The Birth of Benny

I
now know the difference between myself and other mammals. Other mammals are
unable to get on the "Nurses’ Little Favorite" list because they
cannot call the nurses murdering killers when they are birthing their young. And
who wouldn’t want to take advantage of this purely human opportunity? Certainly
not I.

It was 10:26 on December 26th, 1999. I was sitting in the living room watching a
movie with my visiting sister-in-law, and Dan had gone to bed. I found myself
thinking, "My, these contractions certainly are REGULAR and they certainly
are STRONG. Isn’t that interesting? By 1:10 am I had taken a long shower, slurped down a big
glass of water, and stretched out in bed, and they were still moving right
along. So when Dan woke up and said, "Honey, are you alright?" I
hollered "NO!" At 3:00 am we were in the Camaro pelting down the
highway with me moaning and groaning and clutching myself and Dan saying
"BREATHE BREATHE" and me saying "I CAN’T I CAN’T." Just
like in the movies. Except we had the top up. Which, in retrospect, was a
missed opportunity. But what can you do?

We arrived at the hospital and they put me in a room to check me out. In the
screening room, I was perched on the table with one leg on each side, arms propped
up on a big garbage can, head inside, puking aggressively at regular intervals,
and still hollering and moaning with each contraction. IT REALLY HURT. A LOT. MORE THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD. When the nurse
came in to tell us we were getting admitted, she said "Would you like an
epidu-" and before she had the chance to add "ral" I had said,
"YES YES YES IMMEDIATELY PLEASE" and grovelled on the floor like a
retard.

By 6:00 am (yes that was two murderous hours later) I had
my epidural, was numb from the waist down, and was possibly the happiest person
on the planet. The man who gave me my epidural asked me what color my nail
polish was and I had the presence of mind to respond, "Blue." This
probably wasn’t what he was asking but it seemed hilarious at the time.
EVERYTHING seemed hilarious. I was in epiduralandia and I wanted to stay
forever.

At 8:00 Dr. Crockford came in and broke my water, and
very soon I was dilated to 8 centimeters and completely effaced. At 10:30, Dr. Crockford said it was time to push, and my nurse, Amy, started coaching us through the pushing. At this point, my
epidural still had me flying HIGH so I was all too happy to hook my hands
behind my knees, pull myself up into a ball, and push like bally-hoo.
Unfortunately, two hours later all my good virtuous pushing had had absolutely
no effect. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was
vomitting with increasing frequency, so that every time we really had some
momentum worked up I had to take a break to spew horrid bile all over Dan. We
went through 20 emesis basins, and then we started rinsing them out and
re-using. You have to be environmentally responsible when you’re puking your
way through labor, after all.

At some point during all this frivolity, my epidural decided to re-evaluate its
life choices, turn in its portfolio, and take a permanent vacation. No one TOLD
me this of course, so I was still plaintively pushing the little "More
Medicine" button and getting absolutely NO medicine at all. Things took a
decided turn for the ugly when I was feeling every contraction, feeling all the
pushing, and feeling rather miserable and violent. The nurse decided to try
pushing on my hands and knees, since the other way wasn’t working, and I was
supposed to roll myself in a ball with my head down and push sort of backwards.
Oh, my. Suddenly, the patient was full of hate and vitriol. "I CAN’T DO IT
THIS WAY. I CAN’T BREATHE. I CAN’T KEEP MY HEAD DOWN. STOP PUSHING ON ME. I
CAN’T PUSH. HELP ME." You get the idea.

Finally she let me turn back right side up. Dr. Coates came in and evaluated
the situation, and told me that the baby was "Sunny Side Up" which
means that his face was turned up toward the ceiling, and his head was
basically stuck in the birth canal. For several thousand years, I pushed with
Dr. Coates’ assistance, and the assistance of half the population of mainland China, or so it seemed as the room filled up with
helpful observers and participants. I had one nurse pushing on my belly on the
left, one nurse pushing on my belly on the right, and one nurse kneeling on the
table above my head pushing on my belly from above. Very. Exciting. For. Me.
This is when I started yelling "YOU ARE KILLING ME. STOP TRYING TO KILL
ME. I CAN’T BREATHE. I AM GOING TO DIE." Dan, covered with hazardous vomit
and probably tired of counting to ten and yelling PUSH, was mercifully kind in
these moments, and actually let my head go down a couple times so I could get a
breath. The nurse behind my head could only say, "I DON’T WANT YOU TO BREATHE
I WANT YOU TO PUSH SO PUSH!" If I could have gotten an arm free to
dislodge her I would have knocked her across the room. Of course, now that it’s
over I am very glad she did what she did and I did apologize for calling her a
murderer.

Finally the doctor informed me that I had three more contractions to push the
baby out and then they were going to do a C-section. The thought of being in
labor for one more second while they prepped me for surgery filled me with such
panic and fear that my sheer animal will kicked in and with the assistance of
all the peripheral pushers, I cranked the baby out about eight contractions
later. I was giving Dr. Coates the "I AM REALLY MOTIVATED NOW" eye so
she let me push a little over the deadline.

Finally, everyone in the room started shouting "YES YES!" and Dr.
Coates said, "Look down! Your baby is coming!" and in half a second I
had Benjamin in my arms, completely slimy with blood and gore and the most
angelic beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I was instantly filled
with intense satisfaction, love, relief, joy, and the ability to finally
BREATHE! They rubbed him off while he laid on my chest, and then aspirated him
and took him over to the warming table. I was so euphoric, so totally charmed
and amazed and relieved that everything was swimming, including all the seeming
thousands of people in the room. I do remember seeing one face loom out of the
crowd, and I realized that this woman was staring kindly and with clinical
interest between my spread legs, and then looking up at me benevolently to say,
"Awww, honey. She’s fixing you up real nice down there! Good as new!"
And from this I knew that I had had an episiotomy and that it was being mended.
Possibly the most surreal moment of my life.

Aspirator1_1

Benjamin was nine pounds, and twenty-two inches long. He has flaming red/orange
hair and blue eyes. He is the most wonderful little mouse-nosed cute-i-fied
rabbit child that I have ever witnessed. And he has been an angel from day 1.
Ben and I both had a temperature, so we had to stay in the hospital an extra
day while they gave him antibiotics through an IV. He used this time to nurse
so dutifully and earnestly that my milk came in on the second day, and he got
so nourished that he had regained his birth weight by the day after we were
discharged.

He spends his days eating, sleeping, and making his Mommy and Daddy ecstatic.
He is a dear, sincere little angel baby and we love him extremely much.

Lydia is a homeschooling mother of two little clucking chickens, who rampage around Norfolk, Virginia, flapping their little wings in violin class, karate class, and other adventures. She keeps a mobile picture blog at "Keep Your Eye on the Kids" and also writes a homeschooling blog at "Little Blue School". This birth story was originally published here.

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