Birth Story Part 2: The Hospital

We get everything together, and drive to the hospital. The drive is surreal. I know for sure that I’m going to have the baby in the hospital, and we are just going through the motions trying to still make it to the birth center. We pull in and go to the triage labor floor. This is, on some level, fucking hysterical- I have on a thick overnight pad and a couple of cloth diapers in my huge panties and am trying not to make a puddle in the floor, and to keep a straight face while I pretend I don’t know if my water has broken. The security guard at triage tells me I have to go through the ER. I argue, he argues. I lose, and waddle off to the ER, where I have to pretend again that I’m a clueless idiot who needs the midwife to check to see if I’m leaking amniotic fluid., all while the squishy ick continues. I’m extremely annoyed and bitchy. We finally make it through the proper channels, and go back up to triage and labor. Laurie meets me and has a sweet nurse bring me into a room. Shane has to wait outside because of some asinine hospital policy. Laurie check me, and talks to the nurse, and she says “Blah blah blah pea soup blah blah.”

My heart sinks- I’m having the birth in the hospital, with wires and IV’s and chemicals. Laurie does an exam. My cervix is STILL only a fingertip dilated. I’m terrified and resigned at the same time as she starts explaining to me that they have to induce labor (augment actually I guess.) The pitocin will help my cervix open, apparently. I ask her about cervical ripeners but it’s not policy at this hospital.. She goes over my birth plan with me, ticking away all the items that I’m unable to have. No IV refusal now, no tub, no shower, no food- but she orders clear fluids which is against their ice-chips only regulations. I tell her I realize that the plan’s out the window but I understand. I’m very grateful to her for being so apologetic in tone and so gentle presenting this information to me. She says she’ll call Debi for us when labor is more intense, that we’ll let her sleep a while. It’s around 1:30 or 2 a.m. now on Monday morning, Memorial Day. A nurse comes in to interview me with the same medical questions I answered before when we pre-registered just in case. She asks if Shane’s abusive, I assure her he’s not, and then they are finally allowed to let him in. They hook me up to monitors for Molly’s heartbeat and my contractions. Oh, it turns out I’m having them every four minutes and had no idea. There had been some weird pain that I called “gassy/crampy” during the past couple of days which must have been them. They felt nothing like my Braxton-Hicks or what I’d expected, so I didn’t pay any attention. A young, newbie-seeming nurse comes in to insert my IV. Against the midwife’s orders, she puts it in the back of my wrist. They start the pitocin drip, and it makes me really drowsy. It feels like I took a valium. Laurie suggests I sleep between contractions, but I can’t.
Things at this point all run together in my mind. Shane’s mom had shown up early on before we were sure we’d have to stay. She couldn’t sleep, so she came on over. I don’t remember when my aunt Pam came with Janet, our friend. They were there for most of it I think.

For the next few hours, things seem circular. The monitor falls off, the nurse fixes it, then the same thing again. The IV gets kinked, they unkink it, it kinks back up. (The midwife is seriously pissed at the newbie for the IV.) There’s contraction, rest, contraction, rest. I can feel them now, but they are no big deal. I have to pee a lot, and I make them bring me a toilet by the bed, because it killed my back when they had me use a bedpan. Every time I have a contraction when I’m up or on the toilet it feel really intense and they progress until they’re very uncomfortable. Laurie checks me periodically. She says I am still not opening, and she explains that she’ll have to force open the cervix. The operation that fixed my birth defects left thick nasty scar tissue that won’t budge. The options are to insert forceps and open them quickly and forcefully, which makes me dizzy to think about, or to use foley balloon things to progressively widen it. She tells me both options are very painful and very gently tells me she wouldn’t recommend that I do this without medication. I realize that she must be talking about serious pain because she knows that I wanted no mention of pain medication, and I trust her judgment. I’m in a hazy this-isn’t-happening daze, but I know I’ll do what has to be done. I ask her “an epidural isn’t necessary is it?” and she says that would be overkill, that they’d give me a shot of Nubain. At some point later they give me the shot. It’s almost immediate and I’m loopy and stoned. I’m a little relieved and relaxed, and when Shane’s mom comes in I tell her giddily “I’m stoned,” and think briefly if she wonders how I know what being stoned feels like and then decide I’m a grown woman about to give birth and I don’t care. I think vaguely about my mom who definitely knew what being stoned feels like.