Love Hotel

Oh, Exquisite

There is a level of pain for which the medical term is "exquisite". It's worse than bad. Worse than super bad. It's generally constant and is the type of pain than makes people pass out, wake-up and pass out again.

Oh, Exquisite.

Labor is not quite that bad. But it's really really close. I'm going to contextualize this by making myself sound like a badass. I broke my ankle in three places with a two inch dislocation that basically means I tore all the soft tissue in my ankle. I ripped my foot off of my leg, but the skin stayed intact. That was pretty bad. I've been foley-cathetered twice without anesthesia and that really isn't that bad. I've had eight or so stitches put into my vagina without anesthesia or lidocaine, and that burned a little bit. I have a tatoo on my foot that took two hours and that was pretty painful. I had no idea what I was getting into with labor. Which I think is the main problem. I completely underestimated the level of pain and the amount of time I would be in it.

It's unmanageable. It's crazy making. It's unbearable. All of which I think would have been fine if I had being paying attention. I figured you got wore down by it. Which you do. I thought it was probably like a lot of things that people say are horribly painful, but which are just extremely unpleasant. I was wrong. All the stuff they teach you in the classes is totally valid, but it doesn't make the pain any better. It doesn't make the pain any less. You could relax and breathe and take a bath and walk around all you want and you will still end up speaking in tongues during transition.

I did not make it through my transition. I was seven centimeters dilated. I had already told Paul that I was going home, because I just couldn't do it anymore. I slapped his hand really really hard when he touched me. I vomited in the sink and started banging my fist into the vomit so hard Paul thought I was either going to break the sink or my hand, yelling "NOBODY WILL HELP ME! GODDAMN IT! YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!" This was during a shift change. This is what the new nurse encountered on entering our "Birthing Suite". I also would walk around the room, shaking my hands in front of me, muttering incoherently and making muppet sounds. Or animal sounds. Or little whimpers.

I told Paul after a shot of Fentanyl (the last shot they said they would give me) that I wanted an Epidural. He very calmly told me that I had told him I might say that and he needed to know if there was some way I could let him know I really meant it and that I wouldn't be disappointed later. This is 12 or so hours into active labor. I screamed as loud as I could into his face.

I got an Epidural. It was awesome. I had a "very well estabilshed labor pattern" so I didn't slow down labor that much. I didn't feel the Epidural going on or coming out, They gave me the perfect amount of medicine so it started to wear off during the pushing part, which makes it easier to push effectively. The Epidural basically let me skip the greater part of transitional labor and I also got my kind back. Another thing I was unprepared for, the absolute shattering of my mind as I know it. No coping skills. No thoughts. No plans. No focus. No personality. Just a whimpering, shouting, crazed woman who is being tortured for no reason by an unseen hand.

The baby's cord was wrapped around her neck so pushing became a strange mixture of strategy and impatience. They really wanted her out, but her heart rate dropped every time I pushed so I had to push every other contraction to let her heart rate come back up. But they wanted me to push very effectively every time to get her out fast. They ended up using the vacuum thing on her head for just a couple of rounds of pushing to move her down. Then her head came out and I could feel her hot little head on my thigh and then her shoulders came out and I could feel her hot little body on both my legs and then she was just out!

Now I have a baby girl. She is five days old and I sing "Baby Betty the Bumble Bee" to her and make buzzing sounds. It makes her look at me like she is seriously concerned for my mental health. She eats a lot and is back up to her birth weight. I cried two days ago because, as frustrating as being pregnant was, I felt lonely for the little wiggly creature in my belly. I cried yesterday because I was cutting her fingernails (she was really scratching up her face) and I caught a little bit of skin on her thumb in the clippers. She started crying. I started crying and neither one of us was able to deal with her bleeding thumb. I was so upset, I actually couldn't think of what to do to make her thumb stop bleeding. This is why having my mom around is so useful. She grabbed a tissue and put pressure on Betty's thumb. She called Paul who took care of me and everything was fine within about five minutes. Today I cried because I was looking at Betty and she's so beautiful and small and everything...

And now I'm crying again.

I've never been so tired and achy and happy all at the same time in my whole life.

Plus my belly does weird tricks now. It's sort of deflating but only in places so I can suck in my abs and some places suck in and some places still stick out. It's creepy and cool at the same time.

Posted by jlp716 at February 19, 2006 11:37 PM