Adding to the family can mean learning a lot about your entire family. In a most generally optimistic and pleasant sense, you learn how much you all love and care for each other. But there are individual lessons one will learn depending on their own experience. For example, I learned that not only could I depend on my husband to stab me in the stomach twice a day with a needle, I could do it to myself when necessary. If someone had asked me the days before I gave birth to my second cub, I don’t know what my answer would have been. But, now I know, we are capable of doing that.
I suppose, if it had been something that I ever considered, I’d have known we could do that, but it was never an issue I had contemplated before. I think I would like to discuss the births of my cubs.
My eldest cub was born after 3 full days of contractions. I went to the hospital, was sent home again, and came back 2 days later. I had not slept, because I couldn’t relax enough between contractions to sleep. Instead, I was still going to work every night; since I wasn’t resting, I may as well have gotten well-paid. So, I went to work until my contractions were so obvious to people in charge that they just sent me home. Later that day I went back to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 4 pm I think, stopping on the way at McDonald’s, where I ate french fries and had a small chocolate shake. It’s hard to believe, but when I had painful contractions, I was not in the mood to eat.
After we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to the contraction-tracker, which probably has a real name that I don’t know. I didn’t get a machine that went “Bing”, before you ask. Not for either birth. This machine I was hooked to also seemed to “rate” my contractions. This was the evil machine that got me sent home 3 days prior…I WAS having contractions, no matter what that devil-appliance claimed.
The nurses had my husband and I walking around the floor over and over, trying to progress the labor faster. It didn’t seem like it did much good from where I was sitting. I walked around that ward until I was dizzy, no water breaking, no baby, nothing; only more pain and no sleep-times. I can’t remember clearly, but it seems like I may was actually getting less dilated as time passed. That may have been a hysteria-induced day-mare though. Someone also seemed to be sneaking into my hospital room and changing the temperature, because I seem to recall it going way up to 100 degrees, then zooming down to just above freezing over and over.
Someone eventually suggested a shower, and while I was showering my water finally, FINALLY broke. My husband wanted to know if I had peed in the tub. Another thing no one had told me until right that moment; when the water breaks, the contractions get worse!!
So now I’m freezing, in even more pain, and my hair is wet. The nurse checked my cervix, and told me it was time to push. Sounds good to me! She stands by my feet and sends someone for the doctor. I start pushing like I’m told, when the contraction-rater tells the nurse to tell me to push. The doctor comes in, no baby parts are emerging. I am still pushing like I’m told. The doctor checks my cervix and says I’m not ready to push, so I need to stop. “LOL” I say, “no I don’t think so.” My body has started pushing by itself, I cannot stop pushing. Pushing is a thing I will do until this baby is expelled. I try to express this to the doctor but I don’t think she is understanding how very serious I am. There will not be voluntarily stopping for me, at this point.
The next part of this story, the timelines vary depending on who you ask. I think it was about 100 hours, my husband would say maybe 20 minutes. Our mothers out in the waiting room on the Naugahyde vinyl chairs would say it was somewhere in between those estimates. “Stop pushing” says everyone else. “F*** you” says my brain to everyone else. “LOL naw” says my uterus. “How about husband sits on my chest and presses down on the top, the doctor pulls from the bottom, and we get this baby the hell out now?” says my mouth. “Haha” say the nurses. I tell the doctor I can’t do this, cut it out. She talks me into an epidural. Ok, anything is better than what is happening now, even a huge needle to the spine. Bring it on.
Anesthesiologist comes in with the magic juice. He had angel wings and a halo, if I recall correctly. I am given paperwork, and I have never followed the “sign here” directions so quickly before. If he had told me to sign in blood, I’d have done it at that point, no questions asked. I am told to hold perfectly still, which is hard to do when you aren’t involuntarily trying to expel a baby, but I manage. First try, in it goes. Then, I get some silly-juice that makes me feel wonderful and floaty, and the doctor tells me I can rest a while before we try again. Then, my mom and my mother-in-law come in to say hi, and I take a wonderful nap.
When I wake up, it’s time to push (for real this time) and so I push, and push, and push. Oh no, the doctor realizes. The baby is face-up and wedged up against my pelvic bone. Because I am numb from the epidural, the doctor reaches in and just kind of twirls her hand, flips the baby over, and the baby just shoots out next contraction. Done. Twelve hours after we got to the hospital.
Baby is average sized, beautiful, has a big goose-egg on the forehead from trying to stubborn his way out the wrong way up. But perfect. And the cub has been singularly stubborn about everything ever since. Easy pregnancy, easy kid. That is how your brain gets tricked into a second baby.
fluffymankillr 