Mary Rose Mueller
First, I'm 32, a computer typesetter/artist, married, and, happily,
privately insured. Husband eagerly involved. Family and friends even more
eagerly involved - had three showers. Went to Bradley classes. Was over a
week overdue when I went into labor. (Kept telling my husband that's what I
got for quitting smoking - if I were a hostile environment, she'd have
gotten out early. (I used to smoke two packs a day. For fourteen years.)
This, just to be perfectly clear, was a joke. I was fanatically careful
throughout - ate tons of protein, low fat, high fiber - gained 35 pounds. I
can gain 35 pounds in one week of overtime, usually).
It was actually fairly easy for most of the labor - I started at 9:30
Sunday night, knew what it was immediately, had my husband start tracking
the time (about 20 seconds every fifteen minutes) and sent him off to bed
at midnight (I figured I'd need him more the next day). Tracked myself
until three or so, then fell asleep until eight. Got up, made coffee,
started tracking again, (about ten minutes apart at that point, lasting
20-45 seconds or so), ate breakfast, made a pot of soup with the leftovers
from a chicken we'd had two days before, and put a loaf in the bread
machine (her daddy eats junk when I don't make his lunch). Called the
immediate world to tell them I was in labor. (Well, just the family,
really). It wasn't all that hard - I just pictured it as the turtleneck
that was described in my Bradley classes and concentrated on helping pull
it up with each contraction. No real pain. Ate lunch.
At three in the afternoon, I had a regularly scheduled OB appointment - I
called when I got up and explained the situation, but they called and told
me to come in for the regular appointment rather than racing in. When we
got there, my OB (Dr. O., BTW, was absolutely wonderful - he found my
Bradley coach for me, and was firmly non-interventionist throughout. This
was the third internal in ten months...) I was at 4cm. He told us he was
surprised I was so far along, based on how I spent my day.
Part of the reason for that, BTW, was that Rocket Baby, as we had been
calling her ever since she kicked a fetal monitor off my belly and then
eluded it for twenty minutes, decided to help. I'd read that babies are
quiet for a day or two before delivery, but this one definitely wasn't. She
would kick for a minute or so, and when a contraction started she planted
her feet and pushed her head down. We thought that was considerate of her,
although she was probably just as tired of the situation as we were by that
time.
On the way home, we bought icecream to eat on pumpkin pie. If a girl ever
had a reason to go off her diet - and I was pretty sure I was gonna need
the energy.
By 9:30 ish I was five minutes apart for 90 seconds each pretty steadily.
Then we realized we were tracking from the start of each contraction to the
start of the next, and if you subtracted the time I spent - contracting? -
they were a bit over three minutes apart and it was time to go to the
hospital.
Happily, even though Dr. O. was not on duty that night, he was available (a
big issue for us - we weren't at all confident that any of the other
doctors would let us have the birth we wanted, as we knew Mary Rose was
well over nine pounds by sonogram, and he has a reputation for delivering
naturally whenever possible (I asked the nurses). I was at 7cm, and not in
any serious pain at that point.
Then comes the unpleasant part, with the intervention of what my husband
and I refer to between myself as That Miserable [copulatory gerund] Labor
Nurse. Dr. O ordered her to leave us alone, and told us to walk the halls,
which we did. (Does everyone go to the nursery on those walks? I thought it
was a little scary looking at all the sick small babies...) When we got
back, we had our first wrangle with her - we brought in some fructose
sweetened iced tea with us to sip while I was in labor, and she had a fit
and tried to take it away from us. Called in the intern on duty. Tried to
get him to support her demand for ice chips. (He waited until she left the
room to get my OB, who I insisted she clear everything with, and told me to
go ahead and drink and just not tell her, but I didn't want them to to have
less than complete information on the off chance that anything did happen
to necessitate surgery. She even tried to put in an IV that no doctor had
ordered. (We refused, of course). When our doctor came in, he told her to
back off and let me have the iced tea. He also told her to let me walk
around if I wanted to. We thought our trouble with her was all over at that
point.
It's an hour or two later now, and we've been uneventfully walking the
halls. I went to sit on the bed for a few minutes, because I was getting
pretty tired. She asked to put a monitor on me for a few minutes, promising
to take it off afterwards so I could keep walking around. She then refused
to take it off, claiming that it was hospital policy that it had to be
there (not true, and my doctor had ordered otherwise) and while I was
insisting she take it off, I went into transition in precisely the worst
possible way, flat on my back with my knees in the air, and being told that
I had no control over the situation. I don't remember much of the next few
minutes, just me demanding to be let up at least into a sitting position
and her refusing, and just as the doctor heard me screaming and came
running in, my husband struggling to hold me off of her (I maintain that I
was reaching for the monitor, but she was between me and it).
So now, I'm in transition, I'm scared, I've had all the power to control my
birth taken away from me, and I can't handle the pain any longer. I told
the doctor/my coach that I wouldn't be able to handle it any more without
some kind of pain killer, and they both calmed me down as much as they
could. (Of course, it was way to late for that anyway. I was grateful for
that later, although a bit ashamed of myself for caving in). At that point
Dr. O broke the water, since I was fully dilated and ready to push (and I
think he figured I couldn't take much more, which was true enough). Within
a few minutes I was pushing. I have to say, I do think that the classes
should tell you a little more about pushing - I had no clue about what to
do. I guess it isn't something you can practice, but it took me a little
while to figure it out. The rest wasn't bad, except that the nurse kept
shoving my husband out of the way so that she could hold my hand, and I
kept having to shove the nurse out of the way so my husband could hold my
hand.
After about an hour and a half of pushing (she crowned almost immediately,
but she was actually rather short for her weight, and her head and
shoulders were pretty wide for me) we had her most of the way out, and the
doctor gave me an episiotomy. We had planned not to do that, but she was
just too wide to come out without doing major damage to one or both of us.
(Something funny, although I didn't appreciate it at the time - when he was
giving me the novocaine for the episiotomy (it had to be fairly large) he
actually said "You may feel the needle...")
Two pushes later she was out (at 1:52 AM Tuesday).
So, we had Mary Rose (9lbs10oz, 20.5"), although miserable nurse, taking
advantage of her final opportunity to take control of the birth, snatched
her off my belly and smeared the stuff in her eyes within 60 seconds of the
cord being cut. She aced the APGARs (came out howling) and was whisked off
to the nursery (I sent her father with her). Her head hadn't molded at all
(or at least not noticeably).
As soon as my husband, the baby, and the doctor left, the nurse turned to
me and said "So, you can tell me the truth, these classes just teach you
not to listen to the nurses, right?"
Later on, they didn't want to let her room in, but after she howled loud
enough to wake the rest of the babies on the floor a couple of times they
wheeled the basinette into my room, where she stopped crying pretty much
immediately and I didn't let her out of my sight again until we left. Gee,
meconium is nasty...
So, this last part may not sound like it, but I had 97% of the birth I
wanted, and our little (!) girl was born beautiful, lively, and drug free.
We would do it again in a minute (OK, in two years or so), but next time
I'll have to be careful not to underestimate the lengths to which people
are willing to go to make sure that you have the birth they want for you.
Actually, they did prepare us for that in class but I didn't really believe
it.
Also, my husband has agreed that if this happens in a future birth he's
going to let me reach the nurse.
Julia Hendricks-Mueller