Well, when I was first pregnant I wanted to have midwifery care, but there was no midwife to be had in my area that I knew of. At the time, the nearest midwife was 5 hours away…. So, I opted for a GP. I actually switched at 4 months, because I felt that she wasn’t spending the time necessary to answer my questions which made me uncomfortable. I then switched to another GP who I liked. But, my husband (partner at the time) was in university, so in September, we moved back to Saskatoon and were therefore two hours from the GP I had been seeing.
My Mom lives in Nova Scotia, she flew in on the 21st of September… she kept saying that I would have the baby before she got there, and I kept saying I’d wait for her…. I started feeling restless and ‘funny’ as soon as I saw her at the airport! That Friday, Neil, my partner, headed back to our farm… a 2 hour drive, to continue with harvest…. About 15 minutes later I lost my mucous plug. But I was determined to wait until he got back on Monday!!!
All day and all night Saturday I had contraction about every 10-12 minutes apart. Sunday morning my Mom and I woke up, had tea, watched Coronation Street…. She cooked some eggs, but I couldn’t eat them. She grilled some zucchini and I devoured it. We went out that evening to a friend’s restaurant… nothing appealed to me at all… I was just not feeling myself… and my pelvis and back were really ache-y, I just could not get the sensation to release. I lay in bed Sunday night… the contraction started coming every 3-5 minutes apart…. I would fall asleep, wake up, look at the clock…. 10:32…. 10:35… then every once in awhile I would wake up at say 11:02 and feel like I had slept… even though the last contraction was at 10:59.
By Monday at noon I was really uncomfortable, pacing the floor, and crying, afraid to go to the hospital, wondering WHEN THE HELL Neil was going to come home. My mom and I were wondering if we should drive all the way home or go to the city hospital…. Her head was very much engaged, so after thinking about sitting for two hours with the pain I had through my back and pelvis, I opted for the city hospital even though I knew I’d have an intern situation. I remember telling my Mom that I just wanted to stay home and not go anywhere… and she told me that if her friend Christine was here, we could maybe do that. (She’d had 5 kids.) But since my Mom ‘only did it once’ that was NOT an option.
Neil called at 11am…. I told him I was fine. Mom called him back and told him to quit playing farmer and get in here. He called an hour later. Theoretically he should have been half way there… I answered the phone…
‘Does your Mom want a blade roast or some T-Bones?’
’WHERE are you?’
’In the basement, getting meat.’
The rest is censored. I basically told him that me being in labour, trumps picking up meat, and to get in the car….
Oh, and that his job of ‘driving the woman to the hospital’ was being replaced by my Mom…. Who was already starting the car, and loading the bag.
We got lost driving to the hospital…. I don’t remember much except going across the city bridge like 5 times, while my Mom cried and apologized, and I tried to tell her it was ok, I didn’t want to go anyway.
We arrived… at the wrong entrance… nothing like having contractions and being stared at by strangers…. Finally a lovely old man wheeled us a wheelchair. Mom wheeled me to the other end. I was admitted into ‘Labour Assessment.’
Neil arrived…. Along with my Dad, step mom, and half-brother who is actually only 3 months older then Aislynn. The RN checked me, and said I was 3-stretch-4 cms…. I couldn’t believe it… I had waited until I was 3 minutes apart, a minute long, for OVER and hour… what… the…? The RN asked me if I wanted to go in the Jacuzzi. I said sure… so I headed a couple rooms down… there was this awkward moment when she told me to get in, and I asked what I wore…. She said ‘you go naked’ and I wanted to just die. Then a contraction hit, and I no longer gave a shit.
I got in, and it felt pretty good. I was there for hours…. They brought me a ‘clear plate’ consisting of soup broth and jello…. Oh, and apple juice. I drank the juice. Chicken and me didn’t mix in my pregnancy, and I would never eat jello. About the time I decided I was done, Neil bumped the tray and it flew all over. Comic relief I’m telling you.
I had to get out a few times, to be checked…. 3-stretch-4, 3-stretch-4, 3-stretch 4, 3-stretch-4…. Oh and 3-STRETCH-4.
So the Dr on call decided that I wasn’t allowed in the Jacuzzi anymore. I had to walk. So I walked… until I couldn’t stand it anymore…. Then I sat in a rocking chair… I was trying desperately to find counterpressure.
Then I went back to the ‘Labour Assessment’ room. The Dr check my cervix, only this time he had a half a dozen interns… nobody asked if that was ok… it was ‘everyone take a turn’…. When he did it the second time, he pushed on my cervix during a contraction. This pain shot up my spine, and I literally went into the bridge position. He pushed me down, told me I was still 3cm. It was now 9pm. I had been there for 9 hours. He then marked my sheet as ‘failure to progress’ and told me that I had two options because he was sure I would need a c-section. I should have made progress by now.
Option 1: Get an epidural, start the Pitocin, wait a bit, IF I made it to 4-stretch-5cms they’d break my water… then I might deliver vaginally. He then added that he ‘doubted that I would deliver vaginally at this point though, so it made sense to place the catheter’.
Option 2: “Stay like this, and then be put under when you need the c-section, because at this point you will never progress”.
Exact words, nice eh?
Is that really two options???
SO you have passed med school… maybe try CHARM school!
It would be a frosty Friday in hell before I was going to be put to sleep around this man… so I opted for the epidural, even though that had always been the second last thing I wanted.
They moved me to delivery at 9pm, and had an IV inserted. They started the Pitocin.
Later that evening I was prepped for the epidural… By this time I was losing track of time.
I was terrified while it was being done. I asked her to put the tube in but no medication... she said they couldn't do that because they needed to be sure it would work for a c-section. She did say that I could have a low dosage though, and that if it proved to work they would discuss turning it off... so long as I showed some progression.
I was only suppose to have one person there while she but the needle in. But I had to have two, one was my support, one was the person who signed the consent, since I was ‘incapable.’ My husband held one side of me. My Father held the other... I can still vividly remember how sick my husband looked. I can also vividly remember how hard my Father pushed on me.... and his whisper telling me ‘not to move or I'd never walk again.’ That was in the early morning.
I waited to feel the pinch in my legs, or a twitch that she told me to watch for. Nothing.
I laid back... was catheterized, became weirdly numb, and dilated.
At 4 cm they broke the amniotic sac.
They turned the epidural down at 5cm, and switched it off at 6cm… they had been switching me side to side because the medication was not having the ‘desired’ effect.
I was not very comfortable… being on my back had been the most painful, and now here I was ON MY BACK with a quarter of my body numb and everything else in varying degrees of NOT numb… catheterized and bed-bound. I wasn’t about to complain either, I didn’t dare. I just kept rolling my pelvis as much as I could. The catheter was not placed permanently… on one occasion I remember saying I had to pee, and the Nurse pushed on my bladder and said I ‘was fine’. I remember saying I could feel it, and she told me I couldn’t. My only option was to soil myself in the bed, on the chux pad.
FINALLY, by about 3:40am, the RN announced I was at 10cm.
The Dr came in and said we’d practice pushing… “we’d”… Yeah.
I did one practice push, but it was hard, because even though I wasn’t numb, I really didn’t feel like I need to push… I felt more like I needed to take a break. I did anyways though, like I said previously… I didn’t dare comment. I was so scared.
I pushed a few times… 3 including the ‘practice.’ My Mom had to leave for the last one. The RN told her to just stay out until the baby was born… my Mom told her that she was “going to go get a drink, put her head between her legs, and she’d be back”.
He then told me that the baby was OP, and that he’s have to use the vacuum to bring her head back, so it could go up, and out. He used the vacuum for a push… it was awful. Even now I remember the feeling of it snapping open inside of me. It still makes me feel kind of sick. I pushed once more, he said that this wasn’t working; she was stuck. He ordered the epidural back on and then told the RN to go and put me on the list for the next available OR.
That’s when the machines started beeping….
The RN had walked out, I looked around, my Mom looked at me… looked at the machine, I looked at Neil… he said ‘What the hell?’ The Dr said the baby was ‘in distress’….
So I pushed…. With no urge, I pushed… and when I held it till I couldn’t hold it anymore, and then I took another breath and pushed again.
My Mom said, “Oh yes, I see her head, she’s coming.”
The Dr yelled, “YOU CAN’T DO THIS. STOP!”
Out she came.
Into the ‘one-gloved’ hands of one not-too-impressed OB/GYN.
And she was so perfect….
The RN came in, to a BABY!
A beautiful 8lbs 2 oz, 22 inch baby GIRL!
The pushing had lasted not even 5 minutes.
The stitches took significantly longer…. 148 in total…. 45 minutes by two OB/GYN’s
I wasn’t allowed to shower, because the postpartum RN’s felt that I was too exhausted.
My IV was left on a drip-rate that was too high… I was later told by accident. But, nevertheless, at 6am I had to use the washroom… even with the RNs assistance I ended up passed out on the floor. I ripped stitches.
My daughter developed a case of jaundice that lasted 6 days… for the first 4 days she was in the nursery because apparently they didn’t have a moveable bili-light. While she was there she was started on formula, without my consent. An RN actually told me that “I was 20 years old, and 20 year olds don’t succeed at breastfeeding.” At the time she really upset me, I cried and cried… but she also gave me the opportunity to prove her wrong.
On Day 5, a fabulous Nurse, who’s name is Christine, brought my baby back to me… in a MOVEABLE bili-light.
On Day 6, another fabulous Nurse, who’s name escapes me, was the first RN to ASK to check my peri-pad and actually give me privacy while doing so.
On Day 6, late afternoon, we went home!!! I battled everyday for 4 months to get my daughter back to breastfeeding, and I succeeded. I had backaches for months from where the epidural catheter was placed… up. My husband and I lived a-sexually for 7 months while the damage to my body healed.
I was just another woman with another horrifying story.
I swore I would never have any more children, just as my Mother had never had any more children.
And then I met Rebecca Francis… a doula from Seattle.
Stay tuned for: The Birth of My Second Daughter… How I Came To Give Birth In A Bathroom.
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