{"id":23,"date":"2006-07-24T16:53:05","date_gmt":"2006-07-24T16:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackbeltmama.net\/birthstory\/2006\/07\/24\/the_birth_of_be\/"},"modified":"2011-01-19T02:19:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T02:19:22","slug":"the_birth_of_be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackbeltmama.com\/birthstory\/2006\/07\/24\/the_birth_of_be\/","title":{"rendered":"The Birth of Benny"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Collage1_2\"<\/span><\/tt><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nnow know the difference between myself and other mammals. Other mammals are
\nunable to get on the "Nurses’ Little Favorite" list because they
\ncannot call the nurses murdering killers when they are birthing their young. And
\nwho wouldn’t want to take advantage of this purely human opportunity? Certainly
\nnot I.
<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

By<\/span> 6:00 am (yes that was two murderous hours later) I had
\nmy epidural, was numb from the waist down, and was possibly the happiest person
\non the planet. The man who gave me my epidural asked me what color my nail
\npolish was and I had the presence of mind to respond, "Blue." This
\nprobably wasn’t what he was asking but it seemed hilarious at the time.
\nEVERYTHING seemed hilarious. I was in epiduralandia and I wanted to stay
\nforever.
<\/span><\/p>\n

At<\/span> 8:00 Dr. Crockford came in and broke my water, and
\nvery soon I was dilated to 8 centimeters and completely effaced.  At <\/span>10:30, Dr. Crockford said it was time to push, and my nurse, Amy, started coaching us through the pushing. At this point, my
\nepidural still had me flying HIGH so I was all too happy to hook my hands
\nbehind my knees, pull myself up into a ball, and push like bally-hoo.
\nUnfortunately, two hours later all my good virtuous pushing had had absolutely
\nno effect. This might have had something to do with the fact that I was
\nvomitting with increasing frequency, so that every time we really had some
\nmomentum worked up I had to take a break to spew horrid bile all over Dan. We
\nwent through 20 emesis basins, and then we started rinsing them out and
\nre-using. You have to be environmentally responsible when you’re puking your
\nway through labor, after all.
<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

Finally the doctor informed me that I had three more contractions to push the
\nbaby out and then they were going to do a C-section. The thought of being in
\nlabor for one more second while they prepped me for surgery filled me with such
\npanic and fear that my sheer animal will kicked in and with the assistance of
\nall the peripheral pushers, I cranked the baby out about eight contractions
\nlater. I was giving Dr. Coates the "I AM REALLY MOTIVATED NOW" eye so
\nshe let me push a little over the deadline.
<\/span><\/p>\n

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

<\/span>\"Aspirator1_1\"<\/span><\/span>

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

He spends his days eating, sleeping, and making his Mommy and Daddy ecstatic.
\nHe is a dear, sincere little angel baby and we love him extremely much.<\/span> <\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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<\/a>" and also writes a homeschooling blog at "Little Blue School<\/a>".  This birth story was originally published here<\/a>.  <\/span><\/tt><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gimme-the-drugs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t