room??  Eventually I got a picture taken with his eyes closed and am still grateful as the eyes open pictures look like they have been possessed by the devil.  But if it weren't for my DH she would have been wearing her photobed around her neck for poking him.

By the next morning we were packed up and waiting to go home.