The Tale of Adeline, Part III: Blackout

Warning: There are some graphic photos in this post. I want to to tell my story with honesty and not feel the need to hide or edit what happened, because I believe that Addie's birth was as beautiful and important as any other. I also want to share my experience with women who may share similar birth stories. For Part I, click here. For Part II, click here.

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"I think we're going to the hospital, dear," my midwife told me.

It was four o'clock in the morning. I had been in active labor for more than 24 hours. I agreed.

This was where my months of meticulous planning had ended. I had not researched hospitals, not even CONSIDERED where we might go if things went wrong. Because I'd believed that if I'd planned for it, then it would happen. In hindsight, this was foolish. The hospital we ended up going to was the closest one to our apartment, and my midwife had worked there as an RN years ago so she had pull with all the doctors and nurses. It was also known as the "ghetto hospital" by many, since it was primarily for low-income, Medi-Cal families. I actually had Medi-Cal by some miraculous circumstance of applying right when I found out I was pregnant, and it ended up covering the entire cost of my stay. So I don't have any right to complain or criticize this place because they took care of me and the doctors were amazing.

The drive to the hospital was awful. I thing my body was in shock, or maybe I was going through "transition" (where you feel sick right before you're about to push the baby out), because I was hot and cold, and gasping through my contractions, back pain, and the urge to push. Luckily, the roads were clear and the Labor and Delivery part of hospital seemed quiet and empty.

The nurses immediately hooked me up to an IV while the midwife discussed my situation with the doctor. My levels of amniotic fluid were still surprisingly high and I was plenty hydrated from all the labor-ade I was forced to drink. It was decided that all I would need was a little pitocin to restart the contractions and then I could have my baby. No problem!

Except pitocin is paaaaainful. Pitocin makes your contractions come on like a freight train, ramming into you over and over with little break in between. I felt like hell resisted as long as could, but after a few more contractions, I begged for the epidural. I felt like a failure in the eyes of my midwife, who has extolled the evils of medicated births the previous nine months, drilling into my head that narcotics and epidurals robbed women of the natural high they received after pushing the baby out. Oh well, I thought, I'm at the hospital now anyways.

My midwife and Zach were completely supportive of my decision for the epidural and 45 minutes later, the anesthesiologist walked in with a golden halo hovering over this head. After he was finished, my legs suddenly went numb and felt like massive tree trunks. The pain of the contractions faded away but my body was so tense from the labor and adrenaline that my back was seizing up and H. had to continuously massage me to help me relax and sleep a little.

Hours passed as I drifted in and out of consciousness. By 12:30 pm, my contractions had been showing strong and steady on the monitor for long enough. 10 centimeters, here I come! The nurse checked my cervix and looked up at me with a sad, worried expression on her face.

"4 or 5 centimeters," she said, "I think the baby is in a posterior position, and the head is tilted the wrong way so it's bashing up against your cervix and you're very swollen now."

After all the pain, all that time, all the preparation and visualizing of my perfect birth, it came down to this: an emergency c-section. I was too tired to fight this nightmare. I nodded my consent as tears started to fall down my face. A part of me was relieved that it would just be over soon, the other part of me wept for whatever dream I had that was now gone. My mother and sister walked into the room, trying to smile through their worried expressions. We took this photo right before I was wheeled into the Operating Room:

It was a little after one o'clock in the afternoon and a new anesthesiologist pumped me full of pain medication, testing my reflexes to make sure I was thoroughly numb from the waist down. I kept feeling his fingers and this scared me. I really didn't want to feel myself being sliced open. Surgeons and nurses flurried around the room, my midwife madly clicked away on the camera, and Zach sat next to me stroking my face and whispering sweet things into my ear. He wore an operating room hat and mask so all I could see were his eyes. I remember how they were full of concern, but also of strength and love. I don't think I've ever loved anyone so much as him at that exact moment.

The doctors began the surgery. There was a large blue vertical curtain placed below my chest so I couldn't see anything. I heard murmuring and the beeping of machines. Anytime they referred to the baby, they would say, "he", and, "his", which felt so anti-climactic after we waited nine months to find out the sex.

"I guess we have a Jack," I whispered to Zach.

It sounded like they were having some difficulty pulling our son out. A doctor angrily yelled at my midwife to get back behind the curtain since she had our camera right over their shoulders during the surgery. I felt a tugging that was getting stronger and stronger, and then a surprising shock of pain starting to spread throughout my body. I felt nauseous from all the drugs and began to shake violently.

"Oh my God, it's a girl!"

Cheers burst out through the room and suddenly there she was, covered in bloody goo, face to face with me. I kissed her forehead. I felt a deep sadness that the first time I met her I was feeling so sick and weak. I didn't want my first memories of her to be associated with numbness, pain, and confusion. It was hard to feel any tenderness or love because I felt like I was spinning, falling down a deep spiral, and then all too abruptly...blackout.

to be continued...

Go to Part IV

Twenty-Two, and Part II

Today my little girl, my first-born, a person who has changed my life for the infinitely better, turns 22 months old. That number may seem weird to celebrate since she’s two months shy of her second birthday, but it feels momentous to me. Month 21 passed in the blink of an eye. Her language skills have suddenly developed up so much so that she ran into our bedroom this morning with her toy pot and ladle and exclaimed, “Mama, I make soup!” She’s like a little tornado of EMOTION, which she expresses to maximum effect. When she’s joyful, you can’t help but laugh and twirl and march alongside her. When she’s angry, a dark cloud looms over all of us. What a curious, wonder-filled adventure it’s been thus far with our little imp:

Happy 22 months, Addie...

And now, for the next installment of:

The Tale of Adeline, Part II: Nature’s Revenge

(for Part I, click here)

I was eight days late. No, not my period this time. My due-date. Not that due-dates are ever accurate. I think it’s something like a 10% chance of actually having your kid be born on the due date your doctor gives you, but still. By the last month of your pregnancy, you are HONED in on that day. That glorious day when you will be released from the shackles of an alien life-form that’s hijacked your body (I actually loved everything about being pregnant until a week before she was born and then it was like OUT, VILE CREATURE, OUT!)

By the time the whole breech baby-it’s-the-end-of-Ariel’s-world-as-she-knows-it fiasco was over, it was already December, and my due date was the 20^th. Well, the 20^th came and went. I think I went about my day tip-toeing around, hugging Zoe a lot, expecting my waters to break and drown us all at any moment. And then it was the night before Christmas, and I was praying that this poor kid wouldn’t have to share a birthday with Jesus Christ. And then Christmas came and went and we played a lot of Nintendo Wii, ate homemade fried chicken and spaghetti puttanesca, and walked around the neighborhood loop thirty million times to kick-start my labor. I even took some Labor Tincture my midwife gave me but it only gave me a few mild contractions that faded away through nighttime.

The next evening (the 26th) I began to feel contractions again, but figured they would go away like before so I knocked back a little more Labor Tincture and proceeded to kick everyone's ass at Super Mario Cart. They kept coming though, and by 10:00pm, I was on the phone with my midwife. 10 minutes apart, for 30-60 seconds long. Labor, schmabor!, I thought. Hoo-boy, what an idiot I was.

My sister and Zach went to bed, leaving me to suffer in my own private hell. It's not like they could tell how I felt. I would be fine one minute, and then the next, face down in the carpet, butt up in the air, breathing hoo, hoo, HOOOOO. By 2:00am, I'd had enough alone time and started harassing my midwife again on the phone. She could tell I needed support by that time and sent her assistant, H., to our apartment. H. was a GODSEND. Patient, amazing, calming angel of a woman. By the time she arrived at 5:00am, it became clear that the baby was in a posterior position (head facing the wrong way) by the intense lower back pain I felt each time I had a contraction. She and Zach would literally put all of their weight into their clenched fists against my lower back for relief--I had bruises to prove it.

Zach and H. are having some random discussion while I look like I'm praying at the altar of Michael Pollan. Did I seriously think I was going to be in the mood to read about grass-fed cattle in between contractions?

Apparently, yes.

I don't think I have ever consumed as much liquid as I did while laboring at home. They tell you not to drink or eat anything at the hospital; well, these people shoveled homemade "labor-ade", bananas, and peanut-butter toast down my throat at every given chance. I never want to taste the combination of lemon juice, water, honey, salt, and ground-up calcium magnesium tablets again. GAG. They did, however, do a great job of keeping my energy up because my labor kept going. and going. and going. In the late morning (around 10:00 am), H. checked my progress and said I was at 4 cm. Whoo-hoo!

By this time, I was in my own deep, animalistic private-world. All modesty and sense of decorum was thrown out the window. I didn't care that my sister was taking photos of me half-naked, in full squat-position, moo-ing as loudly as possible from the very deepest pit of my stomach. I look at those photos now and blush HARD. But nobody said child-birthin' was purdy!

As the young folks say, shit was getting real. My water broke at 12:37 (thanks, note-takers), and there on the bathroom floor, was a bright red, heart-shaped puddle (the bloody show!). Really! I have a photo, but I don't think you want to see my mucus plug, even if it looked pretty in that i-make-art-with-my-bodily-fluids kind of way. This was past the twelve-hour mark and I was hit with a second-wind, encouraged by my water breaking and progressing another centimeter. I cried, completely overwhelmed with the level of support and love I felt toward and from the people around me.

Here I am right after my water broke, smiling. Because I thought it would be over soon.

Time ceased to exist. Hours flew by without my notice since all I could focus on was getting through each mind-numbingly painful contraction and then relaxing during the few-minute reprieve. I spent most of the time in our bathroom, jumping in and out of the shower, rolling against an exercise ball, and sitting on a medieval-looking "birthing stool" that was invented by a Danish midwife so you could have your baby without straining your thigh muscles while you squatted. Now there is a pretty picture for you to go along with the words! Oh, and I was bellowing like a p.o.'d moose at the same time. I'm sure our neighbors were equally too embarrassed and terrified to do anything like call the police.

Sitting on the "birthing stool"...maybe I'm imagining my spirit animal?

It was night again, and everyone besides myself ate dinner. By 10:00pm , a full night and day later, my spirits began to flag. I was beyond exhausted. I was falling asleep while still standing with my head resting on the bathroom counter.

zzzzzzzzzzz...wake me up when the baby is here

I told my midwife I didn't think I could do it anymore. She checked me again and said I was eight, almost nine, centimeters.

"Well, it's time to shit or get off the pot," she said.

"What!?", I thought, and became very pissed off at her all of a sudden. What the hell had I been doing the past 24 hours?

The next five or six hours were a blur. I tried to focus every molecule of my being into dilating that last centimeter. I meditated. Zach and I took a bath together. I begged to whatever higher power existed in the Universe to please help out a tiny bit and get me through this.

Suddenly, I felt my insides bearing down very hard and it felt different than the usual contraction. Am I pushing this baby out?, I thought, as amniotic fluid gushed out. It was like my body had a mind of it's own and it got sick of waiting around--it was time to push. My midwife checked me again and said that I was still at 9 cm but she hoped these stronger contractions would help bring the baby's head down and push me to 10.

The odd pushing contractions kept coming, I kept losing amniotic fluid, and I felt like death may be a more viable option than continuing as I was. I was feeling so disheartened every time the midwife checked me and I was still stuck at 9.5 cm. My normal contractions were petering out, getting weaker and weaker, and in a total panic over failing, I ran up and down the apartment stairs outside in the freezing weather at three o'clock in the morning to make them stronger. I was a maniac.

By 4:00 am, talk of hospital transfer began...

to be continued...

Go to Part III