If it was in print, I’m pretty sure I had read it. Every book I could get my hands on about childbirth I studied, and felt sure I was totally prepared for any scenario. My husband was dragged to all the birthing classes the hospital offered. We practiced my breathing and counting. My bag was packed six weeks in advance. The nursery was clean and stocked with diapers, wipes, and a plethora of lotions and salves. I was ready.
Seven days before my due date, at 6:30am, I woke up with the worst back pain I had ever experienced. At first I thought I must have pulled a muscle or something, but after an hour of back pain that came in irregular waves, I realized this was labor. It was a disheartening thought, because nothing I had read in all those books prepared me for intense back pain.
After a couple of hours, I called my OBGYN. She was a bitter, nasty woman, but she was the first name on a list of recommendations from our insurance company. I was too naïve at the time to realize I could just change doctors. She quickly became annoyed with me because I couldn’t tell her how far apart my contractions were. I tried to explain that I could not feel any contractions, I could only feel constant waves of back pain. She said she was tired because she had already been there for three births in a row, and I should just come in and get it over with. I had really picked a gem of a doctor!
We headed out to the hospital in the early afternoon. My husband was starving, and drove through a drive thru for a box of chicken. He sat in the car and ate, but the smell made me nauseous, and my back hurt too much to sit anyway, so I traipsed around our car in 12 inches of snow, round and round, while he ate his chicken.
We finally arrived at the hospital, and I was quickly hooked up to monitors. They wanted me to stay in bed because of the monitors. I complained constantly of back pain, and every half hour or so the nurse would try to talk me into pain meds. We were determined to have a natural birth, but if it were not for the constant encouragement from my husband who never left my side, I would have caved and begged for it!
After twelve hours of the worst pain I had ever experienced, there was no doubt in my mind that I had made a terrible mistake, that I would most certainly never have any more children, and that if labor was this bad for me, I was probably going to be an awful mother! I cried from fear, exhaustion and disappointment. All that preparation for this moment in time, and I lay there a complete wreck. How was I supposed to deal with back pain? No one in the classes ever told me. No book ever explained it. Nope, that baby was already a life-long “only child” in my mind at that point.
A different nurse came in every little bit to try to force me to drink water, and then they talked me into eating a popcicle. I knew it was not a good idea, and sure enough, my dear husband had to hold a bowl under my head so I could vomit blue liquid and totally gross him out. They didn’t mention that in the books either!
Around 8:00pm, the nurse told me I should start pushing, even though I did not feel any urge to push. She gave me further instructions on how to push and how to time the pushes with the contractions. I still could not feel contractions, just constant back pain.
For the next three hours, I lay on the bed, with my husband and the nurse nearby, watching the monitor screen and pushing on cue. The nurse asked me dozens of times, “Is a contraction coming on?”, and each and every time I answered the same way, “I do NOT know. I can NOT tell, because it’s ALL ONE BIG FEROCIOUS BACK PAIN!!!” It crossed my mind that maybe I was stuck in a nightmare of pain, where I talked but no one could hear me. Because certainly, no one seemed to be listening!
Then finally, we were getting down to the nitty gritty, where I was actually wanting to push. So I gave it my all, wanting so much to be done with the whole day. It is at this point in the story that I will share perhaps a little too much information for some. But I want to share it, because if only I had read it in a book, or heard it in a class beforehand, it would have saved me a lot of mental pain and embarrassment.
It was close to the end, my hair was disheveled and damp with sweat, my breath stank from puking blue popcycle, my face and neck were blemished with broken blood vessels from pushing so long and hard, and I had been whining and crying to my husband for at least 15 hours. The nurse was watching the monitor and told me to get ready to push and to really push hard this time. (As if I weren’t already!) She yelled, “PUSH!” and I pushed! And out came a long log of poo. That was it.
Despite the pain, I was deeply embarrassed. My heart sank as I thought to myself that my poor dear husband would never think of me the same way again. He had witnessed me at my very worst. I had most definitely never read anything about “number two-ing” on the delivery table, so surely I must be something of a freak.
The nurse, bless her heart, tried to encourage me by saying that it happens, but I really didn’t believe her. I could not tell one contraction from another. I could not deal quietly with pain, and I could not control my nether-regions. It was a very low moment for me!
In an attempt to speed things up, they broke my water. There was meconium in the water (geesh, more poop talk!), so they explained to me that they were going to run a hose up and “flush” around the baby. Ok, whatever. I never read anything about this either.
It was 11:15pm, and my ‘lovely’ doctor came in, took a very quick look and said, “If you don’t start pushing this baby out in the next five minutes, we’re going to have to do a Caesarean.” A few minutes later, she came back in and administered local anesthetic and began to cut an episiotomy. She cut and cut and cut and cut some more. Then, she barked, “DON’T PUSH”.
I learned there is a certain time at the end where not pushing is NOT an option! My body would not ‘not push’.
At this point, my husband, who had been trying to encourage me the entire time, suddenly began whispering in my ear so the doctor could not hear, “You’ve got to get this baby out now! You can’t believe how much she just cut you! If she cuts you any more you’ll be in big trouble.” I screamed, “I’ve GOT TO PUSH” and then heard and felt a fast “whoosh”. And in one complete motion, out came my beautiful baby girl! In a mere instant of time all that back pain vanished and I was left tired, but thrilled to be free of the pain that had plagued me for 17 hours nonstop. Because of the “flushing”, the baby was a gorgeous pink color, with no cheesy or bloody coating. That moment just about made up for the last 17 hours. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Interestingly enough, the doctor and nurse held a conversation right then and there about their amazement that the baby was “posterior”, or as they put it to me, “upside down and pressuring the heck out of your spine and tailbone.” They said they had no idea! Hello!?!!! Had I not been complaining of back pain every freakin’ minute?!!!!
I lay there, being patched up from the slicing and dicing ‘Dr. Pleasant’ administered, and watched my husband across the room, holding our precious babe. I thought that there was something just not quite right that he got to hold her before me. It was a full 30 minutes before I was allowed to get even close enough to reach out and touch her. And I worked oh so hard to bring her into the world!
I was going to end my story here, but there was a bit more experienced in the following few weeks that I had also never learned in all those hours of reading. No one told me I would be too sore to move without agony for two weeks minimum! I had visions of meeting family and friends a couple of days post partum, celebrating our new bundle of joy. In reality, a couple of days post partum, I was sitting in our whirlpool tub, chugging prune juice and wondering if I would ever poop without pain again. Yes, once again I had an issue with poo! There was nothing in print about that. I’m sure I would have remembered reading it.
The books and classes tell you that you will be slightly emotional at times post partum. Ahem…. “slightly emotional” doesn’t even begin to cover it! I cried for no reason, and then cried some more. I was as happy as anyone could be, yet I still cried without warning, on and off for six weeks. My mom flew in to help out for a week. At the end of the week, she came to say goodbye and I broke down and cried buckets. I just didn’t think I could handle it without her. So she stayed another week, which was a great blessing!
About a week after the birth, I sat on our couch at the advice of the nurse, with both breasts exposed, lathered with salves and lotions to ease the discomfort of nursing for the first time. My breasts had never been tiny, but literally in about an hour (I remember it well) they went from a D cup to something between a watermelon and a beach ball! I remember watching my baby nurse and realizing my breast was about five times the size of her head. The books and classes were not too accurate about that information either! I had not fully understood the word “engorged”. So many surprises for a new mother to experience.
I suppose the moral of my story would be to definitely expect the unexpected! My husband still loved me. I was not a freak. I had the freedom to find a nice doctor next time. I did eventually poop normally! And the most beautiful baby in the world belonged to me. She was worth every second of pain and discomfort. I went on to have three more babies, with three new experiences. Each experience better than the last. Life is good.
Seven days before my due date, at 6:30am, I woke up with the worst back pain I had ever experienced. At first I thought I must have pulled a muscle or something, but after an hour of back pain that came in irregular waves, I realized this was labor. It was a disheartening thought, because nothing I had read in all those books prepared me for intense back pain.
After a couple of hours, I called my OBGYN. She was a bitter, nasty woman, but she was the first name on a list of recommendations from our insurance company. I was too naïve at the time to realize I could just change doctors. She quickly became annoyed with me because I couldn’t tell her how far apart my contractions were. I tried to explain that I could not feel any contractions, I could only feel constant waves of back pain. She said she was tired because she had already been there for three births in a row, and I should just come in and get it over with. I had really picked a gem of a doctor!
We headed out to the hospital in the early afternoon. My husband was starving, and drove through a drive thru for a box of chicken. He sat in the car and ate, but the smell made me nauseous, and my back hurt too much to sit anyway, so I traipsed around our car in 12 inches of snow, round and round, while he ate his chicken.
We finally arrived at the hospital, and I was quickly hooked up to monitors. They wanted me to stay in bed because of the monitors. I complained constantly of back pain, and every half hour or so the nurse would try to talk me into pain meds. We were determined to have a natural birth, but if it were not for the constant encouragement from my husband who never left my side, I would have caved and begged for it!
After twelve hours of the worst pain I had ever experienced, there was no doubt in my mind that I had made a terrible mistake, that I would most certainly never have any more children, and that if labor was this bad for me, I was probably going to be an awful mother! I cried from fear, exhaustion and disappointment. All that preparation for this moment in time, and I lay there a complete wreck. How was I supposed to deal with back pain? No one in the classes ever told me. No book ever explained it. Nope, that baby was already a life-long “only child” in my mind at that point.
A different nurse came in every little bit to try to force me to drink water, and then they talked me into eating a popcicle. I knew it was not a good idea, and sure enough, my dear husband had to hold a bowl under my head so I could vomit blue liquid and totally gross him out. They didn’t mention that in the books either!
Around 8:00pm, the nurse told me I should start pushing, even though I did not feel any urge to push. She gave me further instructions on how to push and how to time the pushes with the contractions. I still could not feel contractions, just constant back pain.
For the next three hours, I lay on the bed, with my husband and the nurse nearby, watching the monitor screen and pushing on cue. The nurse asked me dozens of times, “Is a contraction coming on?”, and each and every time I answered the same way, “I do NOT know. I can NOT tell, because it’s ALL ONE BIG FEROCIOUS BACK PAIN!!!” It crossed my mind that maybe I was stuck in a nightmare of pain, where I talked but no one could hear me. Because certainly, no one seemed to be listening!
Then finally, we were getting down to the nitty gritty, where I was actually wanting to push. So I gave it my all, wanting so much to be done with the whole day. It is at this point in the story that I will share perhaps a little too much information for some. But I want to share it, because if only I had read it in a book, or heard it in a class beforehand, it would have saved me a lot of mental pain and embarrassment.
It was close to the end, my hair was disheveled and damp with sweat, my breath stank from puking blue popcycle, my face and neck were blemished with broken blood vessels from pushing so long and hard, and I had been whining and crying to my husband for at least 15 hours. The nurse was watching the monitor and told me to get ready to push and to really push hard this time. (As if I weren’t already!) She yelled, “PUSH!” and I pushed! And out came a long log of poo. That was it.
Despite the pain, I was deeply embarrassed. My heart sank as I thought to myself that my poor dear husband would never think of me the same way again. He had witnessed me at my very worst. I had most definitely never read anything about “number two-ing” on the delivery table, so surely I must be something of a freak.
The nurse, bless her heart, tried to encourage me by saying that it happens, but I really didn’t believe her. I could not tell one contraction from another. I could not deal quietly with pain, and I could not control my nether-regions. It was a very low moment for me!
In an attempt to speed things up, they broke my water. There was meconium in the water (geesh, more poop talk!), so they explained to me that they were going to run a hose up and “flush” around the baby. Ok, whatever. I never read anything about this either.
It was 11:15pm, and my ‘lovely’ doctor came in, took a very quick look and said, “If you don’t start pushing this baby out in the next five minutes, we’re going to have to do a Caesarean.” A few minutes later, she came back in and administered local anesthetic and began to cut an episiotomy. She cut and cut and cut and cut some more. Then, she barked, “DON’T PUSH”.
I learned there is a certain time at the end where not pushing is NOT an option! My body would not ‘not push’.
At this point, my husband, who had been trying to encourage me the entire time, suddenly began whispering in my ear so the doctor could not hear, “You’ve got to get this baby out now! You can’t believe how much she just cut you! If she cuts you any more you’ll be in big trouble.” I screamed, “I’ve GOT TO PUSH” and then heard and felt a fast “whoosh”. And in one complete motion, out came my beautiful baby girl! In a mere instant of time all that back pain vanished and I was left tired, but thrilled to be free of the pain that had plagued me for 17 hours nonstop. Because of the “flushing”, the baby was a gorgeous pink color, with no cheesy or bloody coating. That moment just about made up for the last 17 hours. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Interestingly enough, the doctor and nurse held a conversation right then and there about their amazement that the baby was “posterior”, or as they put it to me, “upside down and pressuring the heck out of your spine and tailbone.” They said they had no idea! Hello!?!!! Had I not been complaining of back pain every freakin’ minute?!!!!
I lay there, being patched up from the slicing and dicing ‘Dr. Pleasant’ administered, and watched my husband across the room, holding our precious babe. I thought that there was something just not quite right that he got to hold her before me. It was a full 30 minutes before I was allowed to get even close enough to reach out and touch her. And I worked oh so hard to bring her into the world!
I was going to end my story here, but there was a bit more experienced in the following few weeks that I had also never learned in all those hours of reading. No one told me I would be too sore to move without agony for two weeks minimum! I had visions of meeting family and friends a couple of days post partum, celebrating our new bundle of joy. In reality, a couple of days post partum, I was sitting in our whirlpool tub, chugging prune juice and wondering if I would ever poop without pain again. Yes, once again I had an issue with poo! There was nothing in print about that. I’m sure I would have remembered reading it.
The books and classes tell you that you will be slightly emotional at times post partum. Ahem…. “slightly emotional” doesn’t even begin to cover it! I cried for no reason, and then cried some more. I was as happy as anyone could be, yet I still cried without warning, on and off for six weeks. My mom flew in to help out for a week. At the end of the week, she came to say goodbye and I broke down and cried buckets. I just didn’t think I could handle it without her. So she stayed another week, which was a great blessing!
About a week after the birth, I sat on our couch at the advice of the nurse, with both breasts exposed, lathered with salves and lotions to ease the discomfort of nursing for the first time. My breasts had never been tiny, but literally in about an hour (I remember it well) they went from a D cup to something between a watermelon and a beach ball! I remember watching my baby nurse and realizing my breast was about five times the size of her head. The books and classes were not too accurate about that information either! I had not fully understood the word “engorged”. So many surprises for a new mother to experience.
I suppose the moral of my story would be to definitely expect the unexpected! My husband still loved me. I was not a freak. I had the freedom to find a nice doctor next time. I did eventually poop normally! And the most beautiful baby in the world belonged to me. She was worth every second of pain and discomfort. I went on to have three more babies, with three new experiences. Each experience better than the last. Life is good.
1 comment:
Oh my love!
I had such a giggle when you spoke about the bowel movement. I know that often the body wants to expel anything inside it before pushing a baby out. If there is food or liquid in your tummy, then one often vomits as you now know...hehe. If there is poo....out it comes :-) So embarrassing, isn't it????
I had full on, uncontrollable back pain when I was in labour with Isaac. I didn't have anything else. I had back pain for days where I was admitted for pain relief. Nothing else said I was in labour and I was 27 weeks gestation. Then suddenly, I wanted to push and I was told to stop but it happened for me! It is crazy!
Thanks for sharing your story. It is good to hear what others have experienced. Praying for you as you will indeed go through another birth :-)
Love Charisse
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