A Birth Story

Before: June 26, 2009. 7 am Friday morning. Just about to leave to the hospital.After: July 1, 2009. 6:06 pm, Wednesday. John-Luke Fila Gillespie sleeping like an angel.In between: Friday.
Well, we were all scheduled for a lovely induction on Friday beginning at 8 am. Got to the hospital. All went well. Got checked in. Got to the delivery room and got "hooked up" with the IV. I even got one of the two rooms with a huge Jacuzzi tub to chill in while waiting. Because of my prior c-section the doctor/hospital started the drugs off really slowly. I mean really slowly. And nothing happened....and still nothing happened....and still nothing happened. Basically, nothing is all that happened on Friday. We sat and waited and although I had some contractions they weren't really that painful and I didn't even get an epidural that day. Later in the afternoon the doctor came by to dicsuss my options. We decided to stop the medication for the night and to start it up at 6 am the next day. I was shown to my lovely recovery room and finally given a great steak dinner to eat. Oh, and the dessert was to die for. A lovely mango/passion fruit mousse. It was heavenly. Got a nice hot shower too. Didn't get too much sleep that night. Who sleeps good in a hospital? Even a really posh private one?
Saturday. Got woke up bright and early by a really nice nurse and they took me back to a different delivery room (still got a Jacuzzi tub) and got hooked up all over again. I did get to eat a yogurt and some chamomile tea so that was nice that I wasn't totally starved. And as the doctor recommended I jumped in the Jacuzzi to help things get started up. (I guess it can help get things loosened up or something or perhaps it just keeps the moms relaxed). Well, this time things started working. By about 12 I asked for an epidural and it was promptly given by a super nice guy. Unfortunately, I waited too long to avoid vomiting so I was lucky enough to continue the day with vomit breath. Lucky me! I even tried to ask for gum but that was not allowed. Well, as it happened with James the epidural was spotty but was good enough to make it all quite bearable but not good enough to really get any good sleep. I wish. And then I just sat there and waited for things to progress. Well, I also tried various different positions to get John-Luke to move down and get into a good position. Things started slowly but by about 5 pm it looked like we were really getting somewhere. At about 8:30 pm I started pushing and that was even going well until John-Luke stopped coming. He was so close (the doctor could see his head) but just wasn't budging. She tried using the little suction thingy (don't know what it is called) and that did nothing. The doctor wasn't comfortable with using forceps (and frankly neither was I) for fear of hurting John-Luke so by 9:00 it was decided that a c-section would be done.
I was all prepared and ready to go and was quickly wheeled down to the operating room. The doctor gave me the good stuff so I wouldn't feel a thing and off they went to cutting. It is kinda surreal to have your belly cut open while you are laying there wide awake. Surreal in the sense that I could feel everything they were doing (not pain). I could feel them make the first cut and then start going deeper and pulling things to the side and going deeper. Apparently, a second c-section takes a bit longer than the first as they cut exactly on the old wound. Another surreal part of this experience is having the doctor ooh and aah over how beautiful my old scar and wound had healed. To me scar and beautiful are kinda oxymorons and don't really go together at all but all the doctors I've seen have told me how "beautiful" my scar is. Whatever. In fact, the doctor was so excited she told me that I could easily at "at least 5 c-sections" if I heal that well. Again, Whatever!!
So after what seemed like 10-15 minutes of digging in my belly they finally pulled John-Luke out at exactly 10 pm and he went crying away with Brian. Now any woman who has ever given birth (naturally or via c-section) can relate to that wonderful release of pressure when the baby is finally out! It is the best feeling. Like you have your own body back to yourself. I love that feeling.
Back to the story...After about 3 minutes Brian and John-Luke were back and I was able to give him a few kisses and whisper to him for a few moments (see pic below) and then him and Brian were off to the nursery to be properly looked over and such. Meanwhile, I was just getting all sown up and put back together. All the while the doctor is still oohing and aahing over my lovely healing and scars. They got me all patched back up as quickly as can be expected and wheeled me back up to my lovely recovery room where I was quickly met by John-Luke and Brian.
Everything was great with John-Luke. No problems at all and I was able to nurse him immediately. After which he promptly fell asleep and that is when the real horror started for me.
The epidural wore off. The baby had just nursed. I was on IV medication to make my have more contractions (to stop blood loss). The nurses were pretty much jumping on my belly to get it to contract AND to add insult to injury they were putting heavy bags on my belly to accomplish the same thing. Needless to say, they all worked to get me to have non-stop, worse than anything I have ever felt, pain!!! I was totally crying. They gave me a shot of morphine and said it would be better in 5 minutes. Nope. Morphine does not work on me. Not at all. In fact, the pain just kept getting worse and worse. By this time I was in so much pain that I was pouring sweat and about to vomit (even though I had nothing in my stomach to vomit). Well, after about 20 minutes of waiting for the Morphine to work they decided to give me some IV painkiller (not sure what it was as I was pretty delirious at the time). Again. Nothing. Of course, pain relief was shortly promised and did not arrive. By this time I was totally crying and I finally just asked them to give me more epidural meds straight to the source. Of course, they had to call the doctor who had gone home but he was an angel and said yes. Finally, after writhing in pain for what seemed like hours and was probably at least 2 hours the epidural meds helped enough that I was able to handle the pain. It wasn't completely gone but it was at least bearable again. That first night was truly horrible. John-Luke was an angel and slept about 8 hours through the whole thing.
Sunday was also quite unbearable but at least they were satisfied that I wasn't going to bleed to death and so they stopped pounding on my stomach and putting weight bags on it too. I was still having bad after birth contractions but I was on pain meds so it was mostly bearable (except when nursing). Really, after 2 days of labor and a c-section I was just sore everywhere. Especially on my tailbone where John-Luke had been pounding for 2 days. Every day since then has been better and better.
Oh, and they did figure out why John-Luke suddenly stopped just short of coming out. He had turned so that his head was sideways. Totally different problem than with James but the same conclusion anyway. All things said, I'm just thankful that John-Luke is here and that the only damage he had was a big bruise on his head from pounding into my tailbone. It could have been lots worse if we had tried forceps to get him out. Thankfully we didn't.
He really is a good baby. Sleeps well (so far) and nurses great. He did have to have his frenulum clipped like James but luckily they just did that here in the hospital instead of sending me to a ENT later. It makes nursing so much easier/less painful.
Today, John-luke was circumcised and he is required to stay overnight for monitoring but we will go home tomorrow and rejoin the rest of our family. The doctor who performed the circumcision officially pronounced John-Luke a true American afterwards. It is very uncommon here ti curcumcise unless it is for religious reasons. And that is the better part of the story. At least all the details that I haven't blocked out. Next time, no labor for me. Not with my beautifully healing uterus!