Callum's birth story

[la_belle_laide]

It's long, and includes gifs. :) WARNING: Frank discussions of natural childbirth, and mentions of "baby blues" towards the end. If this is something you don't want to read, please skip it entirely.



So here's how it went down. The evening of the 15th, my back was aching all the way down to my thighs. My thighs have been killing me for the last 3 months so I didn't think too much of it, although I was starting to wonder when the aches started to sort of come and go every 20 minutes. However, Dr. Google oh-so-reliably informed me that if you only feel pain in your low back and thighs, that's "false labor" because REAL labor is higher up, and radiates down.

By the time I was watching Criminal Minds, I was pretty sure Dr. Google was wrong, but I figured I'd stay home for a bit and see how it all went.

By around 2 AM I couldn't sleep and started timing on my iPhone how long it was coming and going. It was anywhere from 10 to 5 minutes. So I called the Dr on call, who ignored me. I called again 20 minutes later and he ignored me. Finally, the third time, at around 3:30, he called back and told me to "wait until it hurts more and then come in."





I guess he was tired.

By 4:00 I was pretty sure I couldn't wait anymore and asked my Mom to drive me.

We got there at 4:13. The hospital was closed and my Mom had left to go find a parking space. I was so mad I pried the doors open and tried to get inside anyway, before jogging after my Mom's car to tell her we had to go in through the ER because the office was closed.

So, even though I had sent all my papers in months ago, they still needed me to fill out more. This took about 15 minutes. My Mom was waiting to see if they were going to send me home and I told her not to wait – to get back to Haku. The nurse looked at her and said, "You don't have to wait. But it won't be today. We're looking at probably sometime tomorrow." Really? How the hell could you possibly know that just by watching me fill out papers?





So my Mom left and I went into the triage / labor check room. The nurse did an internal (ow) and said, "Wow, 3 cm. Still not going to be today though. The first one takes a long time."

So she hooked me up to the monitors and told me to lie on my back. I've gotten sick lying on my back for the last 3 months but I figured it wouldn't be too long. Meanwhile it was getting worse and worse, and more painful really quickly.

The nurse was only peeking in once in a while to basically see if I was still alive. I'm not kidding you when I tell you they left me in there for THREE HOURS. I was trying to text my doula, but the hospital was a dead zone and I couldn't get through to her.

The nurse looked at my readout and said, "Oh wow, you are having contractions every 4 minutes. You're really in tune with your body!"

IT'S HARD NOT TO BE RIGHT NOW! The pain was still only in my back, lower stomach and thighs. It never moved any higher but it was really intense. I was trying to remember all my zen thoughts, all my meditation, thinking of ocean waves and stuff like that, but really in my mind I was just like "F*** THE OCEAN AND F*** ZEN." They would only last about a minute to 90 seconds and I knew they were going to end, but then once they did, I would immediately start to dread the next one.

Around 6:30, I started to feel really sick so I turned on my side, monitors be damned. But it was too late because I was getting ready to hurl. I looked for the "call the nurse" button but didn't have one so I started yelling, "HELLO!" No one showed up. So, I just hurled all over the floor.





Finally about ten minutes later the nurse came in and she was like, "OMG! Why are you throwing up?"

BECAUSE I FELT SICK, HELLO!





So she handed me the puke bucket, got some guy to come in and clean up, and left again.

6:45, it was getting pretty rough and there was definitely stuff going on down there. Like, he was on his way out for sure. Contractions were one right on top of the other, which seemed really unfair. A different nurse came in and I tried to tell her, "I NEED TO GET HIM OUT!" but I got as far as "I need to" and she handed me the puke bucket. I was like, "NO, OUT, BABY, NOW."

So she was like "Sigh, well, let's see. In a few minutes we'll have you walk to the birthing room, once we get it all set up for you. Walking will help." She did another internal and I saw her face change. She said "Hang on a sec" and ran out of the room. A different nurse came in and she did an internal and said, "Okay, no walking for you. Time to go."

So basically they had to take the whole entire bed into the birthing room, which was at around 7. Doula had gotten all my text messages at once and had texted "Okay, going to get something to eat and then leave, be there in about 20!" She walked in just as I was getting into the new bed. I remember I looked out the window and remarked that it was going to be a beautiful day outside, and I could hear birds singing.

Well, 7:10 and it was really bad. I looked at the iPod they had in the room and remembered that I had wanted to play some music, but couldn't even say so by then. I had the urge to flip off the iPod player.

I told the doula I had been sick and she handed me the little puke catcher. I crushed it to death in my left hand.

Now there were tons of nurses, and they were saying, "Okay, just keep him in for another few minutes; the doctor is running late."





WTF! What am I supposed to do, shove him back up there? I was lying on my side, thinking "This is how dogs do it. This must be okay."

Right, as some of you know, when I get super stressed, I turn mean. My version of snapping is a verbal one. I can say some cruel things under duress, and usually to the wrong people.

Another nurse asked if I was allergic to anything and I waved the band around my wrist that said "TETANUS" in really big letters, then made a shooing motion like "NOW GO AWAY." Then they brought a pen and paper so I could sign a waiver on the tetanus shot. WTF! I shoved her pen and paper back at her.





Things were moving along rather quickly and it was excruciating. The doula tried to give me her hand but I showed her the crushed puke bucket and shoved her away.

My doctor was still late (I heard something about bad traffic) so a different doctor came in and introduced himself, tried to shake my hand. I think I pushed him away too. Now, I had written an ideal birthing plan, with all sorts of froofy stuff like, using the tub, listening to Mozart, etc. But it had important stuff on there too, like not to take him right away, to hand him directly to me, delayed cord clamping etc. The very FIRST thing on it was "don't offer me any drugs. I'll ask if I want some." I sent the birth plan in months ahead and then brought extras, so all the nurses had them.

So the second thing this doctor says to me is, "Wow, that looks really bad. Let me know if you want any drugs."





I might have said "YES, NOW" if I could have. But I couldn't really say anything and I was PISSED, so I remember I just made a fist and banged on the side of the railing on the bed, while the doula got exasperated with the doctor and told him no.

7:20 or so, the actual doctor on call showed up. I remember seeing him and, between contractions, saying "I thought the midwife was on today!" Someone told me she didn't come in until 8. Damn.

I remember there were a ton of voices and I looked over my shoulder to see like 12 people milling around in the room. I yelled out, "WHY THE HELL ARE THERE LIKE SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE IN HERE?!"

The doctor said, "There aren't six thousand, there are about twelve of us. We're getting ready to change shifts." The doula tried to shoo them out, and I could tell they were annoyed with her, and probably with me. But, eventually they did go away and there were only the doctor, the doula and a nurse.

Then the doctor made me flip onto my back so HE could take a look in there. He went, "WOW, okay, moving right along. This is going to be pretty quick." He made me scoot down to the edge of the table and I said, "I want to sit up or something!" And the doula was asking if I could maybe get on my knees. The doctor said, "I don't think there's time for that."

It's kind of a blur from there. He said he had to break the water, because it hadn't done so yet. Every time I would try to push the baby out, I felt like it would take forever. I remember once asking, "Can this be over already?"

Also, I kept demanding my chapstick. I was real snappy about it too, just saying "CHAPSTICK!" at the doula. Then I said, "I need it; it's like crack to me!" and then immediately panicked because I thought the doctor would think I was actually on crack and they'd take the baby away from me.

At around 7:45 the doctor said to the nurse, "Go and get the (childbirth emergency something something?)" and I was like "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT'S GOING ON?" He said, "Because his heart rate keeps dropping every time, we want to make sure he's breathing when he comes out."

I yelled at him, "WHY ARE YOU SAYING THAT? DON'T EVEN SAY THAT!" and he said, "Then let's hurry up and get him out of there. We have to do it fast."

I knew knew knew it was going too fast. I knew it was going to tear all my ladyparts up.





I yelled, "DON'T GET ANY FORCEPS OR VACUUMS KEEP THAT STUFF AWAY FROM HIM!" and the doctor actually put both hands up, backed up and said, "I won't touch him with anything other than my hands. But let's hurry up."

I told him to stop rushing me.

The baby actually coming out is surprisingly still pretty clear, even though the rest is sort of blurry. When I last looked at the clock it was about 3 minutes before 8. It hurt like FIRE when his huge head came out. And then it was a very memorable sensation while the rest of him was still wiggling around up there.





The end of it went very quickly and they handed him to me. I said, "Aloha, baby! Aloha! This is the world!" He screamed very loud the second he came out and I felt vindicated, I wanted to say, "See? He's fine!"

But instead I said to the doctor, "Are we done now? Oh, and NO PITOCIN!" Because they give that to you sometimes without asking.

I had remembered when I met the doula, she'd told me, "Wait till you smell the baby" and I was like "Eww, no way." But she was totally right. Maybe it's hormones affecting the brain or something, but he smelled like a field of flowers. I know that's hard to believe. But I asked them not to wash him, and they said they wouldn't, and that I could hold him for an hour before they took him away. They let me feed him right away, too. Which didn't exactly work out, but it's good to try.

I remember that his eyes were wide open and he was looking at me. I asked the doula if he could see me and she said that he could. I talked to him in Hawaiian, told him welcome to the world, that I was his Mama and that I would love him forever.

Then the doctor informed me that I had a second degree tear which he would have to stitch after some lidocaine. A few minutes later, while I was holding my baby, I felt a really sharp pain and I said, "What's up with that? Why can I feel that?" The doctor said, "Oh, I must have missed a spot with the lidocaine. Sorry!"





In an hour, they took him and put him in the incubator. I said, "Can he sleep in my room tonight?" and they told me he could, but they had to do all the medical stuff first. I told them not to give him any junk in his eyes, and to not circumcise him. The nurse informed me that if I waived the eye-junk, they'd have to call CPS. O_o So basically, I had to let them do that, even though the doula was saying, "So? What's CPS going to do?" I was still too nervous to let them call and tattle on me or whatever.

There was no way I was walking to a new room, (though I did make it to the bathroom to pee,) so I had to go in the wheelchair to get there. I remarked that the hospital looked like a hotel.

There was no sleep after that (and there hasn't been since,) since the hospital staff wakes you up every hour to take your blood pressure etc. And a blood test that they were supposed to do before the birth, but it happened so fast they didn't have time.

They brought him back to me around 10 AM and let me try to feed him. I might have done better if they weren't all in my damn face, grabbing at me and trying to tell me what to do. A very snotty nurse remarked to me, "This is like trying to make something out of nothing."





She later casually informed me that I probably didn't have enough colostrum and my baby was going to dehydrate, and that I should really just give up and try formula before it got really bad. She said, "I'm concerned because you're so thin." I really don't think that has anything to do with colostrum or milk supply and I told her that I'd always been thin and I'd like to keep trying it my way. (It took about two days to get the hang of it, but I'm glad I didn't cave to the snotty nurse.)

Here's another thing I'll never forget. Around noonish, he was swaddled and sleeping and I picked him up, put him in bed with me, turned on the computer, and played the music I had wanted to play during the birth. The first song he heard was Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, because I think that is one of the cleverest melodies ever written. And then I played a bunch of Hawaiian music over and over again, and sang them to him while he slept, for about an hour.

The doctor who delivered him came in and said, "How about that labor! Fast and furious, right?" He congratulated me and left.

Mom came to visit, and my cousin SB. I think I was too tired to sleep. But that's when I decided on his name. When my Mom asked, I said, "I think he's Callum." (It was between Callum and Dorian. He just looked like a Callum.)

Of course there's more to it, about how I signed us both out early and had to sign a bunch of waivers and stupid junk like that, about getting stuck in traffic on the way home, and about how Callum sleeps all day long and is awake all night, and how I've been getting an average of about four hours of sleep literally since last Wednesday and I'm really surprised I can still be upright right now (not to mention, cooter stitches hurt like HELL, okay.)

I'm glad I did natural. It was pretty awful and I will never, ever do it again, but I am really glad that I stuck it out. I didn't want drugs, and the epidural scared me. I knew I could deal with the pain, knowing it would be over at some point, but the idea of possibly getting an epidural headache that lasted for weeks, AND not being able to sleep for weeks seemed unbearable. Plus, that's a drug, too.

Callum is sleeping so sweetly now (and has been since around 10 AM, waking only to eat every 90 minutes to 2 hours,) which means that he'll be stunningly awake starting at around 11PM and through the rest of the night. Seriously, as I'm posting this it's around 6 PM and he has been asleep all day, except for when he's eating, and even sometimes then. I'm dreading this night, actually. I'm not sure yet how to change that, until I can find things that engage him enough to keep him awake in the day. So, it's hard right now and of course, I'm the only one who is able to feed him so the long nights belong only to me. Getting so tired and crashing at around 6PM and getting ridiculous and crying over stupid things is normal, or so they tell me.





It gets better. But during the rest of the day, I can't stop looking at this perfect little face:











(And yeah, lots of people have remarked that he has Tom Hardy lips. Like I said, I did get pregnant watching Lawless. ;D )

So, that's basically the longest story ever for such a short labor!