This, is the end of the story of my pregnancy. I had a hard time deciding whether or not I should end this blog with Cesar’s birth story, or begin my newest blog, All Hail Cesar, with it. For this ending chapter was a beginning to a new one. Yet, in my logic, I came to the conclusion that it would be a rather abrupt and unsatisfying ending to just leave off this blog with hardly a conclusion. And so, after three months, it’s time to share the story of Cesar’s birth.
In retrospect, I think my blog may have come off a little haughty and perhaps even negative. I needed a place to vent, and I did that here. But before you go saying, “Oh, you learned your lesson..” no, I did not. I’m just as snooty as ever but, I think I am much calmer now that this is over. The worrying, the stress, has moved on. I’m no longer having to be consumed by what’s going to happen to me because I no longer have to fight the pregnant woman‘s battle. Now I can fight a mother‘s battle, the battle of a tiger! And I had a decent (good, not great) birth experience.
On May 18th, 2011 I woke up feeling a little odd. It was four days past my EDD, and I was beginning to get a little anxious. So much so, that the night before I had walked two miles with Vincent, come home, and jumped up and down, up and down, at about two in the morning as we made a video about how much we wanted Cesar to be born.
I had my doctor’s appointment at 11 am, and to be honest I seriously considered whether or not I actually wanted to go. I was tired of the annoying check up, “Well you’re still 2 centimeters dilated… any day now.” Naturally I went, only to be told that since I was four days past, it was time to start scheduling induction. I politely told the doctor I’d like to wait until the following week. He scoffed at me, and asked why. I tried explaining to him that I felt the EDD might be off, and he started to argue that it was not off by any means because the calculations were just right. I finally gave up and scheduled the induction for that Sunday. To his credit, the doctor did tell me that if I still felt strongly about waiting that I did have the option to call and cancel, which is more than I would expect of my previous doctor.
And so, I left the office with a scheduled birth date for my son, and some disappointment. We went out to eat, where I realized that I had what seemed to be a pain in my kidneys. I sipped iced tea like crazy. I’ve had kidney pain before, and good hydration clears it up quickly. But this would come and go, come and go.
By the time we got home I was ready for a shower. I took a nice shower, hoping it would ease some of my pains that didn’t seem to be subsiding. Once I got out, however, I threw myself on the bed and gasped. Vincent was worried, and I was too. I suspected by that time that the pain I was experiencing was contractions. For while the pain started in the kidneys it circled around to the front of my abdomen, and then subsided. I had been ready for labor, I had prepared myself for it… but I began to fear something was wrong. Labor, I had read and reread, takes a long time. Sometimes days in it’s natural course. What was happening, was something wrong? Or was I just a wimp after all?
Vincent, also confused and concerned went straight away to the internet. He said we should time the contractions to see just how bad off I was.
“Okay,” he told me, and I‘ll never forget this part, “If they are five minutes apart your next one should be at four twelve.”
“Ahh!” I relayed, as another one started.
“Well …that was a minute.”
In our confusion we decided the best option was to call 911. I felt totally unprepared, like a failure, and I did NOT want to spend days on end in a hospital only to be induced. The fear sprang upon me, but I did my best to fight it. I got up, started collecting what I could to take with me. I remember grabbing makeup and tossing it on the bed. And then, the ambulance showed up. They had me lay on my side, and warned me cheerfully that if I delivered in the ambulance I’d have to name my son after one of them. They also timed the contractions and confirmed that yes, they were exactly a minute apart and I might very well deliver with them. Despite the fact that the hospital was a block away, I would have delivered in the street had I tried to make it there on foot.
Luckily, we did make it in. And here is where the not so fun part began.
Labor itself is phenomenal. I don’t mean phenomenal in a “it’s like having your cake and eating it too,” kind of way. For me it was work. It was pain and pleasure, all wrapped in one consuming experience. Perhaps it’s because it happened so fast. Some would argue that I’m lucky. Some would even say that I still don’t get to have an opinion on labor since it was so fast. I say, screw you.
The horror began in the room. Imagine a big, white, sterile room. You’re busy trying to experience the most intense thing ever, and if you have been reading my blog you know that I am very opinionated… I’m also very private when it comes to intense, womanly experiences. By private, I mean I didn’t need the whole world tuned into my vagina. So I felt like I am a tiny spectacle in a large, white room, where people come and go as they please. Inside my bubble of labor, I was a whirlwind of emotions. I felt pain, excitement… I can only imagine it’s like a thousand doses of drugs (no I haven’t experienced that). I felt like a delightfully crazy woman.
Outside of my bubble, everyone was very mechanical. Now, while I understand that to doctors and nurses who see it every day, an emergency birth may seem very routine. But honestly, at the very least they might have mustered up some sort of empathy. Instead they talked as if they were operating a computer. Only one nurse was kind enough to speak to me. She suggested I breath deep. Of course, I might also add (to my complaints) that everyone was not on the same page as far as breathing. I didn’t take Lamaze, and I was just fine with breathing how I wanted (gasping and whining). However, every time someone came by they had a new suggestion for how I should breath, which became not only confusing but very annoying.
Another nurse checked my dilation, shouting that I had gone to six centimeters. She then told me she couldn’t feel a water bag, and accused it of having broken in the shower very casually. A few moments later, I felt a bubble squeeze out of me and burst! I shouted, “My water broke!” and she actually replied, “Are you sure? I didn’t feel anything?”
Really?.. Really? Am I sure? Might I also take pause to remind everyone that I had no time for any pain medications. I had absolutely no drugs in my system. In fact, the ambulance had failed to get any kind of blood pressure readings, pulse, ect. Adding onto that, the birth came about so quickly that one of the nurses actually said, “Too bad, I would have liked to at least get a fetal heart rate.”
That’s right.. Nothing. Au natural.
The nurse practitioner called for Vincent to be brought in. He had no gown, just his, “I BRING IT” T-shirt on we were all in such a hurry. My real contractions had started. My gut was pushing on it’s own. It was actually pretty awesome. I must have looked like a fat, flailing fish on a table.
I remember at one point crying out, “I’m going to pass out!” I threw my arms up, and the one thing they did manage to stick me with came out. I only know this because I heard a nurse say, “She’s ripped her IV out.”
Vincent came around to hold my left side, and the kinder nurse was on my left, while the nurse practitioner stood waiting. Since I was doing my own thing, when the moment to push came, my body was doing it on it’s own. I screamed out. It felt fantastic to shout! It was like letting lose upon the world.
“You’re not helping yourself by screaming. You need to push,” the nurse practitioner told me. What a bitch. Yes, a bitch. I said it. And if you don’t agree with me now you will shortly, since her plethora of bitchiness does not end there.
I did push. I felt his head slide down and then up again. I pushed a second time and I felt his head crown. It wasn’t that bad. Everything else was so intense that this just seemed to be the cherry on top. Then his head came out, and as the rest followed, it just felt like a weird bungled mess was coming out.
Another nurse got right to work, she pushed down on my abdomen, trying desperately to get the placenta out. What a rush they were all in. I had finished my work. At 5:05 p.m. on May 18th, 2011, Cesar had been birthed. I was ready to relax and enjoy my son.
Below: Cesar Adolph Alejos is born! He's alien looking just like all other newborns, but give it some time and he will become a gorgeous ladies' man!
Well, was I in for it. No relaxing for me. Ms. Bitch decided to stitch me up. She kept sticking me without warning, and then saying idiotic things like, “You need to stop twitching.” At one point I yelled back at her, “Well if you gave me a little warning first I would know it’s coming.” I just wanted to relax, and I kept vocalizing it but no one cared. I was so tingly, I felt like I’d just had a deadly orgasm of some kind and I was incredibly sensitive.
At one point the woman in charge of my newborn son offered him to me. At least she was joyful. She said, “This will take your mind off the stitches.” The placed him gently on my chest, and I looked at him. His face was bulbous and bruised. He had come out so fast that his face had literally slammed into my pelvis, and he did not have a “cone head” at all. I looked at him, and I am afraid I cannot tell you much. In my mind, I think his eyes were closed. I think besides the puffy face, there wasn’t much else to see. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t cry, I didn’t experience a wave of hormones. I felt another needle stab into me, and I told the nurse, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to take him back.” I guess I should have expected as much. I’m not the kind of person who can make a perfect moment happen in such disarray. I feel very guilty about that actually…. I let them take Cesar away and I wouldn’t see him again for hours.
A nurse informed me that she was adding a drug to the IV. It would make me feel loopy, she said. I asked her why.
“Because,” Ms. Bitch cut in, “If you don’t have the Demerol we will put you to sleep since you won’t stop twitching.”
Well guess what? I didn’t stop twitching because I could still feel the pricks of her needles, I was that sensitive. The doctor finally arrived, apologizing. He had been stuck in traffic, he said as he took over for the nurse practitioner. He went to work right away and after just a few moments, he said, “Oh I’m sorry. I have to undo these stitches and redo them.”
I told you she was a bitch.
“That’s it. Put me to sleep,” I said. “I’ve had enough. I can’t do this any more.”
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