Okay, okay, his actual birthday isn't until tomorrow, but he was SUPPOSED to be born today. The last time I went to the OB, I was told that he was breech, feet thoroughly down and head up, so we would be experiencing our first C-section. My family and David's family all assembled for the Big Event, ready for a quickie birth this time, after my two previous marathon labors & deliveries. (24 hours and 13 hours, respectively). I was worried about having a section, but hey, it couldn't be any worse than the nightmares I had had before.
So, we get to the hospital and all is well, until my OB walks in, takes one look at me and puts her hand thoughtfully on her chin. Uh-oh. Then she says those immortal words, "Let's try something!" And she proceeds to knead my stomach like a big wad of dough, and manages to turn the baby around. Then she wraps this big elastic girdle thing around my belly to hold him in place. Then she starts some pitocin, and says, "We're going to try for a vaginal delivery!" I could hear the discouraged sighs of my family all the way down the hall. "Guess we have time to go out for lunch, eh?"
Then the fun begins! After a couple of hours, whatever they are pumping into my veins is making me itch like a crazy person. The girdle thing is making it hard to breathe (what can it be doing to the baby??) and my mom and sister are standing at the foot of my bed staring at me. An explosion is imminent, of course! I run everyone out of the room when I start growling like Linda Blair. Time keeps on ticking, ticking ... into the future. At 2 a.m. the next morning, after my OB/Torquemada has gone off duty and is comfortably sleeping in her bed at home, the replacement OB comes in. I all but grab her scrubs by the neck and tell her to do a section RIGHT NOW. I feel so ... so ... victimized. But I am "making progress", albeit at the speed of smell, so they "can't do that!" FINALLY at 6:00 the next morning, baby has had enough and is ready to escape, and at 6:25 he is born. They put him on my stomach, and he isn't moving, not making a sound. The OB says, looking quite ashen, "There's a true knot in his cord!" She has a flash of a huge malpractice suit. They whisk him away to an anteroom, and a crowd of people gather around him. I hear the "whoosh whoosh" of them "bagging" him, but no sounds whatsoever. I keep asking David, "Is he all right?" but he has no answer for me. He looks like he may throw up any second. After an eternity, I hear a very weak mewl, and the neonatologist tells me that it was pretty scary, but that he is okay now. Then, they gather him up and take him away.
They fix me up and roll me to my room, with the nurse managing to hit every bump and pothole in the hospital. I get to my room, and no one is talking to me. No one will tell me anything. My mom helps me take a shower, and then I get ahold of a wheelchair and wheel MYSELF down to the NICU, where they have taken Christian. He has no glucose, a systemic infection, irregular heartbeat, and a host of other awful sounding things. They do a spinal tap. They release me from the hospital 2 days later, with no baby. Twice a day, we go to the NICU to visit, and he has IV's in his head. Finally they decide to put in a PIC line in his groin, since he keeps blowing the veins in his head.
All this because of the long labor. When they could have done a quick c-section. And this is better for the baby? Hey, don't the OB's get more money for a section? Why did this have to happen?
Well, the happy ending of the story is that Christian is fine. He had a rough beginning, but he is a great kid, and is a big NINE years old tomorrow. He is funny, cute, handsome and very very loving. I wish for him lots of happiness and laughs in his life. <sniff>
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