So when I left off my husband and I
were getting jiggy in the shower. And by “getting jiggy in the shower” I mean
he was in the shower where he could be close to the water in case anything else
suspicious should end up on his bush beater, and I was outside the shower
gripping the towel rack to keep from tipping over. I was crying because my back
hurt and I felt stupid, David was slipping and sliding all over, we were
flooding the bathroom… It was the stuff porn is made of.
Finally, after what felt like 2
hours I heard my husband ask me…”Do you want me to pull out?” WHAT??? Is he
joking? Surely he’s joking… I’ll kill him if I went through all this for
nothing!
“No,I don’t want you to pull out” I
screeched! And that was that…it was over with. I will stop here for my
mother-in-law’s sake, I know she doesn’t want to read this….
We dried off, mopped up the bathroom
and returned to the living room where I determined that the house needed to be
mopped for the 3rd time that day {did I mention that I was in crazy
nesting mode??}. As my husband watched me mop the kitchen trying to convince me
that it was already clean I started having contractions again. Only these were
different. This time it was all in my back. I could feel my stomach harden, yet
felt no pain. David called his mom again to give her another play-by-play of my
contractions and to put her on alert that once again “Noël was sure that
tonight was the night”.
I picked up the pace mopping and
picking the lint balls out of the carpet. There was suddenly so much to get
done! I needed to do a load of laundry, and make the bed, I wondered if there
was time to re-wash all of the baby clothes again. My husband kept note of my
contractions and how long they lasted. They were so sporadic! I remembered the
“411 rule”. Contractions four minutes apart, lasting one minute for at least
one hour….or was it “411” maybe it was 911…or 141…I couldn’t remember!!!
I kept cleaning, stopping every
couple minutes and doubling over. I couldn’t figure out why my back hurt so
bad, everything that anyone had ever told me was to expect menstrual-like
cramps but this felt like I was getting my tailbone ripped out with a vice
grips! After about three hours the pains stopped and it was 12:30 am. We figured that I was a crazy woman who would
never go into labor and we went to bed.
I woke up at 3 AM like clockwork
having to pee. I stumbled blindly into the bathroom and flipped on the overhead
“night light”. Something felt a little off but I thought it was just
exhaustion. I sat down to pee, and no sooner did my butt hit the seat when I
heard what sounded like a gallon of fluid dump into the toilet.
As I sat there it continued to run
out, I couldn’t stop it! OMG! I was peeing and had lost all control!
That’s when I realized that I still had to pee. Now any normal woman would
realize what was happening, but nope, not me!
Suddenly, the worst pain I had ever
imagined tore through my back. I could not imagine anything that felt worse
than what I felt at that moment. What is going on! Something is wrong; very
very, wrong!
What I write from here on out is now
just my recollection of the night. Parts may or may not be exactly as happened,
but between the blinding pain and the pain medication I had the mental capacity
of Courtney Love and this is how I remember the rest of the story.
The pain stopped leaving me feeling
incredibly nauseous. I sat there for a good minute trying to will myself to
look in the toilet. All the TLC watching I’d done had had an effect on me and I
was actually worried that I had just given birth in the toilet like the women on I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.
I finally took a peek and was relieved not to see a baby floating in the water.
Then it hit me again. I felt like I had a semi driving over my spine. The only
thought I could form was that I needed to get to the hospital because I was
“leaking” and in such pain that something really bad was happening.
But first I had to get my husband
who was still sound asleep in bed. I began noticing a pattern, every time
I got one of those “pains” I would start gushing again.
A few weeks earlier I had bought a
package of THE biggest maxi-pads I could find for after I came home from the
hospital. I struggled to reach them as they, of course, were on the top shelf
in the cabinet. I put one on, hoping that it would keep me from ruining the
carpet as I made my way through the house.
Now to get my husband. He was only
about ten feet from me with the bedroom door open so I began to call for him.
Being the insanely sound sleeper he is though, he didn’t hear me. I couldn’t
walk, my legs were beginning to lose all feeling and I really doubted my
ability to stand. So, as sad as this is, I began to crawl. Ten feet, that’s all
I had to go! But I felt like I was climbing Mt Everest. I will never know
how long it took me to actually get there- but the point is I made it.
I no sooner got to the side of the
bed when I had another contraction, this time I could feel my stomach harden-
at that moment it dawned on me that I might be in labor.
“David,” I whispered. “DAVID!” Still
on my hands and knees I reached up and grabbed his arm. I tried shaking him but
it wasn’t working! He wouldn’t wake up. I cussed him out and threatened divorce
and homicide. Finally I pinched him, I know it sounds mean but I could barely
reach him from the floor and it was all I could think to do. And it worked. He
woke up.
“David! Call the hospital, I think
it’s time!” I gasped.
“Call them yourself” he snarled.
HUH?
“No, David! I mean it this time,” I
begged “my water just broke and I can’t walk. Please help me!” {How
over-dramatic….}
“Listen Noel,” my husband snapped
“I’m going on two hours of sleep here, you don’t understand how tired I am!
You’re going to just have to call them yourself!” and with that he rolled over
and went back to sleep
.
I was shocked. And I had to puke. I
crawled back into the bathroom and heaved my guts out then laid on the floor as
another contraction began. I started crying. I was going to die there. I felt
like I was on an episode of Extreme Labor, only I would go undocumented. I
would just slip away, nobody would ever know what happened to me. They would
just find me there dead, leaking from the vag with a vomit trail running down
my chin. I could hear my husband snoring which made me hate him. Then I had to
puke again. As I was puking my husband came tearing around the corner so
fast I thought he was going to wipe out.
He was in full blown panic mode and
stared at me like I was crowning. Standoffishly he asked what I needed him to
do; looking totally freaked and borderline hyperventilating. He was kind of
bouncing a little. I asked him if he thought we should call the hospital or
just go. He gave me a blank stare as if I had asked him to start tearing up bed
sheets and boiling water. Just then another contraction started and I told him
we would just go.
As I gripped his arm with all I had,
wondering if he could carry me in my current state should my legs actually give
out, he asked me if I wanted him to grab my suitcase. This being my first
child, and I having no clue that it would be hours yet before I even needed to
go in, I told him that he would have to come back for it because I was about to
give birth on the dining room floor.
He held my hand and walked me around
to my side of the truck, opened my door and made sure I was safely in before
closing my door for me. Now, to the sex offenders that frequently watched me
from their 2nd story window across the street, this looked like a
chivalrous move on my husband’s part. In reality, just the night before he made
the mistake of letting my clumsy ass wander unattended to my side of the
vehicle where I tripped in a snow bank, then while trying to catch myself
slipped on a patch of ice and slid underneath the vehicle where I was stuck by
my belly until he realized I wasn’t in the vehicle with him and came around to
pull me out.
It was 3:30 AM on a February morning
in Wisconsin. For any of you that know anything about anything- you know how
cold that is. Since I skipped Lamaze classes saying they were stupid and I
wouldn’t be caught dead going alone, my mother-in-law had given me some tips
she figured I’d need; and the number one thing she had stressed was that
relaxation was key in making it through contractions. I however was
shivering uncontrollably and was so tensed up I don’t think an elephant could
have fought its way out of my vagina.
My husband drove the 6 blocks to the
hospital like he was fighting for pole position and squealed into the entryway
of the ER. He ran around and opened my door for me and looked at me expectantly
as if I was just going to spring to my feet.
“I can’t walk” I told him.
He eyed me up before telling me that
he didn’t think he should try to carry me in. I told him to go get me a
wheelchair and he disappeared behind the sliding doors leaving me alone.
Suddenly, without warning I puked. And not just a little, this was projectile
vomit all over the parking lot. I no sooner finished wiping my chin with a
napkin I found in an old McDonalds bag by my feet when my husband reappeared. I
told him to be careful for my puke.
He helped me into my wheelchair and
whisked me inside. And here is where I started 2 days of hell. David wheeled me
to the registration desk where sat the ugliest, fattest receptionist with a big
nasty mole on her chin. She was wearing ugly scrubs that were a good 2 sizes
too small for her and she had whiskers. She handed David a clipboard to fill
out, but being prepared I already had all my paperwork and asked him to get it
out of my purse. All the while this receptionist glared at me like I was a
drama queen. Since I was sure nobody this ugly had even endured the pain of
getting her cherry popped, much less labor, I sure didn’t appreciate her
passing judgment on me.
Shortly after, a nurse came to get
us and led us to the labor ward. Naturally, the hospital was under construction
at the time so it took us much longer to get there than I thought should even
be legal under such dire circumstance. Once I was in my room the first thing I
wanted to do was pee since I still had to go from when I woke up at 3. I made
my husband wait outside the bathroom for me because I was worried what state my
lady parts would be in at that point and I needed to check it out before I
scarred him for life.
The only experience with labor and
delivery I had had up to that point was as a 5 year old. We were vacationing at
my grandparents’ house in Minnesota where my parents apparently thought it
would be totally appropriate to sit me down in the living room and show me a
circa 1979 video of a delivery. I was horrified. Primarily at this hairy-afro
beaver taking up the entire TV screen, but what came next I was unprepared for.
I remember crying and covering my eyes and my dad telling me to quit being such
a baby and that I should be “appreciating the beauty of life, after all- in a
few years I would be having children of my own.” The second that slimy little
body appeared, covered in cheese and resembling ET at the end of the movie
where he gets sick and turns white- I ran upstairs bawling. I pulled the covers
over my head and sobbed until my mother came up to make sure I wasn’t going to
kill myself.
“I am never, ever having a baby!” I
wailed.
And that is a true story about what
it’s like to be traumatized as a child. I carried this disdain for anything to
do with a vagina for years to come. When I got my first period it took me an
entire box of wasted tampons before I could get the nerve to actually insert
one.
So here I was in quite the pickle. I
had a human being an inch from tearing its oversized head through my vajayjay
and there was nothing I could do about it. As I began to pee I realized I had
to stash my waterlogged maxi pad before anybody saw it so I wrapped it in a
hand towel and buried it in the trashcan. Just in the nick of time because a
nurse barged in at that very moment asking if I needed anything.
This was the moment I lost all
dignity.
Sitting there, mid-stream, I begged
her to let me get into the hot tub and after checking with my doctor to make
sure it was ok she came back in and began to fill the tub. As I lowered myself
into the tub I was momentarily disgusted at the thought of all the vaginal
sludge that other woman had surely secreted into this tub before me, but that
was quickly forgotten when the nurse turned the jets on and another contraction
started. I cried for my husband to come in and hold my hand.
As I sat there giving myself a
pep-talk for the events about to unfold, the water started getting colder and
colder. My husband went looking for the nurse who matter-of-factly told him how
to fix it. When we couldn’t get any warm water she tore into the bathroom
looking at us like retards and surely pitying the newborn that was going to be
sent home with two adults that couldn’t adjust water temperature.
As much as I wanted to stay in the
tub, I couldn’t help but feel a little indignant when the nurse herself
couldn’t get warm water and announced the tub to be broken. I was so cold at
this point that I couldn’t stay in my ice bath anymore and my husband, with the
help of a nurse lifted my naked butt out of the tub. They gave me a robe to
wear and led me back into my room where my mother-in-law was waiting. I had no
clue she was even there. But I was grateful. I loved my husband dearly but had
a feeling that he would be of no help to me shortly since he gags at the
thought of a booger.
Now that I was out of the tub I was
past the point of agony and was desperate. I begged everybody that walked past
my bed to get me an epidural. Up until this point I was convinced that I could
do it naturally. After all, women had been doing it since the beginning of
time. I was in no way prepared for back labor however. I had heard the horror
stories; several from my mother who had 8 children-four of them were back
labor. But they were all gross underestimates of what it really was like.
My nurse was pregnant with her like
18th child and was telling me how she was going to have it at home
in her bathtub as if I was supposed to find comfort in this. I figured by that
point they probably just walked out but I was working with a punani in mint
condition. I wanted to punch her. But she was my golden ticket to my epidural
so I played it nice. She told me I would have to have an entire bag of fluid
administered via IV before I was allowed to have my epidural. This news did not
impress me but I had had several IV’s and I knew from past experience that it
would take about 15 minutes…during this time the anesthesiologist could gather
his things and make his way up to my room.
That’s assuming they turn the drip
monitor on more than a half a drip every ten minutes. I had contractions coming
every two seconds. My husband had decided watching duck hunting on the outdoor
channel was acceptable, while complaining about how bad his back hurt from
sitting in that chair and my mother-in-law was telling me over and over to
relax all the while starting at me like I may have lost my mind. I tried not to
watch my IV, I could have put two coats of paint on a barn in the time it took
to administer one ounce.
My dear mother-in-law, who was
probably worried I’d kill myself if this went on much longer, put herself to
use just as I knew she would. She asked my nurse if I could have pain medicine
to tide me over until I had my epidural. Normally I hate pain medication. It
makes me feel sick and dizzy. But I was to the point where I gladly would have
taken a horse tranquilizer injected through my eye just to escape the misery.
They could even kill me; I didn’t care- I just needed the pain to stop.
Moments later my nurse appeared with
a shot of something. I have no recollection of getting it. All I remember was
thinking how nice my mother-in-laws bangs looked that day and making a mental
note to tell my husband he should grow his out like that. Then I passed out
stone cold. I was woke up around ten o’clock and told that I my IV was finished
if I wanted to I could go ahead with my epidural. At that moment I was gripped
with another contraction that threatened to blast my spine out my asshole once
and for all. They gave me a release to sign and without reading it I scribbled
on the line. I don’t think I even wrote anything resembling my name. Had I
wanted to come back and sue the hospital {which believe me I did once I
realized what kind of joint they were running!} that waiver surely wouldn’t
have held up in a court of law. I distinctly remember signing my last name
starting with an “M”.
Then my hero appeared. He was
practically radiating as he appeared in the doorway. I overlooked his greasy
skin and the fact that he was alarmingly skinny and resembled an Ethiopian meth
head. To me, he was then and always will be beautiful. He asked everybody to
move to the front of me where they couldn’t see what was happening. Then he
started taping up my whole back and told me to hold really still. This was the
hardest part since I was mid-contraction and so far I had been dealing with the
pain by rocking back and forth like a crazy cat lady. But I sat as still as I
could while the mother of miracle drugs worked its magic. As I lost feeling in
my legs I finally relaxed. I was ready to join the party!
This was the point where my
mother-in-law and my husband decided to sneak away to go pick up my bags and
have a bite to eat. I was only dilated to about 5cm at this point. I decided to
text everybody in my phonebook, drink some water and went back to sleep.
My husband and his mom arrived back
an hour later with her husband and my sister-in-law in tow. We all watched the
machine that was monitoring my contractions as slowly but surely I dilated to
9.5 cm. They started to get the room ready and suddenly there were nurses
lining up at the door to get a peek at my whazoo. And we waited, and waited,
and waited some more. I could not get to ten!
Finally my doctor made the executive
decision that I would just start pushing. Everybody got into their places with
my other-in-law at my head where I ordered her she would stay as I did not want
her getting the money shot at any point during that ordeal. With all eyes on me
I was told to start pushing. I could not feel my vagina or anything surrounding
it so I gave my best shot at what I thought was pushing. Apparently I was
all wrong and I pushed like a weenie.
In the middle of this whole
experience I began wondering why pansies were referred to as “pussies”. I am
living proof that a vagina is all-capable and can endure things you see only in
horror movies. Shouldn’t we start comparing the weaklings of this world to balls?
After all, they seem to be the only private part that can’t seem to take any
kind of beating. After this revelation I started referring to all things weak
as a ballsack.
The nurse and my MIL gave me
explicit directions on how it was that I was supposed to push then coached me
through it. I caught on quickly and spent the next 2 hours pushing. After every contraction I was
told that the next push could be it! While encouraging at first I was starting
to see them for the liars they were and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Plus my
epidural had worn off. I begged for another one but was told no because it was
too late and I would deliver at any second. An hour of pushing later there was
still no baby-and I still had not dilated to 10- so they sent the anesthesiologist
back up to top me off.
What was happening was, in addition
to not being able to fully dilate; my son had lodged in the birth canal with
his head sideways. So instead of crowning, I was more or less “cheeking”. The
doctor tried several times to straighten his head with no such luck. I was told
to keep pushing. I was giving it all I had. I was begging my husband to get
fixed before we left the hospital and was crying while I said it {I thought the
tears would seal the deal but he refused to go do it…the ballsack…}
I was going on four hours of pushing
now, I had given up on having even a drop of dignity left and my mother-in-law
was now holding my leg and counting for me while she made eye contact with my
hoo ha, I did not have the physical stamina to push much longer. It was then I
noticed everybody whispering around me. When they caught me trying to listen
they stopped talking.
“Secrets don’t make friends” I
hollered, but nobody was listening. That’s when I realized they were debating
doing an episiotomy without consulting with me first. Apparently my husband had
given them the big A-OK on it. I didn’t understand why this had to be a secret.
I could care less how they got that baby out…they could reach down my throat
and make me puke it up for all I cared. I just had to get that baby out of me.
I braced myself for the impending
snip- but thank God my epidural had been topped off because I felt nothing
really. I really wanted to check out the damages but was too worried I would
see my baby cheeking so I decided not to ask for a mirror. I gave a few more
sumo-pushes when without warning my doctor gave me not just one but TWO
more snips. I wondered if you could even tell where my vagina ended and my
a-hole started anymore. I knew it couldn’t be pretty by the look on my
husband’s face.
I began pushing once more and I just
couldn’t do it. I pushed and pushed and the baby STILL wouldn’t make his
entrance. That’s when my mother-in-law put her head next to mine and told me to
look across the room. They had wheeled in a table; a big, cold, metal table. It
looked like a torture bed. She swears now that she never said this but I
distinctly remember her saying that I only had one push left and then they were
going to take me away on that table for a C-section.
This of course was not true; the
table was full of equipment that was going to be needed once the baby arrived.
But I had no idea, and I was scared to death to imagine what it would be like
to be transferred onto this bed with a head peeking out of my glory hole. I
gave it all I had- one more push. This was every last drop of energy I had. As
I collapsed back onto my pillow I felt the strangest sensation. It literally
felt as though I had birthed a codfish.
“Was that it?” I asked puzzled.
That’s when I saw my son. Covered in cheese and looking like a sickly ET and
the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
Stay tuned for: Afterbirth- tales of
the night shift
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