Is There A Doctor In The House??

So – my doctor decides that since I normally have extremely short labors (Baby Girl was born 25 minutes after I got to the hospital) that I should be induced in order to ensure that he was present for the birth……..little did he know.

First of all, Dr. Gyno obviously doesn’t know me very well at all as he ordered me to be at the hospital at 6:30AM. That’s right – 6:30 IN THE MORNING!!! So, before dawn on the morning of September 20th, I double checked my bag to make sure I had everything, made coffee for Honey and waited on Erin and Honey’s Mom to arrive to stay with Baby Girl and Bug. I was not having coffee because the sadistic people that make the rules of childbirth deemed that a PREGNANT woman can’t eat or drink after midnight prior to being induced. Now, I’m not sure how this rule is fair. If I were to go into labor spontaneously, what is the likely hood it would only occur 7 hours after my last meal??? I want to know if they penalize women whose water breaks while they are eating dinner?!?!? Is there some substantial fine they have to pay because if so – I’ve got GREAT insurance and would gladly tack on an additional “ate before labor” fee if it meant I could have my brownie and ice cream at 2am and my coffee in the morning!

But I digress. Erin and Honey’s Mom arrive and I snuck in Baby Girl’s room to give her a kiss and leave her a note I’d written telling her how much I love her and how she will always be my Baby Girl (yeah, I know, it made her cry too). We gather all of our stuff and hop in the car and ride off into the sunrise to become parents. We arrive at the hospital promptly at 6:30am (thanks to Honey – we all know I’m genetically 15 minutes late for everything) and get checked in. I am ushered to a very nice delivery room, told to put on the attractive hospital gown , pee in a cup and make myself comfortable – oh JOY! I do as I’m told and heft my now very lard tail into the not so comfortable bed on which I would later deliver my child. I answer 1000 questions about my medical history, pregnancy history and Civil War History (who knew). It seemed that everyone was very concerned about how much I weighed (a question they usually asked with Honey sitting right next to me). I answered all the questions and they didn’t kick me out so I assume I passed the test. So far, so good.

My nurse, Ms. Wonderful, arrives and hooks me up to a bunch of monitors and an IV. As she is getting everything settled I inform her that I have to pee so she unhooks everything from the monitoring station and drapes it around my neck and I wheel my IV to the bathroom with me………VERY attractive. I waddle back to the awful bed and hoist myself back in, hand Ms. Wonderful my cords and she plugs me back up. Honey is now in the room and is overjoyed to find that the TV is stuck on ESPN (yea!....NOT). My contracts are coming fairly regularly but not very intense and I’m thinking, “Piece of cake”. I am an idiot. After about an hour, my mother arrives. She and Honey sit on the even more comfortable couch and discuss sports. I work the crossword puzzle. My contractions begin to increase in intensity but they are still not so bad.

At around 11am my contractions became extremely intense and were coming one on top of the other. Now, I’d bragged to everyone that I was going to do this with no drugs so imagine my surprise when I said, “Bring me Stadol!” I told my nurse that I really was trying to avoid an epidural but that I would gladly welcome a nice shot of narcotics just to take the edge off. Ms. Wonderful left the room to fetch my “happy shot”. Obviously its standard practice to prepare to give an epidural even if the patient says they don’t want it because………..well, they KNOW we’re lying. So, in comes Ms. Student and her job is to ask me the same 1000 questions about my medical history, pregnancy and Civil War History as everyone else that has walked into the room. Now, at this time I am in CONSTANT pain. I feel like my gut is in a vice and my mother and Honey are still talking about sports. One really big contraction hit and I looked at them and said, “SHHHHH”. I said this because I wanted them to STOP TALKING. My mother interpreted this to mean I wanted them to TALK TO ME! She was commenting on the fact that I must be having a really big contraction when I interrupted her and said, “SHUT THE F*#% UP” and do you know what she did………tried to correct me. She started to inform me that I didn’t need to cuss to which I told her that if she really thought now was the time to correct me she should leave the room (I know, I’m an awful daughter). She picked up her purse and headed to the waiting room (because she KNOWS I’m an awful daughter). Once she left, Honey started to tell me how rude I was to which I shot him a look that said, “Do you want to join her?” and he shut up.

Meanwhile, Ms. Student is waiting on my contractions to pass (like they ever really stopped) to ask me about the barometric pressure and which tastes better – Peter Pan or Jiff. I’d finally lost my patience with her and asked, in a not so polite tone, if all of this was not written down on some other piece of paper that she could COPY OFF OF!!!! I also took this moment to inform her that I’d changed my mind and I wanted the epidural. About two minutes later, Ms. Wonderful entered the room and I also informed her that I’d decided to throw my pride out the window and get pumped full of body numbing fluids. She informs me that they had to get at least half a bag of fluid in me before they could give me the epidural so I told her to, “Hook it up and get to squeezing”.

Within 15 minutes we’d managed to get enough fluid in me to allow for them to administer the epidural. Ms. Student and Mr. Boss enter the room to administer the wonder drugs. Now, I assumed that Mr. Boss, the one with years of experience, would be the one that inserted a 36 inch needle in my back and ran it up my spinal cord…….Oh NOOOOOO. Ms. Student would be the one to possibly paralyze me and I must say, I was MOST excited. She made sure that she announced everything that she was doing so that I could write it in my “Pain Is A B!&@* Journal”. The first thing she did was scrub my back so that no germs could enter my body with the needle. This took about 15 minutes because she is obviously trained to treat everyone as if they were rolling in toxic waste just minutes before entering the hospital. It took her, what seemed like 45 minutes, to finally get the catheter in my back. By this time I have been pushing for 10 minutes and informed Ms. Wonderful to tell Ms. Student to forget it because I was about to deliver. We finally get Ms. Student to move her fanny out of the way and Ms. Wonderful started paging anyone and everyone to come assist in my delivery. At this point, they can’t turn on the epidural so I just wasted the last 45 minutes of my life for nothing!

All of a sudden my room starts filling up with nurses……..but no Dr. Gyno. Honey takes his place at my bedside, holding my hand and coaching me on and still, no Dr. Gyno. I am pushing at this point and I hear a nurse say, “The heart rate is dropping”. Honey is between my bed and the monitoring station that seems to be the command center of my delivery room. I push again and I hear someone say, “The cord is around the neck”. I look at Honey for reassurance and realize the he really isn’t looking at me. It seems that he has been wedged up against my bed with his legs locked in order to stay out of the way of the command center. In an instant, my wonderful husband went from coach to Red Wood and fell over backwards!! That’s right, he PASSED OUT!! The echo from his head hitting the floor stopped everyone in their tracks and all of a sudden HE had 20 medical professionals surrounding him and I was left with Ms. Wonderful to deliver the baby.

Bean was born on the bed with no doctor, no stirrups, no nothing! Someone, I have no idea who, cut the cord and whisked the Bean to the warmer. Meanwhile, I’m laying there with my “business” up in stirrups for the world to see and still no sign of Dr. Gyno. Honey, however, has about 25 people surrounding him to make sure that his brains weren’t scrambled. He is lying on the floor, babbling about how he played football and his sister used to hit him harder than that floor and I’m lying in the bed waiting on someone qualified to “finish the delivery”. At some point I asked one of Honey’s medical team to at LEAST cover me up so that I wasn’t exposed to the world with the rest of my “delivery” flapping in the wind. She obliged with a washcloth that probably covered at least ¼ of what I was trying to conceal!

After about 15 minutes, the doctor on call, Dr. Hysterical, came in. He went to the bathroom to put on his booties because Honey’s medical team had taken up most of the space in the room. He emerged from the bathroom and informed me that he had “sat in pee” (although that is NOT the word he used). Obviously the lovely “container” they put in the toilet to make sure that I was really going to the bathroom during labor (and not just applying lipstick) had not been emptied since my last….ummm….trip. I apologized for his wet rear end but asked if there was anything he could do about “finishing” my delivery. He positioned himself at the end of my bed and informed me that he was going to “put in a stitch just to prove he was there”. Now, I didn’t know whether to be offended or not but at that point I really didn’t care.

About 10 minutes later my mother appears in the room. As soon as she walks in Dr. Hysterical informs her that he has, “sat in pee”. She asks, “Did you deliver the baby?” He says, “Well Hell no.” And she says, “Well then what good are you?” To which he replies, “Not a D@%* bit, but I put in a stitch so I can get paid”. I really wish I’d known about this guy at the beginning of my pregnancy because I’m SURE my office visits would’ve been a lot more fun.

So there you are folks – the delivery story. I know it’s not conventional, there was no soft music, no soothing words from my husband, no low lights and angels singing. Nope, it was a three ring circus, but hey, Bean might as well come into the world knowing that she is destined to live in total chaos. Welcome to the world my precious little girl…..you’re in for a wild ride.

Here she is. For the purpose of this forum she will be known as "Bean" 

She's Here....

Well, the beaner has arrived! She was born on September 20th at 12:50pm and weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz. and was 18 3/4 inches long. I am currently writing my delivery story and will post it in the next day or two. Just wait - only I could have such an experience! If you think my life was crazy before......oh my! I've posted a picture of her for you all to see and there will be many more to come. Check back soon for the entire saga of her birth.