Saturday, May 19, 2007

...aaand puuush...(final act)

So here I am, laying down on my hospital bed waiting for the big ones. I had pretty mild contractions throughout all day and I knew this wasn’t it. My doctor was off on that day, but her office partner was in and that reassured me, since I had already met her before.
She came in to check how dilated I was and told me that I was only 2cm. I thought…greeeat! This kid is not coming out any time soon! She then started me on a dose of Pitocin (synthetic drug similar to the oxytocin produced by our body) to speed up my contractions since the baby’s heart beat was slowing down. Craap! All I remembered from my childbirth prep class was that Pitocin increases the intensity and frequency of your contractions (just my luck…so now I get to experiment labor in 3D!) so I wasn’t very thrilled about amplifying any possible pain.

Off we go with the Pitocin in my veins and exactly 15 minutes later I get what resembled the strongest period cramp I have ever experienced…still manageable though. Ok…that wasn’t too bad!
After chit-chatting with my mom and my husband, I thought I’ll do some reading to keep myself up to date with the newest trends. After flicking through a few pages of my bible (Vogue)….here we go again. This was a bit stronger and a tiny bit shorter then the previous one. Still good though.
La, la, la…I’m thinking…yeah..I can totally do this! Aaaaaaand here we go again! Ok, this was more painful….now what? I can’t ask for an epidural, it’s too soon and I’m gonna look like a wimp! Come on girl, you can do it!
“Joooonathaaan (my poor and super patient husband) get me some ice, no I want sugar….and another pillow ..right nooow!”
By now I was huffing and puffing like a locomotive and I’m thinking that it can’t be worse then this…right?
Oh no! It will get much worse then this!

Long story short, I lasted until I was over 6cm dilated and at around 10 pm I gave in and asked for an epidural. Funny enough, I was actually more scared of the needle in my back then the contractions…but believe me, if you are scared of needles as much as I am, that little prick is nothing compared to the explosion of your uterus!

20 minutes after the epidural: Huuuh?! I loooove this! I want to have 10 more kids….wooooow! …the power of drugs!
I was basically in Wonderland and I even felt like dozing off for a quick nap. The doc told me that probably now my labor will slow down because of the effect of the epidural, so most likely the baby won’t come out until the morning.
I couldn’t care less to tell you the truth! I was happy and that was all it mattered.
I even asked my husband to take my mom home so she could rest and come back in the morning.
Zzzzzzzzzz……Zzzzzzzzzzzz……Zzzzzzzzz…..
Huhh? What the hell was that? I woke up at around 11.30pm with an incredible pressure down below, like I was going to take the biggest crap of my life! (pardon my French!). My husband wasn’t back yet and it was just me and the nurse so I tried to explain to her my little problem and nonchalantly she told me: “That’s ok dear, you are probably ready to push the baby out!”.
Whaaaaat? Right now? I can’t…my hubby is not here…no right nooow.
Two seconds later Jonathan comes in and the nurse gives him the good news. Then my doc comes in to check me and tells me that, yes, believe it or not I am 10cm dilated…which means..tataaaaaa…I’m having a baby!
She informs me on how fast my body is responding, which is a good thing I guess and starts preparing the table, her big plastic uniform and a huge pair of clear sunglasses (to avoid that anything will squirt or splash on her face!).

Meanwhile, I’m freaking out because the moment of truth is fast approaching. No, not the baby, but the fear of pooping on the table while you’re pushing your guts out. Yes, every book I read said the same horrible truth…YOU WILL POOP ON THE TABLE!
So I was obviously terrified and tried to meditate and relax…but that made me want to poop even more!
Here we goooo……aaaaand puuuush! Of course the poop did come out and I just turned purple for a few seconds, but the nurse must see this every single day because she scooped it out faster then it came out!
At 1.01am on October 14th, 2006 after only 3 sets of pushes and only 7 hours of labor my little bundle of joy was born…and he was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

DCP: When you are starting to push and you’re scared to death about the poopy accident…don’t worry, it’s natural. I’m sure even Angelina Jolie and Katie Holmes had to deal with it….although they probably hired a special and super fast pooper-scooper so nobody would ever know! You can use the same little trick I used: When you notice that the poop is coming out (and trust me, it’s really hard because you are totally numb down there but you can tell by the wrinkly faces of the people around you!) just turn to your hubby and say: “Honey, I told you that I was allergic to all that spicy Mexican food!” and just keep going like nothing ever happened. Oh…one more thing…you definitely want to keep the area down below nice and shaved, because a lot of people will be looking at it!

No comments: