Then, I didn't want to because I was happy, and this had previously been a place to put my pain, tied up in a hopeful bow.
Then I was busy. It is funny how quickly you become busy doing nothing much at all as a parent...
That's right. I said PARENT!!! In July 2012, a few months after moving away from family and friends and starting over in, of all places, Las Vegas, I discovered that I was pregnant. Despite the trouble conceiving, my actual pregnancy was amazingly smooth. I had very little morning sickness, a decent amount of Braxton Hicks that started early, but also went away early, and in March of this year, my sweet miracle boy was born.
Life is amazing, and I am blessed. I truly couldn't be happier in life than I am now. I would like this to be a place to celebrate this joy, no longer reserving it to give an outward appearance of hope while I am sad. Before I can do that, though, I need to do one last cathartic post. I need to come to terms with my birth story and the time immediately following it.
When I discovered I was pregnant, I was given March 22, 2013 as my due date. I was so excited about the idea of having a baby as a birthday present from whatever powers may be. I worked through my whole pregnancy, with the idea that I would stop working the day I was officially "full term" so that I could enjoy the last few weeks of pregnancy without the stresses of work. Your first pregnancy only happens once in a lifetime, and I wanted to spend a short time basking in the wonder of it.
March 1 rolled around, finally. I was exactly 37 weeks pregnant--full term. It was my last day at work. I had my files cleared out, I had my reviews written for those people working for me, and I had a successor (somewhat) trained and ready to take over for me. My husband was out of town for work, but was supposed to come home later that night, and I was finally going to give in to my full nesting desires. I was given the instructions to not "do anything stupid" by my husband, meaning he didn't want me to do any activities that might cause labor while he was still on the road home. He wanted to be with me for every moment of the labor and birth of our miracle son. One his way home, he called me to remind me of these instructions. He would be home soon, I was done working, and I had plenty of time to get everything done around the house I wanted. I reassured him with the bold-faced lie that I was taking things easy and just watching tv and hanging out with our dogs. What I was really doing was rearranging heavy furniture. I was lifting and pushing and squatting and bending more than triple the weight restrictions given to me by my ob. Stubborn as I am, I didn't stop until I was done, and then, despite being winded and having some cramping, I did a thorough vacuuming of my bedroom. I quickly felt very guilty, knowing I had pushed it too much.
My husband was finally home hours later, in the last hours before March 2 began. We took showers and went to bed, but I really didn't feel well and was so excited and nervous and a little in pain, so I laid next to my husband, sleeplessly. Around 11pm, I was extremely nauseous and my stomach hurt. Not my uterus, my stomach. I got up and took another shower, but wasn't in it five minutes before puking my guts out. My abdominal pain got worse, and I crawled in and out of bed several times that first hour, throwing up, drinking water, showering more, throwing up more. This definitely wasn't labor. I knew that. I felt it must be something serious, though. My mind immediately went toward food poisoning. Oh no! I was suffering from food poisoning and it was going to get in the way of my enjoyment of the last few weeks of labor. It was going to complicate things and I wasn't going to get the natural water birth I had planned for most of my life...
My second thought was I hurt myself with all the furniture rearranging. That added guilt to my growing anxiety.
I didn't want to wake up my husband; he had just driven home six hours straight after an eight hour day of meetings. He was tired. Instead I called my mom. I was trying hard to not panic. I didn't want to go to the hospital because I knew I would have to go to the labor and delivery triage and I wasn't ready to be in labor. This was not labor. My mom sounded very worried on the phone, like her heart was breaking a little not being here with me to take care of me. She made me promise I would wake up Joe and have him take me to the hospital. I was starting to be in a pretty sizeable amount of pain, and I took my time getting ready and waking him up.
"Honey, you need to wake up. You need to take me to the hospital. I don't think I'm in labor but something is wrong with me. Please wake up and take me to the hospital." I remember very clearly the words I used, and the wavering tone of my voice, as I tried to give the impression of being completely fine while inside being terrified and not ready at all. I honestly didn't want to have my baby yet. I wasn't ready. I just wanted another week to bond with him. I wasn't ready.
When we got to the L and D triage, I calmly explained that I was in a lot of pain abdominally, and couldn't stop throwing up, but that I wasn't in labor and wasn't having contractions. I needed to be checked for something else, not for labor. They looked at me as if I was nuts! It was around 2am and I was a scared first time mom. In their eyes, I might as well have been a six year old announcing I would one day be president. They put me in the triage observation room, undressed and strapped to monitors. I was given a blood test and preemptive IV, in case I needed to have anything administered to me. I threw up several more times, doubling over in pain. They gave me an antinausea medication and kept monitoring me. After an hour, they checked me for dilation and said I had gone from 1 cm dilated to 4 cm dilated, was clearly in active labor despite my protests, and needed to be admitted.
I never slept that night. I started having contractions. I stopped throwing up. My blood test showed my white blood cells were slightly elevated, but the nursing staff said they believed it was just a small cold or flu I was getting over, and was nothing to be concerned about. I didn't see a doctor. Determined to do whatever I could to have a natural birth, I decided 'if this is labor, then let's get the ball rolling.' Despite increased pain, I walked the halls. I bounced on an exercise ball. I squatted and stretched and walked some more. I was having some contractions still, but I wasn't continuing to dilate. Despite my best efforts and an almost overwhelming amount of pain, my labor appeared to have stalled. I was discharged that evening with instructions to come back when contractions were closer and steadier and I thought labor had started again. We went home, I was able to get a few hours of sleep, but my pain was worse.
I literally went back to triage six more times in the next six days. My contractions were deemed too erratic to properly measure and I was told that my increasing pain was due to a hostile uterus. The nurses kept telling me that my pain was something all first-time moms experience and that I just needed to breathe through it and keep laboring. All week, I stayed at 4 cm dilation. All week I didn't see a doctor. All week, I was told I couldn't induce or have my water broken because I was less than 38 weeks, and I still had plenty of time. You know, there is no reason to rush what all women go through--I just needed to find a little more strength and deal with it. Meanwhile, my pain got so severe, I literally could no longer roll over, or sit up, or walk. Even with my husband helping me, I could not make it to the shower or toilet. He brought me basins to pee in, and held my 197 pregnant pounds over the basin so I could pee. He held soup and juice and water and Gatorade in cups with straws so I could stay hydrated. He took time away from work and massaged me and bathed me and comforted me as I was in too much pain to speak, just to silently weep. My husband is truly my soul mate and the most compassionate, heroic man I could ever ask to share my life with. I stopped sleeping entirely. I thought I might die. I was in so much pain that I wanted to ask for a C-section to cut my baby out because I didn't have the strength to labor any longer. Each time I went to triage, I was tended by a nurse and never saw a doctor. Each time, I was told that since I wasn't (strangely EVER) the patient of the ob on-call for that shift, the ob didn't feel comfortable giving me any type of pain relief whatsoever. Finally, Thursday March 7, around 7:30 am, I went to triage a final time. I was too weak to walk. I hadn't slept more than 5 hours in the past 4 days. Monitors still showed inconsistencies with my contractions and I was still only 4 cm dilated, but my heart rate was extremely high (around 130-140 bpm) and my son's heart rate was dropping (around 40 bpm). They were concerned for his safety, so they finally induced. I had my water broken and internal sensors put in place to measure contractions and their strength from inside my uterus. The nurse assigned to me was shocked by how strong and regular the contractions suddenly showed up. They weren't reading pretty much at all on the external monitors. "Have you been contracting like this all week?" Yes. Yes I had.
I was given the smallest dose of Pitocin to help progress my dilation, since I was STILL only 4cm, despite everything. I was given an epidural, something I no longer felt guilt about. The pain was so strong that the nurse had to hold my head down while the epidural was administered, something I later discovered caused a painful sprain in my neck. Man, when that epidural kicked in, though, it was a miracle in itself. I could feel everything, but for the first time all week, nothing "hurt". I fell asleep for just over an hour. It was amazing. When I woke up, I could feel strong contractions again, despite the epidural. I called the nurse in and asked her to increase my epidural strength and check me. She did both and discovered I was about 8 cm dilated. Half an hour later, I called her back and told her I needed a doctor because I couldn't keep myself from pushing. She made me wait as long as I could, and when the doctor was there 10 minutes later, I was allowed to officially push. It took 3 contractions, 8 pushes, and 4 minutes to deliver my baby. My amazingly perfect 6 lb. 10 oz. 19 inch long son was suddenly in my arms, and it was the most amazing, life altering feeling in the world. Suddenly none of what I had gone through all week seemed to matter. I had my baby. In my arms. On my breast. It was priceless.
I was moved to recovery from l and d. As the epidural wore off, my pain came back. Huh, that is weird. I thought, 'everyone said that my pain was labor pain, but I'm not in labor anymore...' We were released and went home to start our new life together as a family. Man, I was still in a lot of pain, though. I bit my lip and suffered through it. I needed to be strong for my new son. Pain wasn't going to get in my way. I was really moody, though. And my neck hurt on top of everything else. I went back to the hospital and was given a ct scan of my neck, told it had been sprained, told to alternate heat and cold and take Tylenol. I did that. I tried to stay positive. My neck pain distracted from all other pain, and I was so used to pain by this time, I just kept telling myself it was all part of recovery. Family came and went. Days came and went. I say in the same chair all day with my son, and had my family wait on me hand-and-foot so I could avoid increasing the pain and not being positive during this wonderful time. It was taxing. I was getting depressed. I wanted so much to be able to enjoy my time with my new perfect son.
When I went to my son's first check up, I had to be wheeled around in a borrowed wheel chair. By the time his 2 week checkup came around, I was proud that I could hobble around on my own. I had developed a fever, and my ob's office said it was pretty common for women to get high fevers about 2 weeks after delivering. They said it was part of the recovery process. My pediatrician took one look at me, greyish and sickly looking, with a belly that hadn't shrunk as much as I wanted, and told me I needed to go the er that day. She saved my life.
I left my son with my parents and went with my husband to the er, our second trip since giving birth, and our 8th hospital visit in 3 weeks. It turns out, I had a massive infection from an undiagnosed appendicitis and my body was going "septic" meaning my toxicity level was starting to affect my organs and the infection was starting to get into my blood stream. I was admitted immediately, without seeing my son again, and I stayed in the hospital for 8 days.
All of my extra labor pain had a cause, a name. I hadn't overreacted to it. I had miraculously survived it. The appendicitis triggered labor to save my son's life, but my body had been too weak to progress it. I went through six days of hard active labor and an appendicitis without pain medication, and was still able to have a vaginal birth with minimal intervention. My miracle baby was an even bigger miracle than I had thought. I almost died. Another few days without visiting the er, and I probably wouldn't have made it. If you think about it, having my son also saved my life.
The 8 days in the hospital without being able to see my son were the darkest days. My milk started drying up despite hospital room pumping. I was released on my son's 3 week birthday, though, and despite difficulty with recovery, continued IVs at home, and supplemented formula while I prayed for my milk to come back, while I rebounded with a baby I had been so long without, I recovered. I got better, we got better, and life went on. And, while I fought off postpartum depression and reacclimated to life after so very much had gone wrong, in his own perfect innocent way, my son saved my life again.
I've learned to focus on the positive. I wasn't unlucky to have suffered through this ordeal, I was lucky to have survived it. I am lucky. I am thankful. And now, now that I have put this into words, I am moving on.
This once museless artist has her muse and her reason for life. And what an incredibly amazing life it is!!!!!
My life became complete, despite all setbacks, at 1:05 pm Thursday, March 7, 2013.
So glad you were able to write this and very thankful that you and little Dylan made it. Love you both!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lisa. Me, too.
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