Labor Day - Part 1

So, the morning of my induction I go downstairs to feed the cat at 5am and my Dad wakes up and says "How're you feeling?" And I respond "Too good."  Because I did not miraculously go into labor the night before, as I did with Niblet.  (I labored at home with Niblet for the first 11 hours, unmedicated, rolling on a yoga ball, moving around and breathing through the pain.  I arrived at the hospital dilated to a 4.  Sigh.).

We get to the hospital at 5:30 and the show gets on the road at 6am.  Now earlier in the week I was dilated to a 1, and my membranes were sweeped by Dr. W.  Surely this means that my cervix was going to be a little more primed for this, right?

You would be wrong.  I was dilated to a 1.  That's right.  A fucking 1.  Sigh.

In the midst of all this I meet the doctor on call who will be delivering, and a friendly Physicians Assistant who is reading my chart and wants to confirm with me the most miserable fertility history in history.

(e.g., "Were your miscarriages the result of your Asherman's?" "No, you have it backwards, my Asherman's came after a D&C for a partial molar pregnancy, and was treated and then I went on to have a million more miscarriages. And the MTHFR you just asked about resulted in the baby I lost with a giant omphalocele.  And how the fuck is this the time to be talking about all of this with me?")

So my induction plan then changed, and we would start with a foley bulb.  Go ahead, google that shit.  It's barbaric.  A catheter is rammed up my cervix (isn't this the story of my life?) and a balloon is inflated to manually dilate it.  Now, I've got a high pain tolerance, I've had in office hysteroscopies to treat Asherman's scar tissue without any anesthesia for fucks sake.  Well, this hurt.  Not unbearable crying pain (that comes later), but definitely unpleasant.  And I am basically chained to a bed with lots of IV lines and monitors at 6am.  Can I say how much inductions blow?

Ok, the bulb gets me to a 2.  My water is then broken (or at least, so we think, more on that later).  On to the pitocin we go.

I don't want to write a book about pitocin induced labor pains.  I'm sure someone has.  All I will say is HOLY MOTHER OF CHRIST.  Viking had never seen me in such a state.  The fuckhead even said, "you were quieter when you labored with Niblet."  NO SHIT.  Because pitocin is the devil.  That is all.

After surely looking like a possessed character in a 70s horror movie, all moaning and writhing and strapped to a fucking bed by IV lines, I beg for drugs.  It's too early for an epidural, so I first get a light narcotic to "take the edge off" - Stadol.  "You know how when you drink and you fall you don't feel pain?" the nurse says to me?  Bitch, my body is a fucking temple.  I haven't fallen while boozily lubricated on the street in like 15 years, what kind of mother do you think I am?

Let's just say that the stadol did NOTHING.  "Let me know when I need to advocate harder for you for the epidural,"Viking tries to helpfully offer.  Yeah Dude, you should get on that now.

It's now maybe 12 or 1 in the afternoon.  Viking is watching the monitor, all fascinated because he can see when I am contracting and isn't science cool?  "That was a long one," he says.  Yes asshole, I say to his face, that was indeed a long one.  And he laughs and calls himself Mr. Science to try to take the edge off that the Stadol couldn't, and I am officially crying and writhing in pain.  We are finally dilated to a four and the nurse runs fluids through me for an hour so I can get my precious precious spinal drug line.

Ok, so the epidural.  I've had one before, and as I've mentioned, I needed two tries.  Because apparently my back was "too muscular" to get a line in.  Dr. W thought this was total bullshit when I told her the story, "Maybe that guy was just a resident?  That shouldn't have happened."  Ahhh, not so fast.  Viking is bedside on a stool.  I am holding his hands and trying to breathe and count through contractions.  He gets a worried look on his face because this anesthesiologist ("she's new here," they tell me, "not new to anesthesiology of course, just new here") is taking a while.  She is poking and prodding, and asking if I can feel that SHARP JABBING PAIN and why, yes, yes I can.  When I should not be.  And whoa there's another pitocin contraction.  And this is just going on and on and on. And I stare into Viking's blue eyes, and wait, what the fuck, am I peeing on him, what was that GUSH?  Umm, no, apparently THAT is my water breaking, and oh look says the nurse, it appears as if there's meconium in there.  Sorry about those jeans Viking.

"Is this trouble related to the fact that my back is, ummm, sort of muscular?" I ask?  "Well, yes, I can't find a good space to insert the needle."

Twenty minutes after we began, the drip is in.  And I start feeling queasy.  Really queasy.  My blood pressure drops, and Nutmeg's blood pressure drops.  And the anesthesiologist sets the epidural level lower than usual, my BP (and Nutmegs) stabilizes, and I start to feel better.  (This will be a fun fact to remember in the next post, coming soon).

The edge has finally been taken off.  It's about 2:30 in the afternoon.  And I can nap.