Delivering #2

When my oldest daughter was 9 months old, I went back to school at Georgia Tech. Not that I really wanted to...my father had chosen my school AND my major, then told me I had to pay for it myself. At this point I had too many hours to change schools, so I decided to knock out the last 9 classes and be finished with the whole mess.

I went back and filled out all kinds of financial aid forms. Turns out, you're eligible for more cashola if you have a dependent. Who knew? I got a couple of small grants and began to accumulate a big fat student loan that I would be paying off until long after I was dead. I ended up graduating from Georgia Tech with a degree in Management. My husband graduated from Georgia State the same quarter and in celebration we renewed our wedding vows in front of our family and friends (we had eloped the first time).

We put a contract on a small house WAYYYY out in the boonies and moved in with my mom while it was being built. Then guess what? We found out we were pregnant! I'm SURE the ink was not yet dry on my diploma. I know for sure that I had not had it framed. No corporate job for me anytime soon.

Miraculously, the pregnancy was perfect. I had decided to be proactive this time, so I had a written birth plan, told my new doctor that I did NOT want an episiotomy, and banned my husband from alcoholic beverages 3 weeks before my due date. I was completely optimistic about how this birth experience was going to go.

On my due date, I went to the hospital. They broke my water, contractions started and we were on our way. Shortly after my sister-in-law Sydney arrived from North Carolina, I went to the bathroom and was LITERALLY brought me to my knees by a contraction. I burst into tears and SLOWLY crawled (eewwww) on the floor back to my bed. Scott and Sydney kept telling me it was ok...you can get back into bed now...you're doing great. What? Were they even in the same room as me? Couldn't they see I needed drugs? I could NOT get back into bed...not without drugs!

I reluctantly agreed to try to get back into bed if they would tell the nurse I wanted my epidural right NOW please. (She had asked me earlier if I wanted something for pain, but we had collectively agreed I should wait as long as I could to avoid my contractions petering out like last time.) I dragged myself back into bed, and they told me the epidural was on its way. Just knowing that sweet pain killer was minutes away from my veins brought me some relief. I was able to breathe through contractions effectively and rest in between. At some point I asked where the anesthesiologist was, and Sydney explained that he was on his way, but there was one patient before me. So I waited some more. Thirty minutes later, no drugs, no nurse. Sydney went out to inquire about my drugs. The drug doc had been caught in traffic but was with the other patient now, so I was next. More breathing, more intense pain, more breathing, etc. The nurse came in and I blasted her, "WHERE ARE MY DRUGS???" She looked at my sister-in-law and said "on the way". I'd heard that one before. FINALLY the doctor showed up with a needle and afterward they checked me... I was at 6 centimeters. WOW! I had only been at 1 centimeter last time they checked.

It was now more than 3 hours after my meltdown on the floor. My new L/D nurse suggested that Scott and Sydney go eat something since we still had a ways to go. The new nurse from Jamaica had a beautiful accent and she sat with me. I could have listened to her talk for hours on end. But suddenly, my BUTT started to kill. I felt like I slid down an ice mountain on my tailbone. Pat told me I must be imagining things because, well, "you COULDN'T be feeling anything...you have an epidural". She insisted that there was NO way I was ready to push. I talked her into checking me anyway, and she flipped out. "UH OH! You're 10! It's time to push!" (Yeah, no kidding, I told you...)

Stuff suddenly started happening... a flurry of activity... equipment came in... nurses came in... my feet were put in stirrups... lights came on... more staff people showed up... and somewhere in there my little sister showed up. She's a little squeamish by the way. She did not come anywhere near the labor OR delivery room the first time, and she has been known to get woozy during her own pap smears.

"Hey! Where's the husband?" somebody asked. Umm, you guys sent him to dinner...HEL-LO!
I had now had the aching-butt-issue for a LONG time. At least a half hour. Finally all interested parties showed up. Everybody got clean, Sydney grabbed the camera, and I REMINDED the doctor-NO EPISIOTOMY. We were now prepared to push. My little sister was by my head NOT looking down and "being very brave" for the camera. I pushed through 2 contractions and my sister said, "Ooooh, I'm not feeling so well." Milli-seconds before she hit the floor, Pat grabbed a chair and put her in it. "Can someone go get her a towel?" MY HUSBAND left my side to rush to the bathroom for a wet rag for my SISTER'S neck. I looked over and there was my beautiful single sister slumped over with her long glorious yellow hair tumbling onto the floor with my husband soothing her with a wet rag. Meanwhile I sort of half-sat/half-laid at an absurd angle with my legs up at MY neck, not-so-patiently waiting to GET THIS BABY OUT!

We resumed pushing minus one sister and moments later my precious little chubby red adorable baby was born. She was a complete doll...with the fattest cheeks I'd ever seen. She was my biggest, weighing in at 8 pounds 8 ounces. Perfect in every way. I got to hold her from the first moment. She was lying on my stomach and I thought she looked just like her sister. However, they only looked similar because they had just been born and were puffy and pink in all the same places, both with heads full of dark hair on warped smushed up heads. To this day, they are polar opposites of each other...one is a brunette with big waves of curl thoughout her huge head of hair; the other one has dirty-blond stick-straight hair like her mom. Bless her heart.

Looking at the video from that day MUCH later there was a little drama that I had missed in all the excitement. First, the video from my previous delivery was shot from the side at a 90 degree angle. You "saw" nothing except the side of my thigh and the baby as she came out. This time, because of the location of the plug (of course our battery had died), there was no modest side-view. This was a full-on frontal shot of the whole thing, literally. Interesting from a mother's perspective, but not as "edited" as say... "A Baby Story" on The Learning Channel.

Also my sister-in-law captured a moment where the doc's hand lingered on the large tray of scalpels to his right as the baby was coming down. He looked at me (ya know, all of me) and looked at the tray, back at me, back at the tray. In the end, he respected my opinion and DID NOT perform the episiotomy. Good for him.

Another thing of note...my sister-in-law shouted from the moment the baby's head was out, "Ooooh...she is chubby! She's a moose! SHE! IS! A! MOOSE!" Not necessarily a bad thing, but I had intended to edit it out before Caroline ever heard it and was scarred for life, plagued with low self esteem and concerned about her weight. Of course, I never did. A few years ago, she asked to see it on her birthday and didn't react at all to Sydney's declaration. However, she IS a little stout (she's got her mother's girlish figure), but her self esteem has not suffered one bit. Of all my children, this one LOVES HERSELF the most. At 12, she thinks she's "pretty, funny, smart, and athletic", and she pretty much thinks any guy who doesn't like her must be brain-dead. Good for her.

Lastly, the most fascinating part of this story came out months later. Turns out Scott and Sydney LIED to me about the anesthiologist! There was no traffic...no "other" patient. The nurse had told Sydney that she couldn't go in the room and lie to me about the anesthesiologist so Sydney said, "Well then don't go in. I'll lie to her." In the end, it was the right thing because it allowed me to progress a significant amount, but geesh! what a bunch of losers! I was SHOCKED! Is that an example of doing something bad for the greater good??? Good for me, I guess?