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Did you read part one and part two of Allie’s birth story?
The Labor
The doctor told me to take a hot bath in the jacuzzi and relax for a while while the pitocin helped my body to get things moving.
The hot bath made my cervix change a bit – a 1/2 cm. My contractions were still frequent and strong. My blood pressure continued to climb, requiring intravenous blood pressure meds and a heart monitor.
To ease the tension, my sister recounted a funny story that made me laugh. Once I started laughing, I didn’t stop. My hysterical laughter shook my jiggly body all over, making all of the monitors slide off in places they weren’t supposed to be. Alarms went off and everything went awry.
The nurse was not pleased. I wasn’t allowed out of bed; I wasn’t even allowed to sit up. My entire body hurt; it felt like every muscle in my body was cramping or having spasms. I begged for an epidural. I couldn’t have one because I was only dilated to 3 cm.
Wanting to move the process along, the doctor broke my water.
My contractions before the ruptured membranes were painful and intense. The very first contraction afterward was excruciating, knives stabbing and twisting in my back, pelvis, hips, legs, even my chest.
Sweat trickled off my skin, dripping in my hair, down my neck, into my eyes.
I moaned and writhed and couldn’t breathe and wasn’t allowed to get up.
After 45 minutes of agony, the anesthesiologist appeared, sent by the doctor who thought a reduction in my pain might help lower my blood pressure.
Sitting up was sweet relief until the next contraction. I leaned over the tray table, held still by my nurse, and moaned as the anesthesiologist babbled about risks and complications of the epidural.
I would have given him permission to amputate my arms and legs if it would have made the pain go away. I didn’t care about his risks and complications.
Searing, burning pain as he inserted the needle into my spinal column. Lightning down my right leg. The epidural was in the wrong place.
He tried again. More searing, burning pain as the needle pierced my spinal column. More lightning, now down my tailbone.
A third try. More contractions. Arms and legs quivered, beyond my control. I was moaning, my face lying in a puddle of sweat on the tray table.
Satisfied that the epidural was placed correctly, the anesthesiologist taped it to my skin, and the nurse told me to lie back down.
“I can’t lay down! I have to get up! I have to go to the bathroom, and it really hurts.”
Look for part 4 tomorrow.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, you poor thing. And I thought I had it rough with my last one. He HURT, but I don’t think it was as bad as this.
It was worse than I ever imagined. Nothing in my life has compared to the pain.
(But also – it doesn’t hurt any more. Life has a funny way of just going on, doesn’t it?)
There were a whole lot of never agains in this pregnancy. Most notably the pregnancy part.
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