Labor and Delivery: Part Two

There was a long lead up and I had hoped the next part of the story would speed itself along. Hopes are funny, man.  Here's how Owen's birthday went down:

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I've paused while writing the next part of this story.  I'm not entirely sure how to best communicate it. Mostly because while I can give you a sequential narrative up until this point, I can't really do that with the telling of the next eight hours.  I remember very distinctive parts.  But I don't remember always the order of those parts.  It all kind of runs together.  So bullet points? Yeah? That's the way we'll go.

• I started pushing.  I wasn't sure what to expect when it came to the pushing part of the process. For whatever reason, it wasn't covered in my birthing class. So in case your teacher forgot to mention it too, here is what happened for me (although it's probably different for everyone).  We waited for a contraction to start and then I pushed three times, for a total of ten seconds on each push.  They literally said, "Push like you're having a bowel movement!"  So it's no wonder that most women (including myself) have just that. Which I only mention because I know so many of us are worried about it happening: Stop worrying. It will. In fact, the phrase "Shit Happens" probably came from childbirth. After the pushing was done, I'd rest until the next contraction started and I would start again.  
• At some point after I had just started pushing, I started to feel a dull pain in my lower back like a menstrual cramp was starting.  I mentioned it to my doctor and she said that it sounded like my epidural was starting to wear off.  At this point it had been over ten hours since the epidural had been administered.  I had the capability of giving myself "bumps" of medicine but I had run out of those. So my doctor paged the anesthesiologist to come and give me another dose.  In the meantime, I was still going to push. I may have gotten in another round of pushing, I'm not sure.  All I know is that in the approximately ten minutes it took for the anesthesiologist to arrive, I had gone from dull pain to OHMYGODMYINSIDESAREGOINGTORIPOUTOFMYBODY writhing pain. You have to remember: I've still got the Pitocin drip going and now we've made a new discovery:  my baby is sunny-side-up.  This means back labor, which many women say is the worst kind of labor. The agony is increased because a baby's head is not designed to come out of a body when he's facing up.  I couldn't function. I couldn't push. I couldn't remember my name. It was definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced. And suddenly I sounded like the woman in the room next to me that I had tried drowning out earlier.
• Aside from my doctor, I remember ONE person's name from the myriad of staff that helped bring Owen into the world. Her name is Alex, she was my anesthesiologist and she became my angel. She and I got to know each other well over the next seven hours. She was no nonsense and yet still warm.  She seemed to truly care that I was having such a tough time, made a cocktail of more meds available in the room in case another doc had to administer if it happened again and she had a way of talking me down that made me feel like it was all going to be ok.  That was going to be important later on...
• The first time my epidural wore off was the worst time. None of us knew how bad it would get and how quickly it would get that way. I had to take a break to recover. The next time I knew what it felt like when it started to disappear and since the pain became unbearable so quickly, my doctor and nurse were quicker to page help. I feel like it happened maybe 3 more times? Again, everything is kind of a blur.
• At one point, probably around 3:00, Owen's head made his debut. It felt like he was going to be born soon now! But every time I pushed, no progress was made. I mentioned that Dan hadn't eaten yet all day and my doctor and nurse insisted he go get himself some food. Dan said he didn't want to leave in case things started to happen quickly. They promised him it would be ok. I should have realized then that things weren't going as well as I had hoped.
• While he was gone, I continued to push. And somehow we started talking about breakfast habits. My doctor said she recently started eating her oatmeal with eggs as the binder, instead of milk. Weird the things you remember. 
• Dan made it back, after scarfing a cheesesteak from the cafeteria, and Owen's head stayed just visible. He hadn't made his way any further out.
• Another doctor came in. They wanted me to try pushing on all fours, to try to get Owen to turn the right way.  Have you ever had a limb fall asleep and then try to move it? NOT EASY. Well, my legs were completely numb because O was laying on some sort of nerve. So somehow, with the help of Dan, my doctor, my nurse and this new doctor, we got me turned over and someone propped my knees under me. I had to use only my upper body strength to move all of my lower weight to stay in position while pushing. If not for "Expecting More" I am quite certain I would never have been able to pull this off. Not even exaggerating. This was probably the toughest part of my labor. Like an animal I pushed on all fours, all of my bloated, naked, pregnant body exposed. Modesty? Every shred of it was gone.
• Once we hit the four hour mark of pushing, my doctor noted that my contractions were lasting for quite awhile, around two and half minutes, and she asked if I was open to pushing four times within a contraction, instead of just three. I was willing to do anything at this point, except admit defeat. Four pushes? Bring it on. 
• Around 5:00, Owen's head was still where it had been for several hours. My doctor told me that I needed to consider the possibility of using the vacuum or having a c-section. But she said it was just something to start thinking about because she knew how determined I was to have him delivered vaginally.
• Around 6:00, we still hadn't made much progress. She brought up my options again. She said I could keep pushing for another hour but if we were in the same spot at the end of the hour, we'd have to make a decision. I kept pushing four times each contraction hoping against hope that he would be born before 7.
• At 7:00, after pushing on and off for seven hours, being awake for thirty-seven hours (when my water had broken), having not eaten in nearly twenty-four hours (and having lost all that I ate over seventeen hours earlier), being in active labor for nearly twenty-four hours, pushing on all fours and pushing four times each contraction, the little sliver of Owen's head was still all that had made it's way out. I had to finally call it. My baby was not going to be born the way I had envisioned. I was beyond exhausted. I had done all that I could. Decision time. 
• My doctor again brought up the possibility of using a vacuum but she wasn't sure it would work. He was wedged in there good and the vacuum might cause him damage. Dan and I were both worn out. We were all each other had. We shook our heads and said, hearts heavy from exhaustion and fear, "Ok." We would do the c-section.

As soon as the decision was made, things started moving very quickly. Doctors, nurses, people I'd never seen, started scurrying about. They were prepping the operating room, they were handing me paperwork to sign, they were telling Dan he had to pack up all his stuff because we wouldn't be coming back to this room. It felt chaotic. I was so physically exhausted I couldn't hold the pen to sign the paperwork. Dan was being told to do ten different things by seemingly ten different people and all he wanted to do was be by my side. But they wouldn't let him. They had to take me to be prepped for surgery and he had to wait until that was done before he could come into the operating room. Suddenly we were both completely alone. Him more than me. I still had the sea of physicians prepping me. But this was not that comforting. Especially because someone kept shouting, "Do you have the hemorrhage kit?" "We got the hemorrhage kit ready?" "Hemorrhage kit? We got it?" You can imagine that this was a bit unnerving.

Once we were in the room, my angel Alex was back on the scene. And if she wasn't there I'm not sure how I would've done. As she prepped me with more meds for the surgery, I was a mess of problems. I couldn't stop shaking. Whether from the freezing cold room, the epidural, the hormones or the nerves, I was literally rattling the metal table as I shook. And from pushing for an ungodly amount of time, I was having a muscle spasm in my neck that felt almost as bad as the labor pains. I was crying, I was in pain, I couldn't lay my head down from the spasm, I was scared to death and Dan wasn't there yet. Alex kept checking in with me, kept telling me that as soon as Owen was born she was going to give me medicine for the muscle spasm and for the shaking. That literally as soon as he came out, she had medicine ready to help. She reassured me that everything was going to be ok. She told me to think ahead, to imagine the wine and the sushi and all of the yummy stuff I could finally have again as soon as he was born. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm

the one person in California who doesn't eat sushi. I just kept trying to breathe through my hysteria.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dan was finally let into the room. He was just as shell-shocked as me. I found out later that he had called his parents while he waited alone in the hallway and cried. He was so scared that we might not make it. And there wasn't anyone there to hold his hand and let him know that it was going to be ok. And when he finally did get to see me again, he found me worse than he had left me - shaking violently, crying, in seemingly worse pain. Things weren't looking good.

But ready or not, Owen was coming. I'm assuming they asked if I was ready or something like that. I don't remember. I do remember my doctor saying I would feel a tugging sensation...and then I did...

And then, at 7:57 PM, nearly eight hours after we started pushing and nearly twenty-four hours since we had gotten to the hospital, Owen Daniel Scheuerman was finally, finally, born.

I don't remember hearing him cry for the first time. I didn't get to see him for nearly ten minutes after he was born. My neck hurt so badly I couldn't turn to look at him. But the drug cocktail Alex had made for me was starting to work and the shaking was starting to lessen. And then one of the doctors held him up for me to see. My baby boy. I felt such a strange combination of emotions: relief, grief, happiness, pride, exhaustion. He was here. And all I wanted to do was fall asleep. Notice I didn't list "love" as one of my emotions. I always expected to feel a tidal wave of love unlike anything I had ever experienced when I saw my baby for the first time. Instead though I felt almost numb. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. And my lack of emotion scared me. But I still burst into tears and started laughing and felt like a clinically insane person when I saw him for the first time. And I guess that, at that moment, I probably was. 

As my doctor worked to stitch me back together she commented that I had done really well and didn't bleed nearly as much as she expected me to. Since I had been pushing for so long, everyone was concerned that I'd bleed a lot...hence the multiple shouts for the hemorrhage kit earlier. Glad I didn't learn the significance of that until after the fact. I was already scared enough! 

And Owen had done great too. He was 7lbs, 4ozs and 21 inches long. My doc said, "He was staring right at me, eyes wide open, just waiting, when I took him out." Alert from the moment he entered the world. The back of his head had been rubbed raw from where he had been stuck in my pelvis, trying to get out, just as determined as his mama. He had a scab there for the first three weeks of his life. We had battled together long and hard and had the scars to prove it. 

But we made it. 

It was Owen's birthday! 

The aftermath of his birth experience is deserving of it's own post. We had a lot of highs and lows, but mostly lows in those first moments, hours, days, weeks. I definitely experienced some degree of postpartum depression, which I am still processing eight months later. So, like I said, deserving of another post (or series of). **

With the gift of hindsight, I realize that this story could have been much worse. I've talked with friends and read stories of women since who had a much scarier time giving birth. Cords wrapped around necks, hearts stopping, hemorrhaging, all of it. A month after giving birth I was relaying my story to a friend and she casually remarked, "It's crazy though. A hundred years ago, you would both be dead." And I gained a little appreciation. Things may have not happened the way I was hoping but we are both here. And that is what matters most (as the cliche goes). Another friend who gave birth a few weeks before me had also wanted to have as natural a birth as possible but ended up with an emergency c-section. She said something that really stuck with me: Her maternity yoga instructor had reminded her mamas during their practice that when it comes down to it, your baby's birthday is their birthday. Not ours. That they are coming into the world exactly as they are supposed to. As first-time-moms we have in our head visions of how things are "supposed" to go when we give birth. We take classes, read books, envision outcomes and even though we say we're ready "for anything," for me, that wasn't true. 

I had lost perspective and it took me awhile to get it back.

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** Clearly I originally wrote this section before I sought medical help for my depression. I was certain "something" had happened beyond the typical "baby blues" but I also wasn't ready to admit the severity of my postpartum issues. 

Thank goodness I eventually did.