On July 25 I dressed in one of my nicest maternity outfits, even though I knew I would only wear it for an hour or so. It was my late sister-in-law Heidi’s birthday and the day of my scheduled c-section after our last IVF pregnancy, and, indeed, our last pregnancy.
I asked David to take a belly pic of me to commemorate the pregnancy itself. Then we took our number one son Jack, our FET baby, to daycare, and headed to the hospital for the big event.
While I looked virtually the same on the delivery dates of my two sons – having recently gotten a haircut and not having had time for makeup that I knew would melt off me in a matter of minutes – pictures of me on these two dates reveal vastly different emotional states.
On Jack’s birthday I was freaked out, worried, uncertain, yet full of the knowledge that the spinal block would paralyze me, rendering me incapable of taking care of my newborn infant, if that infant even survived the ordeal of birth. You can see on my face “Let’s just forget about the whole thing and go home now, okay?”
But pictures taken of me on James birthday 3.5 weeks ago show someone who is excited and happy. David says I was “sassy” that day. He said he’d never heard me be so chatty. Chatty with the nurse who shaved me (who confirmed that she is the niece-in-law of an iconic former mayor of Philadelphia when I asked her about her last name), chatty with the anesthesiologist and his assistant, chatty with the various doctors, interns, medical students, etc. There were maybe 20 people in the operating room, since the hospital is a teaching hospital.
For me one of the scariest parts is having medicine put into my spine. Seems like messing with a person’s spine is generally a bad idea. And being immobilized and awake brings out claustrophobic feelings. Amazingly, the being NAKED immobilized and awake in a room full of enough people to have a good-sized birthday party wasn’t among the freakier parts.
My doctor showed up and was already wearing a surgical mask. I did not recognize her. But I noticed that she was wearing swingy earrings with beads on them. It struck me as ironic, given that the hospital won’t even let patients wear their wedding bands (as if it even fit right now). And it made me think of the Seinfeld episode when the Junior Mint was flipped into an OR patient’s open wound and, undiscovered, was left in there as the patient was sewed up again and sent to recovery. I kept thinking, what if one of those beads falls into my incision?
But given the general feeling of being out of control that comes with being naked, immobilized and awake, I was remarkably calm.
David sat near my head. There was a drape at my chest so we couldn’t see what they were doing down there. The anesthesiologist’s assistant also sat near my head and talked me through.
It was less freaky than Jack’s delivery because I knew what to expect. I knew that I would have a sensation of someone putting lots of pressure on my chest, but that it was ok. That they would push on my body and I would feel it but it wouldn’t hurt. Those things happened, and before I knew it I heard James crying. He was louder and more annoyed than Jack. David said he could tell right away that he was not as juicy as Jack. David was crying when he saw James. They gave me a peek of the boy by popping him up over the drape, like a puppet in a puppet show. I’ll never forget how he looked. Annoyed. And very healthy. Then they took him over to get the weight and check him out to make sure he was ok. All the while he was screaming with the indignation that indicates a healthy human. APGARs were 9 and 9.
David went with him when they took him away. I did not see James again for many hours.
David told me later that when he went to check out the weighing, etc., he walked around the scary end of the operating table and saw all the gore there. But because of the drape he had dissociated the gore from me and dealt with it emotionally in that way. He also told me later that after the birth they pushed down on my abdomen a few times and blood and stuff shot out of my incision like ashes out of a fireplace bellows.
After they closed my incision, I was off to recovery. My blood pressure was some outrageously low number like 80 over 45 and I was freezing cold. Shivering all over and chattering teeth cold. I kept asking for more blankets. Some nice people brought me one that had been warmed up first. I was allowed to have water after a while and I was so thirsty. I was also very concerned about being very hydrated so that my milk would come in without delay. So I drank as much as they would let me. After the water, they gave me ginger ale. Later, the nurses in the post partum wing would be horrified that the recovery room nurses gave me a carbonated beverage.
I don’t remember how long I was in recovery. It was a giant room with a little gurney in it. David came back in for a while and then left for a while. When he left again to make some phone calls I freaked out a little, thinking, “I could die here and no one would realize until it was too late.” But I realize now that was probably ridiculous given that I was hooked up to various machines and had people taking my vitals every 15 minutes.
James is named after David’s maternal grandfather, who was also the best man at our wedding. He only died a few years ago, when he was 100 years old and one week. James’s middle name is my maternal grandfather’s name. He died maybe 10 years ago. When David’s mom and my mom heard the name they both cried.
I missed that though because I was too busy being freezing cold and alone in recovery – but still quite chatty and sassy, David reports. At one point, when they put a warmed blanket on me I told them it was orgasmic.
My first IV of painkilling drugs was called something like Toradal and was lauded by all the nurses who saw me in recovery, because I demanded to sit up right away. After I finished that IV bag and another bag of pitocin, I was put on oral painkillers. But the IV stayed.
Eventually I was deemed well enough to go to a room. I was still sassy, David says. While being wheeled to the room, we picked up my mom and my mother-in-law who followed us there. I believe I was quite looped on drugs at that point. People would tell me things and I would need them repeated again and again. After the Toradal my regular drug regimen was Motrin 600 and Percocet.
The shame of this whole thing is that I do not remember when they finally brought James into my post-partum room. But there are pics of our mothers fawning over him after he has finally finally been handed over to me.
I remember letting both moms hold him right away. And I think I must have tried feeding him right away too, because in the picture my hospital gown is undone on one side.
Jen, my nurse, who seemed to need a vacation, told me that James would spend all his time in the nursery that first day except when he came into my room to be fed. I could not believe this. She said if anything happened, that no one would be there to take care of it and who knows if the nurses would be there fast enough if James choked or something. She said after I was able to get up out of bed that he could stay with me.
This dissolved my sassiness. I’m sorry, but after years of infertility, how could you ask me to part with my very very new baby for so long. Did I come here to the hospital to have you take him away from me?
I expressed my displeasure and disappointment to Jen and told her that, yes, I would like to speak with the charge nurse about what Jen called “hospital policy.”
Jen came back later and said, no, it was not hospital policy. But that James would room-in against the nurses’ advice. Fine, I said.
And so James roomed in and I never had a problem with getting a nurse to come in or with James having a problem. However, they did take him out that first night for his “evaluation” and did not bring him back for several hours. I slept during that time and the night nurse told me later that he’d had some meconium spit-up and so they wanted to keep an eye on him for a few hours. That was fine with me, actually. I got a little sleep. And he didn’t have any more spit up.
So driven was I to be released from restrictions that against the usual protocol, I insisted on getting up out of bed the very night of the surgery. They did this at Jack’s delivery at the other hospital, but they just stood me up and I sat right back down.
Here, because I insisted on getting up, they used the opportunity to walk me over to the chair and clean me up too.
The next day when Jen came back on duty she was amazed at what I had done. I remained annoyed at Jen for most of my stay at the hospital. She was very charming to my husband and mother and mother-in-law, however, making me look as though I was the insane and unreasonable one.
