Warning: read at your own risk. Childbirth is not a pretty business. Also it's super long, so you've been warned.
So week 40 rolls around, still pregnant, of course though about 17 other people I knew had their babies already who were due after me. That week my blood pressure was really high and my Doctor put me on bed rest and ordered a couple non stress tests for Cooper. I've been a basket case about his health ever since. So my due date rolls around, still no baby and slightly high blood pressure so I get the go ahead to be induced. I walked joyfully past the reception desk to leave without making any more follow up appointments. Happy as a clam.
My due date was Saturday, I wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything from 10 am onwards and go to the hospital at 5 pm to be injected overnight with a cervix ripener before the actual induction could take place. Which is a fancy way of saying that it added an extra day of pain, hospital stay, and starvation onto my labor. Lovely. My contractions started at 2 am and started out every 2-3 minutes apart thanks to the medication I was on. I couldn't have anything for the pain yet so I pretty much cried from 2 am to 8 am when they gave me an epidural. They started me on pitocin at 7 am and were kind enough to offer an epidural by 8, probably because I was screaming in the delivery room (at which point Josh got up to close the door and I bit his head off because I thought maybe the screams would prompt them to hurry.) The epidural worked for a while (ahem, we'll get to THAT business later), but I was sporting a giant oxygen mask that kept falling off my face because Cooper was in distress, and they kept rolling me over every 20 minutes so I still was far from comfortable. Few more hours of that and then the real fun began... My epidural wore off and no one would believe me! I kid you not, I felt like a pioneer squatting over a ditch (see disclaimer above, if you kept reading it was your own fault.) Not to mention that Cooper was faced the wrong way so I was in the worst possible labor I could be in and I felt every contraction for the last hour of labor and for two hours of pushing. Utter and complete misery. By the way can I add that I was under the impression that I would be getting a 60 second break from contractions if they're coming every minute, well I forgot that the contraction itself lasts most of that minute, so they're pretty much non-stop.
On to the pushing. I was in so much pain that I literally could not pick one nurse or doctor that was there out of a prison line-up (as evidenced by the nurse that waved at me in the hallway later and was evidently in my surgery later though I had no idea) but I will never forget my nurse while I pushed. I hope she has the flu right now. Sometimes when I'm upset I envision me punching that lady in the face. Anyway... my doctor had told me while I was pregnant and he was performing oh so lovely exams that my pelvis was very likely too narrow to be squeezing anyone's melon head through, but they wouldn't know for sure until I had gone through all the joys of labor first. So I pushed and I pushed, without my toxic western medication that I so desperately wanted, all the time thinking this doctor is right, this baby's melon head isn't going anywhere. To top it off I still had a giant oxygen mask that I was sure I was going to vomit in and drown in my own sick, to which my lovely nurse said you'll just have to reach up and take it off if you're going to be sick. Right, I have enough coordination for that right now. Finally after TWO hours the doctor decided to check in on my misery and sat and thought and then thought some more and after about a hundred more contractions of him just sitting there, finally asked me if I wanted a c-section or I could keep pushing when nothing might happen, and if it finally did happen, he would be going up there with big giant metal forceps... Hmmm, let me think. It took me one second to choose c-section please. We knew that Cooper was in distress and wasn't enjoying this long exiting process anymore than I was so I wanted him out quick for his sake too. Although by this time I was in so much pain I couldn't talk so I nodded and nodded and desperately tried to communicate that yes please, end my pain and get me a freaking sandwich.
On to the c-section. Who would think it would take like 30 minutes to prepare for an emergency surgery? Geez. That's about 30 more contractions while I tried to convince the anethesiologist (who I now hated more than my nurse) that please don't cut me open right now I can literally feel everything. And then the (male) anethesiologist had the audacity to ask me "why can't you talk right now?" Oh I'm so sorry that this contraction is interrupting our conversation, let me just holler up my lady parts to my son and tell him to please hold on. Had I been capable of movement, I would have punched him in the face as well and then had my baby in prison for assaulting the medical staff. He finally agreed to give me another shot (some kind of spinal tap? I don't know) and as soon as that sucker kicked in, all was well. I was bawling when I got it and the poor nurse that was holding me up thought I was crying because I was scared of the shot and she kept telling me comforting things about it, um no lady, I'm crying about this man eating contraction right now. Anyway they got me all strapped down and let Josh come in though I didn't know he was there and was really wondering who was stroking my head the whole time. I felt the doctors wash off my stomach and get me ready which would have really freaked me out but my mom had told me before that you can feel all that stuff but you still won't feel the surgery. Phew. Literally like one minute later they pulled Cooper out and I sat there and waited to hear him cry for what felt like 10 minutes. Poor Coop had swallowed his meconium and they had to suction out his lungs and take him to the NICU. The nurse gave me a one second look at my precious guy and then whisked him away for 6 hours! I remember thinking "hey that baby has my giant nose, sorry about that baby" and then he was gone. Josh said afterwards it was a good thing I was strapped to an operating table and couldn't see them aggressively suctioning his lungs out or I would have lost it. So I got stitched back up (which took about thirty times longer than the actual surgery) and listened worriedly to the doctors gossiping about another doctor. Why do they have to have casual personal conversation while they're performing surgery on you? I wanted to yell hello, let's concentrate please!
On to the aftermath. So I got wheeled to my room (about an eighth of the size of the delivery room) and all I could think about was the King's Feast that I so obviously deserved! (It had now been almost two days since I'd eaten anything, despite trying to coerce Josh to sneak me some food.) No. Such. Luck. I still had to wait another six hours until I could eat. The nurse nicely told me she would just wake me up for breakfast and I told her, not so nicely, that I would be awake in my bed watching the clock until the very second that I could eat something. Furthermore I hadn't even held my baby yet so I was not going to sleep for anything. The NICU kept saying they'd have Cooper for one more hour and every time I sent Josh to go get him he'd come back empty handed. One time I told him as he went to check that he better not come back if he didn't have a baby with him. Fiiiinally about six hours later I got to hold my precious baby, and almost equally exciting, the nurse brought me a disgusting ham sandwich and told me to just eat half of it and slowly. Whatever lady, I snarfed that whole thing and ate a bag of chips. Best meal of my life.
The rest of the hospital stay was pretty uneventful. Cooper slept essentially the whole time we were there. I literally didn't even see his eyes until we went home. I re-learned basic human skills like how to walk and how to pee again. We got lots of visitors, family, friends, and hospital staff, which means a good percentage of the state's population saw me naked at some point during that week. Lots of privacy in hospitals... Good food too... Oh wait...
Anyway now that I've complained for ten pages... as I sit here and listen to this little boy blow spit bubbles with his lips, I would go through that every day for him if I had to. He is the most precious gift I've ever been given and I'm so lucky to have had both of us come out of that experience healthily. I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. Now if one could just order babies off of Amazon and get them shipped in the mail... I think I'll send that in to Heaven's suggestion box.
I love this. It brought back many memories. Such a hard thing to go through, but I'm glad you wrote it down. Great job, mama. Copper is a lucky boy to have you!
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