Every baby’s delivery has a story. After all, there are several shows on cable about them and they keep making more. (I can’t imagine allowing other people in the room let alone the cameras.)
Unless you really like those shows, you may not be fascinated, but I am going to share my daughter’s delivery story anyway. (Stop reading here if you don’t want to know. It is the equivalent to changing the television channel).
I was induced when I reached 38 weeks (full term).
We found out that I was actually in labor soon after I was admitted to the hospital. They were light contractions, but steady. The nurse on duty was convinced I would have the baby by two or three a.m. – well before she came back on duty.
They went ahead and gave me the drugs to induce labor. They also insisted I take a sleeping pill that was prescribed. This was my first baby after all – they just knew I would be in labor the next afternoon and beyond exhaustion if I did not sleep. This would be the first error.
The drugs brought my labor to a halt.
It started back up around 7 a.m. and the doctor broke my water at 7:30 a.m. They asked at 10:15 a.m. if I wanted an epidural. I said yes. This would be the second error.
(I know that if you are my age, you probably used natural childbirth when you had your child(ren) in your twenties, but times have changed and I was forty.)
I had an epidural at 10:30 a.m., but it did not work on my left side. In fact, it intensified the pain on that side.
I had been doing really well without the epidural, but I thought the pain would get a lot worse.
The anesthesiologist gave me more drugs at 11:15 a.m. and waited around to see if they worked. It only made my right side more numb. Then, he asked if I had any back problems. (Really, he could not have asked me this before the epidural or at least before increasing the meds?) When I said yes, he said that explained it. My injury was stopping the drugs from working. There was nothing he could do.
After a little bit, the nurse (the one from the night before who thought I would have already had the baby) said she could give me another drug just to take the edge off.
Despite the fact that the nurse thought I was doing well without it, I still thought the pain would get worse. After all, I always saw people yelling and screaming on television even with the drugs. I had not even yelled once yet. So, I said yes. This was the third error.
She gave me a test dose before giving me the rest. As soon as the medicine got through the IV, I was out of it.
I remember my husband and nurses telling me to push, my husband being left alone as they were scrambling to get the room ready for delivery and not knowing whether I should push or not, and I remember the nurses finally understanding that I really had NO feeling in my right leg.
I vividly remember my husband telling me to wake up, that the baby was about to be born and asking if I didn’t want to be awake for it. Really? As if, it was my choice to lay their out of it missing the birth of my child.
I finally became fully alert after the adrenaline kicked in when I heard the nurses’ collective, concerned voices telling me to stop pushing. Someone asked where the doctor was and told them to tell her to run.
I had already stopped pushing when they said it. My husband and I told them I was not pushing. I knew something was very wrong.
When I asked what was wrong, no one answered right away. They stood their with stunned and concerned expressions increasing my concern. Someone finally said the baby was out. They had me push again. My daughter was born at 12:05 p.m. “sunny-side up” after just five hours of active labor. The nurse from the night before delivered her.
They laid my daughter upon my chest. Told my husband to cut the cord. He didn’t want to at first. Nevertheless, he cut it. A nurse was just taking my daughter when the doctor arrived at the door. Oh my, the look on her face. She was stunned, then angry, then professional, then oh my. . .this was the only part that needed a camera crew to videotape it.
She looked at the baby, asked some questions, told the nurses to apologize to me and not her right now, and started checking me over.
I realized that no one mentioned saving the cord blood. I asked about it. The doctor looked at the nurse who delivered my daughter and she shook her head no. The doctor told me it was too late now. I looked over by the chair where my husband had spent the night. I saw the cord blood kit still in its box. This was the fourth error.
After another apology and venting about how she had never missed a delivery before at any hospital let alone in 15 years there, the doctor noted my slurred speech and asked how much of the last medicine I had been given. When they told her, she laughed and told me that I was a very cheap date.
My daughter and I were the talk of the floor for the rest of our stay. That is more than enough fame for me.
