by Mumsy

I now know the difference between myself and other mammals. Other mammals are unable to get on the "Nurses' Little Favorite" list because they cannot call the nurses murdering killers when they are birthing their young. And who wouldn't want to take advantage of this purely human opportunity? Certainly not I.

It was 10:26 on December 26th, 1999. I was sitting in the living room watching a movie with my visiting sister-in-law, and Dan had gone to bed. I found myself thinking, "My, these contractions certainly are REGULAR and they certainly are STRONG. Isn't that interesting? By 1:10 am I had taken a long shower, slurped down a big glass of water, and stretched out in bed, and they were still moving right along. So when Dan woke up and said, "Honey, are you alright?" I hollered "NO!" At 3:00 am we were in the Camaro pelting down the highway with me moaning and groaning and clutching myself and Dan saying "BREATHE BREATHE" and me saying "I CAN'T I CAN'T." Just like in the movies. Except we had the top up. Which, in retrospect, was a missed opportunity. But what can you do?

We arrived at the hospital and they put me in a room to check me out. In the screening room, I was perched on the table with one leg on each side, arms propped up on a big garbage can, head inside, puking aggressively at regular intervals, and still hollering and moaning with each contraction. IT REALLY HURT. A LOT. MORE THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD. When the nurse came in to tell us we were getting admitted, she said "Would you like an epidu-" and before she had the chance to add "ral" I had said, "YES YES YES IMMEDIATELY PLEASE" and grovelled on the floor like a retard.

By 6:00 am (yes that was two murderous hours later) I had my epidural, was numb from the waist down, and was possibly the happiest person on the planet. The man who gave me my epidural asked me what color my nail polish was and I had the presence of mind to respond, "Blue." This probably wasn't what he was asking but it seemed hilarious at the time. EVERYTHING seemed hilarious. I was in epiduralandia and I wanted to stay forever.

At 8:00 Dr. Crockford came in and broke my water, and very soon I was dilated to 8 centimeters and completely effaced.  At 10:30, Dr. Crockford said it was time to push, and I my nurse, Amy, started coaching us through the pushing. At this point, my epidural still had me flying HIGH so I was all too happy to hook my hands behind my knees, pull myself up into a ball, and push like bally-hoo. Unfortunately, two hours later all my good virtuous pushing had had absolutely no effect. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was vomitting with increasing frequency, so that every time we really had some momentum worked up I had to take a break to spew horrid bile all over Dan. We went through 20 emesis basins, and then we started rinsing them out and re-using. You have to be environmentally responsible when you're puking your way through labor, after all.

At some point during all this frivolity, my epidural decided to re-evaluate its life choices, turn in its portfolio, and take a permanent vacation. No one TOLD me this of course, so I was still plaintively pushing the little "More Medicine" button and getting absolutely NO medicine at all. Things took a decided turn for the ugly when I was feeling every contraction, feeling all the pushing, and feeling rather miserable and violent. The nurse decided to try pushing on my hands and knees, since the other way wasn't working, and I was supposed to roll myself in a ball with my head down and push sort of backwards. Oh, my. Suddenly, the patient was full of hate and vitriol. "I CAN'T DO IT THIS WAY. I CAN'T BREATHE. I CAN'T KEEP MY HEAD DOWN. STOP PUSHING ON ME. I CAN'T PUSH. HELP ME." You get the idea.

Finally she let me turn back right side up. Dr. Coates came in and evaluated the situation, and told me that the baby was "Sunny Side Up" which means that his face was turned up toward the ceiling, and his head was basically stuck in the birth canal. For several thousand years, I pushed with Dr. Coates' assistance, and the assistance of half the population of mainland China, or so it seemed as the room filled up with helpful observers and participants. I had one nurse pushing on my belly on the left, one nurse pushing on my belly on the right, and one nurse kneeling on the table above my head pushing on my belly from above. Very. Exciting. For. Me. This is when I started yelling "YOU ARE KILLING ME. STOP TRYING TO KILL ME. I CAN'T BREATHE. I AM GOING TO DIE." Dan, covered with hazardous vomit and probably tired of counting to ten and yelling PUSH, was mercifully kind in these moments, and actually let my head go down a couple times so I could get a breath. The nurse behind my head could only say, "I DON'T WANT YOU TO BREATHE I WANT YOU TO PUSH SO PUSH!" If I could have gotten an arm free to dislodge her I would have knocked her across the room. Of course, now that it's over I am very glad she did what she did and I did apologize for calling her a murderer.

Finally the doctor informed me that I had three more contractions to push the baby out and then they were going to do a C-section. The thought of being in labor for one more second while they prepped me for surgery filled me with such panic and fear that my sheer animal will kicked in and with the assistance of all the peripheral pushers, I cranked the baby out about eight contractions later. I was giving Dr. Coates the "I AM REALLY MOTIVATED NOW" eye so she let me push a little over the deadline.

Finally, everyone in the room started shouting "YES YES!" and Dr. Coates said, "Look down! Your baby is coming!" and in half a second I had Benjamin in my arms, completely slimy with blood and gore and the most angelic beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I was instantly filled with intense satisfaction, love, relief, joy, and the ability to finally BREATHE! They rubbed him off while he laid on my chest, and then aspirated him and took him over to the warming table. I was so euphoric, so totally charmed and amazed and relieved that everything was swimming, including all the seeming thousands of people in the room. I do remember seeing one face loom out of the crowd, and I realized that this woman was staring kindly and with clinical interest between my spread legs, and then looking up at me benevolently to say, "Awww, honey. She's fixing you up real nice down there! Good as new!" And from this I knew that I had had an episiotomy and that it was being mended. Possibly the most surreal moment of my life.

Benjamin was nine pounds, and twenty-two inches long. He has flaming red/orange hair and blue eyes. He is the most wonderful little mouse-nosed cute-i-fied rabbit child that I have ever witnessed. And he has been an angel from day 1. Ben and I both had a temperature, so we had to stay in the hospital an extra day while they gave him antibiotics through an IV. He used this time to nurse so dutifully and earnestly that my milk came in on the second day, and he got so nourished that he had regained his birth weight by the day after we were discharged. 

He spends his days eating, sleeping, and making his Mommy and Daddy ecstatic. He is a dear, sincere little angel baby and we love him extremely much.