Birth Story, Part Deux

So I left you lying awake in the wee hours of the night listening to my baby's heartbeat. On those machines, the heartbeat sounds squishy, almost like a needle being scratched across a record under water. Already my birth was not going the way I wanted, with an IV stuck in me and a baby monitor I couldn't take off. It confined me to the bed, excluding trips to the bathroom, and when you take childbirth class you're advised to move around and change positions. With inductions, at least at Mount Sinai, they want you hooked up to the baby monitor so you can only change positions in the bed.

C said he'd be back at 7a but seven came and went. My OB wasn't expected to come in and start the party until 8a so I wasn't really anxious for C but I was bored. Finally around 7:45 or so I called to find him in the car looking for the parking garage. He got to my room moments before Dr. A who actually showed up at 8a sharp. Dr. A looked very clean, shaved and reeked of cologne. When he left the room, I asked C if he noticed the distinct stink of men's frangrance but C hadn't noticed. I wondered if this was how Dr. A prepared to deliver babies, after all it was a special occasion.

Dr. A's first order of business, after checking to see if my cervix had dilated with the help of the supossitory (it hand't), was to break my water. He pulled out what looked like a knitting needle so I smartly looked away. C sat in the chair beside the bed eyes fixed to the TV. I didn't really feel anything, just a sudden wet feeling. Dr. A looked at the bedsheet, said "Good, it's clear" and left the room under the pretext of seeing what happened.

Some time passed and I continued to feel like I was peeing all over the place when it was just amniotic fluid, but nothing else happened. After about an hour and still no contractions, Dr. A decided to start the pitocin. He urged me to get an epidural sooner rather than later as it was a busy day and I might have to wait an hour for the anesthesiologist. The anesthesioligist, a bald guy named Itomar, had already made his appearance, asking if I'd like to try a different drug, one that he assured me worked, for a hospital study. Dr. A said there was no harm in participating in the study so I decided to do it, but I wanted to wait until the contractions actually happened before I screamed for Itomar.

Nurse Shirley started my pitocin drip through my IV and shortly thereafter, the real contractions started. I felt a deep squeezing sensation in my abdomen. It hurt, like I was getting punched, but it wasn't that bad. Dr. A showed up, saw that I was contracting and asked if I wanted my epidural. I said I was okay, Dr. A looked annoyed and left the room. C and I used a few breathing techniques to get me through the contractions and I tried to soldier through as the contractions got stronger, more painful and closer together.

After about an hour or two of this (I'm really not sure of the time frame) I gave up my fight against drugs. I'd love to say I lasted in the ring longer but I didn't make it through two hours of labor without drugs. I know women who've had day long labors and no drugs and I admire them, but I'm not them, I wanted drugs. When Itomar's assistant came in to go over all the details with me, I was making so many faces she called for a higher dosage. While they were sitting me up for the epidural and I was hugging the nurse to not only stay in position but for comfort, I was spraying the floor with amniotic fluid. It was a regular Niagara Falls in that hospital room. I was crying and Itomar and co were saying "Don't worry, you won't feel anything soon!" but I was mainly crying from embarrassment. I hated C to see me like this.

I didn't feel the long epidural needle. Truth is, the IV and the pee cath they inserted bothered me more than the long epidural needle which I never saw. And afterwards, it was great looking at the monitor and seeing a huge contraction that felt like a mild hiccup.

Dr. A returned to see if I'd dilated again. He had to wait for a contraction so he sat at the foot of the bed, C still in the chair and me, lying on the bed with my legs spread for the doctor. Actually, I found it all funny, how much propriety goes out the window during childbirth. Unfortunately, I still wasn't progressing so Dr. A increased the pitocin and told me he was leaving for the office and now Dr. T would be take over. I was relieved as I prefer Dr. T.

"I'll be back again by eight but hopefully you'll be post-partum," he said and I hoped so as well.

Hours passed and nothing changed. Dr. T, a tiny, very youthful looking woman, bounced in wearing a lavender business suit and noted I still was not dilating. The pitocin increased, I opened my legs for another inspection, the monitor showed I was contracting like crazy, Itomar returned for another shot. Around 3:30, Dr. T said put her hand on my belly and said, "I don't think it's going to happen."

The labor, she meant because obviously I was going to have this baby.

"I think we need to do a C-section."

"Why," I said, crying like a little girl. I felt like a failure. "Your body was made to this," my friend Meredith had said. Apparently not.

"As we've been saying all along," Dr. T said calmly. "This is a big baby and I don't know if you've looked in the mirror lately but you're a small person."

"Why does that matter?" I said. "I was a big baby and my mother still managed to give birth."

"When the baby's too big, it doesn't drop low enough to put pressure on your cervix and you don't dilate. You're contracting nicely. We can keep going with this but it's been a while and you're still at three centimeters."

"Okay," I said, afraid I'd go home to wait it out only to have to return for a c-section on Thanksgiving Day. "Let's do the section."

Things happened very quickly from now on. Papers were signed. Itomar left for the day, an event that caused a blind panic, but he was replaced by another doctor who assured me that the hospital made sure all the anesthiologists were bald so I'd feel comfortable when one left for the day. We had to wait for an operating room. Of course, now the contractions were getting more painful and we had to wait for the surgery for more anesthesia. Now that I'd decided the section was happening, I wanted them the contractions to stop but they don't just because they turn off the pitocin drip.

Around 4:50 we were given an operating room. It's a good thing it all unfolded as fast as it did or else I would have panicked from the sheer ritual, the unreality of what was going on around me. Dr. T left to change into scrubs. Dr. Bald gave C scrubs and a mask to put on. Shirley, the nurse, wheeled the bassinet for my baby out of the room. I was sat up for some more drugs and then my legs and stomach were prodded to make sure I was suitable numb. I couldn't move my legs at all and at another time I would have minded.

As they wheeled me to the OR, Dr. Bald told me the room I was going to had good kharma, as his daughter was born there. This little detail gave me tremendous confidence in my surgery, knowing that a doctor chose to have his own child in this hospital. They had to transfer me from the hospital bed to the operating table and I unfortunately, couldn't help them. Finally Dr. T, a resident, Dr. Bald and some other guy had to physically lift me and put me on the table. Two side tables were wheeled up and I had to stretch my arms straight out in a Christ on the Cross position. C came in wearing his mask and what looked like a shower cap and was ushered to a chair beside my head. He grabbed my hand and a curtain was draped to block either of us from seeing the action. Behind the curtain, I could hear the doctors chatting and laughing like they were gathering at the lunchtime salad bar.

C says they were joking about Dr. T having a baby but I can't tell you what they were saying. Dr. Bald kept whispering "You're doing fine" and "almost there" in my ear.

"Okay, we're almost there," some one said from behind the curtain.

I hearad Dr. T say "I'm gonna kill you!"

Was she talking about me or was my little baby, who didn't want to come out, being difficult.

"With c-sections it's fairly common for them not to cry at first," Dr. Bald said reassuringly. "So don't be afraid if you don't hear anything."

I squeezed C's hand and looked up at the ceiling. I didn't feel anything, it didn't seem so bad.

"Oh here's the head," Dr. Bald said, then to C "you want to see the head?"

Dr. Bald grabbed the camera and snapped a picture of Eliza's head coming out while C peered over the curtain. I thought this was a mistake as C pukes during "ER" reruns but somehow the thrill of the moment sustained him. I still cannot look at the photo of her head coming out. I don't want to see myself cut open.

I heard what sounded like a small baby cough.

"Was that the baby?" I asked.

"Yes, Lisa," Dr. T said over the curtain.

Then I heard a deep breath followed by what can only be described as massive wailing. So much for Dr. Bald's warning. Already I could tell, this baby had what my father would later call, "very healthy lungs."

A lot more commotion followed and I remember a team of people running with her to a warming table over to my left. The first thing I remember seeing on her was her legs which looked rather long and chunky, not like scrawny newborn legs at all.

"Oh my God," I said, nearly sitting up before Dr. Bald pressed me down. "She huge."

"She's a big girl," some one said. C went ran over with his little hairnet and started taking pictures as Eliza continued to wail rhythmically from the table. I felt a lot of pushing and prodding now, my surgery wasn't over. And now it was different, now I felt it. C stood over the table, excited and I felt abandoned. I wanted to be standing over that table with him but instead I felt hands by my ribs and strong pressure as they put me back together. I started to cry.

"It hurts, what are they doing?"

Dr. Bald took my hand and assurred me it would be over soon. The extra doctor I never identified came up and whispered something in his ear. I think he told Dr. Bald to give me more drugs. I was really yelling so C would come back to me but he was too excited by his new daughter.

"Ten fingers, ten toes!" C yelled from across the room.

"It hurts," I cried.

And then it was over. They wheeled me into a recovery room. C told me later that when they did Dr. Bald told him they'd given me a heavy dose of anesthesia and I might not remember the rest of the night but I do. Not as clearly as I'd like to but I don't think that's because of the drugs. So much happened that night, I think it would be impossible to remember it all as much as I'd want. There were several other women in the recovery room, two talking loudly on the phone. As we entered the room, one of the doctors whispered about some one's mother calling to C. It turned out to be my mother and C left to step outside and call her. I lay on the bed and waited for them to bring in my baby. Dr. Bald came in again to tell me they were doing her vitals and everything looked great.

Finally, Shirley brought her in to me. I don't remember it like I want to, I wish I could say I remember every detail of her face. What I do know is I looked at her and her face was exactly what I expected. She wasn't a stranger at all but some one I'd known all my life. It was like meeting an old friend I'd somehow lost touch with and now we were going to pick up where we left off.

"She's beautiful," I said and Shirley agreed.

"The most beautiful one I've seen tonight," she said, though she probably said this to every mother.

Shirley handed me a slip of paper with my daughter's weight and footprints on it. Eliza was eight pounds, eleven ounces, born at 5:31 pm. On the left side of the page it said "happy birthday baby girl."

"Hi you," I said as Eliza looked up at me, her bright blue newborn eyes surprisingly calm and alert. She seemed to know me, studied my face then turned her head towards the ceiling light. I traced the curve of her tiny button nose with my forefinger and studied her little red lips, her round cheeks, the bulk of hair peeping out from the little blue and pink striped knit hat she wore.

"I'm your mama," I said and she looked back at me, her head nodded forward as if to say, "I know."