Clark meets the world... Part 3

We last left off with my breakfast pastry giving me the low down on the possible side effects of the epidural…

I sign the paperwork and Croissant gets to relieving me of my pain. He gives me a trial shot to see if the catheter is placed properly, I have to sit on my rear for ten minutes to see if it is going to work. This means that I am going to have to suck up three contractions on my butt, which is like a living nightmare, and then sweet relief!!!

I want to kiss Croissant! I swear to him that if I wasn’t married I
would propose right then and there. He gives me the real deal and then my eyes uncross themselves, I am no longer on the verge of turning into Linda Blair and spewing pea soup from my spinning head, and I am now able to concentrate on the fact that I will be meeting my sweet little boy soon. The best part was that I was given a walking epidural so I was able to walk to the restroom, still in my fashionable panties and tank top, and back. I could do squats and sit on a medicine ball to assist Clark in dropping. I dilated to 9cm within 20 minutes. It was quick!

I asked Jamie to go to my room and get my makeup bag. Travis gave me stink eye and said, “Really? You need makeup? “To which I replied, “yes, we are meeting an important person today; I need to look my best.” The first part was reference to a comment made by the husband of a girl who’s blog I read and I thought it was such a sweet comment; Travis knew what I was referencing. Jamie came back with the makeup, I fixed myself, she braided my hair, and then I was ready to go. Or so I thought…

I started to do squats to help Clark out, as I stood up from a squat I felt like I
needed to go to the bathroom, I said to Jamie, “I need to poop.” Heike had just happened to have walked into the room as I said that, I was a little embarrassed, and she said, “Did you just say you need to poop?” “Um, yes.” Heike started to laugh… I thought that she was just laughing at my silliness again. Nope, she wasn’t. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “you don’t need to poop, you need to have a baby.” “No, really, I just need to poop, I’m sure.” So she said that she would check my progress and then we would see who was right, she had me get on the bed and she checked…

Nope, you need to have a baby. When you get the urge to push, start pushing. So I got in a squatting position to see if that would be a comfortable way to have the baby. Nope. Back on my back, and then Heike made me roll onto my left side and hike my right leg up. She then said it is time to push. So I thought that I’d give it a test run to see if I was pushing the way that I was supposed to and to see if I was going to feel better. That test run put Clark right where he needed to be. We were off…

So at this point Travis is on my left, Jamie on my right, Heike is next to Jamie on the business end of the deal, there are two doctors,one at 1200 and one at 1030 on the business end; they are all telling me to push. I give a fairly decent push and their eyes light up. They all look crazed and are urging me to continue, “GOOD, Keep going, we can see his head!” To which I reply, “I don’t believe you, you’re all lying.” It is starting to hurt when I push but when I stop pushing the urge to continue is stillthere, the pressure is still there, and the desire to go home and take a nap is kicking in.

I look at Travis and say, “I can’t do this.” He replies, “Yes you can; you are doing it.” That irritates me, he doesn’t realize that I’m serious, I really cannot do this. I look down at Heike, “I really don’t think that it is time. I just want to go poop and go home. I will come back tomorrow and we can try again.” She chuckles and says, “no, you are going to push this baby out now.” So I push, they get excited, I push a little harder, more excitement, I rest.

Then one of the doctors decides to give me a pep talk... "It is like running a marathon, you just..." I interupt her, "this is nothing like running a marathon, I've done that! I'll do that again! This is worse! MUCH WORSE!!!"

Here is where the tides turn. Heike tells me, “you need to push when you
feel a contraction.” The problem, I tell her, is that I can no longer feel those contractions because there is just a constant pressure from Clark being lodged in my birth canal. She replies, “so push.” I push and push and push. They all get very excited, “YOU’RE DOING IT. PUSH!!! JUST LIKE THAT!!!” His head is out! I look at Travis and am done, “babe, I can’t do anymore. I’m done.” He leans in close to my face and says, “keep pushing, you’re doing great.” I snap, "GET OUT OF MY FACE!” (I later learn that I simultaneously cocked my right fist back and Jamie thought I was going to cold cock him) He backs up. The room is spinning, the walls are closing in, I push. Through the push I manage to look down and see a flash, the light slicing through the air and shining back on me from sharpened metal. SCISSORS!!! My favorite doctor is holding a pair of effing scissors and she is aiming them at my girl bits! WTF!!!???!!!

I reach for Travis, butt walking up the bed and yelp, “Don’t do it! Don’t cut me! I can’t, I swear, I’ll push!” I go for broke! I push with every ounce of energy I have, thinking that if I push with all of my might she won’t have to cut me. WRONG!!!!! She did it. No local. No warning. No F-you. No flowers. No drinks. No bullshit! She just does it.

Now I am pissed. Not really pissed at the doc or anyone in particular, just pissed. I push harder than I have ever thought imaginable; my face is smooshed partially into the bed and partially into Travis. I feel Clark fly out. I look down, he is a blue baby. They are removing the cord from around his neck, rubbing him with towels to get him to perk up and to give him a little bit of a cleaning off.

I’m on my back so fast it makes my head spin. I am ripping my shirt off and attempting to get my bra off, I want skin to skin contact and I want it NOW!!! I can’t get my bra, it is a sports bra and it is giving me some serious grief, I am fighting with it and finally I bark out, “get this damn thing off of me, I don’t care if you have to cut it off!” Jamie helps me out of it and I start reaching for my baby.They get Clark cleaned off and put him in my arms, I cry…

The doctor asks Travis if he wants to cut the cord. He does. I don’t see any of it, I am staring at my little boy and I can’t get over his little face. He is beautiful! His nose is a bit bruised from labor and he has a few blood vessels busted in his eyes but he is BEAUTIFUL!!!

Jamie says goodbye, she is crying and is walking away spouting something about family time, etc. I don’t argue because I’m engrossed in this little boy that has just changed my world in the blink of an eye. Travis joins us and we just stare at Clark.

I am no longer the same person. The world is no longer the same place.

Clark Meets The World... Part 2

The last post we left off with the doctor telling me to relax about the possibility of having to go through two more days of unproductive contractions before meeting my son… What an ass!!!

Travis and I headed back to our hospital room to try and get some sleep. He nodded off in a heartbeat, I tossed and turned for a bit and then finally fell off. Around 330 in the morning I woke up to go to the bathroom. I finished in the restroom and get back in bed. Maybe ten minutes later I hear what sounds like someone snapping a rubber band on my skin and feel a thump dead center of my stomach just below my navel. “What the heck was that?” I wonder and get out of bed by pure instinct, and then the water flows….

“Um, Monkey (this is my nickname for Travis), I think my water broke.” He wakes up and groggily says, “What makes you think that?” The reason he asks this and doesn’t
immediately jump out of bed is because I’m like the girl who cried wolf… I had said these five words to him multiple times throughout my pregnancy because (TMI WARNING) you are not able to prepare for the amount of discharge that you will have during pregnancy, you will at one point or another think that your water has broken, when in reality it is just your vagina giving you a little jump start to your day.

I digress, back to his question, “what makes you think that?” “Uh, er, um the puddle of water I’m standing in.” Now he is out of the bed! I didn’t even see him move the blankets or strip of his pjs, he is like Clark Kent in a telephone booth, all I know is that he is at my side fully dressed and all of a sudden the first MIND BLOWING,KNEE BUCKLING, PUNCH YOUR MOTHER IN THE MOUTH CONTRACTION hits. I grab the end of the bed, lean over and say, “HOLY FUCK!!!!” More water… The contraction subsides and I head to the bathroom to remove my soaked pants and underwear and change. No sooner than I get up from the toilet, WHAM!!! Next contraction. This one makes me crossed eyed, my life flashes before my eyes, the room spins… What the fuck have I signed up for? Why in god’s name do people have more than one child?

Travis calls my friend Jamie and tells her to get to the hospital, the water busted, the contractions are started and it is go time! He and I head to the delivery room. As we walk in I say to the midwife, “I think my water broke.” She looks at my soaking wet pants and the trail of amniotic fluid that I’ve left behind in order to find my way home and says, “I think so.”

Jamie walks in. I don’t know how the time seems to be passing so quickly, it is almost 5 and I am having these horrible contractions back to back it seems, they are coming every 3 minutes and they are mother effing relentless. The midwife offers me a large sanitary pad to catch the fluid so that I don’t flood the room, she then hands me a pair of white, throw away, medical panties. These things are quite possibly the ugliest things you could imagine. I immediately put them on and in my “HIGH” from not being in the middle of a contraction proceed to dance and sing, “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly, I don’t think you’re ready, cause my body’s too bootylishous for ya babe!” While simultaneously rubbing my big ass and baby bump. The midwife, Travis, and Jamie all start laughing hysterically, Jamie snaps a photo… (don’t think you’re getting a view… not gonna happen)

The next contraction hits like a frying pan to the face! I’m bent over the bed, Travis is rubbing my lower back trying to apply counter pressure, I think this is where the BITCH comes in. “Harder!” I snap. He obliges. The contraction is gone. I sit on a medicine ball, and try to go through the next contraction on that, it doesn’t help. Back to the bed on my hands and knees, Travis rubbing my lower back, I am swaying my hips left to right. Jamie steps to my right side, she thinks that I am about to fall off the bed because my knee is so close to the edge. I am trying to breathe through them, they keep coming, the pain is worsening. I am starting to freak out. I have to pee, take me to the bathroom. We walk to the bathroom, Travis, Jamie, Heike (the midwife), and me in my lovely underwear and a tank top. Thank god it is the crack of damn dawn and there isn’t anyone in the hallway to witness this madness. I know for a fact I look like a crazy person. Jamie has been pouring cold water on my neck because I’m so hot, my hair is like medusa, and I’m in
medicinal drawers… MRS. AMERICA HERE I COME!!!

We get to the bathroom, this room is the size of a closet, not a walk in closet, a shoe closet, there are three of us in there and my IV cart, it is hot, it is cramped, and I start another contraction. I then proceed to have an anxiety attack… “Travis, I cannot do this. I want to go home. I will come back tomorrow and try again, I promise. I want to go home.” I use his first name for emphasis, so that he knows that I am serious. He tries to calm me by telling me how awesome I am, how I am already doing such a great job and how he knows that I can get through this. I am pissed. He isn’t listening. I really can’t do this. I look Heike straight in the eye and say, “Heike, I need medicine. Get me the epidural.” She knows that I am serious. I have, for the past 40 hours, turned down every offer of medicinal assistance for this journey, she can see the severity in my face, she heads for the paperwork.

We walk back to the delivery room; another contraction takes my breath away. Heike returns with the paperwork to fill out for the epidural, she hands it to Travis and says, “you need to fill this out with your wife.” He takes the clipboard, another contraction hits, Travis puts the clipboard down to assist me and I snarl, “FILL OUT THE PAPERWORK. NOW!” He withdraws himself from assisting with counter pressure… He fills out the paperwork and takes it back to the midwife. She says, “the anesthesiologist will be here shortly.” I do not believe a word of it, they are never able to make it in “shortly”, they usually take forever.

Within thirty minutes Heike tells me that the doctor is in, he is in the next room going over my chart and will be in to talk to me within minutes. Contraction…

In walks Lurch from the Addams family, this guy has to be 6’9 and skinny skinny skinny. He introduces himself, “Helloooo, my name is Croissant.” I don’t know what catches my attention first, the fact that he is speaking so slowly that he sounds as if he hit up some of the pain meds before making his way down to the delivery room, or the fact that he just said his name is Croissant. I look at Travis, “Did he just say his name is Croissant?” To which Travis replies, “yes, like the breakfast pastry.” I think I might have just died…

Croissant then proceeds to take ten minutes explaining the procedure and the possible side effects or negative results. With each side effect he counters with, “but that isn’t likely.” I’m thinking, “if it isn’t likely, shut the eff up and give me the meds!” He asks if I want to proceed. I am in mid contraction and
grabbing the paperwork to sign it… HELL YEAH I WANT TO!!!!

Next Post… Pain Meds and Delivery…

Clark’s Big Entrance (Part 1)…

We went to the hospital on Thursday the 17th to have a stress test done to check and see if everything was fine with Clark. I had been fighting a headache for the past day and a half and my blood pressure was above normal so the doctors decided that it was time to induce labor.

The German doctors don’t start with Pitocin like they do in
the states, they start with a pill that I can’t remember the name of. So at 2PM on Thursday the 17th they gave me 50mg and put me on a stress test monitor to see if the contractions would start. Within twenty minutes I started to have contractions that were coming every 3 – 5 minutes apart but were still pretty mild. They measured my cervix and told me that it was 1cm, and that it was soft so they didn’t expect the process to take too long, hopefully we would be in full labor by midnight, that Clark would be around on the 18th. Talk about an excited mommy.

Four hours later, they checked again… 1cm, now up the dose to 75mg… This caused stronger contractions coming around 3 minutes apart. These contractions were still bearable by a long shot and so we started to walk the halls of the hospital, up and down the stairwell, through the wards, and back. My really good friend Jamie came and kept me company. The plan was for her to stay through the delivery to help coach me through the rough patches if Travis got tired. So we walked, and walked, and walked.

Another four hours passed, 100mg, more contractions. The contractions were getting stronger and stronger. I tried to make sure that I kept a relaxed face and body so that the contractions could do their job and open the cervix. My mantra was, “good poop face.” I know this is ridiculous, but really, think about it, you cannot tense your jaw up while saying, “good poop face,” it is physically impossible. After another four hours passed they decided no more pills that I should try to get some sleep and we would begin again in the morning. They asked if I wanted pills to stop the contractions so that I could sleep. I figured that would be counterproductive and declined. Off to our room we go. (the best part about the German health system, at least at my hospital, is that they let the husband stay in the room too. Albeit for a fee, but still) It was now 2 in the morning and they wanted us to be back again at 6AM. So as I lay there trying to sleep while contracting every 3 minutes, I
listened to Travis breath heavily in his bed and waited. I remember thinking that today will be the day that I get to meet my little boy… I’m sorry, you just can’t sleep knowing that something so awesome is about to happen. It was like Christmas Eve hopped up on a vile or two of crack.

6AM 18 Nov: off we go from our hospital room to the delivery room for another stress test and another dose of contraction kickers… This time they immediately go to 100mg… the contractions remain the same. Four hours later they give me another 100mg,
this time the contractions pick up in intensity. We repeat this cycle for the rest of the day, every four hours we get another 100mg of meds and the contractions increase. Sometime around 3pm they check to see how far I have dilated… 1cm… I cry… I cannot believe that I have now been in labor, though not tough labor but still labor, for 24 hours and I have not gotten past a single effing centimeter. WTF???

The cycle continues… Midnight comes and they check me for dilation again. Do you want to guess how far I progressed? ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, NOTHING!!!! Still 1cm. ARE YOU SHITTING ME???? I cry some more… The doctor tells me to go get some rest, come back tomorrow morning at 6 and we will begin again. She follows this with a comment that I imagine she thought she was consoling me with, and here is where you realize that some things just don’t translate… She says, “Don’t get discouraged, it takes some women three days of this to get results.” HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! I cry harder…

To Be Continued…