After a while Delphine tells me my placenta won’t come out, and she has to reach in and tug. This is very painful and I’m just freaked out all over again. More pain? More complications? No, no, no, no. She pulls and the cord breaks off, my placenta won’t budge. She calls the doctor and on his advice tries again. No luck, so she pages him to come in. I’m scared and in a distant place again. Surreal, not happening.
The doctor arrives. He storms in, big and imposing and gruff and masculine. I hate him instantly. He asks Del if I had a spinal or an epidural and they tell him I’ve had nothing (the one dose of Nubain is ancient history) in a tone that tells me I really will wish I had. He is now scrubbed and gloved and comes over and shoves both hands inside me, all the way into my womb, and tears and pulls. I think I’m being torn inside out, my back comes up off the table, and I nearly throw tiny Molly in the air. Shane takes her, holds my hand. It’s hell. (I can’t describe that pain- I should have fainted. I don’t understand why my body didn’t let me pass out. It was nightmarish.) It’s over at some point. The baby’s in my arms, there’s a photo. Del stitches me up. Pam, the grandparents, my brother, Megan come in to see the baby. They take her to the nursery for a bath. I don’t remember when they brought her back, but I remember being so exhausted I didn’t nurse her then, and thinking I should but she’s not really hungry yet, she can wait a little while. (Later that night we have trouble nursing and I feel guilty thinking I should have nursed her when I was tired.)
When I’m ready to leave the labor/delivery room, I almost pass out getting out of bed. I’ve lost a lot of blood and they had almost given me a transfusion but decide not to. They wheel me off to the mother and child unit. The next couple of days there are a blur, but I remember:
Shane changes her first poop diaper, and she poops on him. I think it’s hilarious.
Shane brings me yummy Pomegranate Kefir smoothie and wheat crckers.
The evil nurse who I let dribble formula on my nipple to get the baby to latch on, and me thinking ‘this is bullshit. why am I not telling her to shove the bottle up her ass?’
The mounds and mounds of pillows with baby on top, nursing happily but shallowly with her pitiful little tongue-tied latch.
Visits from Dad, Renee & Teresa, Nell (hugely pregnant) & Rick
The heel-stick that made me cry.
The insane night of crying that made me call Shane back to the hospital at 3 a.m. even though I'd sent him home at 1 to sleep.
Sucking at swaddling and having a nurse show us how.
The happy laughing-at-myself relief of counting ten fingers.
The very first few “popeye faces” – her hungry rooting face
The headache they gave me a percocet for, and the Nap of Bliss that followed with my brand new baby swaddled up against me with sheets, belly to belly.
The endless annoying interruptions, discussions of her tongue-tie, having it clipped, and us finally saying fuck it and checking out against advice.
Being wheeled out in the wheelchair, proudly holding my baby girl and smiling an insanely happy, dog-tired, blissed out smile.
How tiny and adorable she looked in her little white eyelet dress from Big Molly
Noticing she looked like Shane’s granny in the car on the ride home
Holding her little head up in the car seat because it was wobbling everywhere, and being absolutely in love with the feeling of that tiny face against my palm.
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1 comment:
I had "retained placanta" both times-I can VIVIDLY recall the hand up feeling, and how violent and MEAN they were. I nearly kicked the doctors in the face both times. Thankfully, the second time, they listened to me when I was SCREAMING to do the D&C. The nurses couldn't believe they kept trying without drugs. I would have much rather given birth 60 times.
Isn't the poop on Daddy routine the best? :)
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