12 weeks later – looking back – part 2

Part 1 here

We get to the hospital and by then little trickles of reality are setting in, it’s all still a little surreal (can something be a little surreal?). Not wanting to be cliched I try and find a diplomatic way of telling the clerks at reception that my water broke. I can’t say “I am in labour”, I don’t feel like I am. I said something, I don’t recall now what it was. I do recall telling them I wasn’t going to sit down on their chair because it could get messy. That seemed to speed up the process and up I went to maternity. I was given a gown and a clean pad by a lovely nurse named Dorkes. Yes, that really is her name and she was so sweet the whole way through. To my dismay the fluid was now a little bit greener but when the nurse checked it she still referred to it as a “green tinge” which immediately settled my nerves.

I was strapped up to the monitor for a few minutes and all looked well, except that he wouldn’t sit still for very long and we kept moving the belt around, changing my position, restarting the process. All this meant we missed any sign that something was wrong, until my OB came to check up on me an hour or so later. My whole day turned on a word, well 2 to be honest, “pea soup”. That is how my OB described what my amniotic fluid was looking like. Which meant he was still pooing which meant there was some kind of distress. Then reality hit, I wasn’t getting the vaginal birth I so desperately wanted. I tried to buy enough time for TheHusband to be done, I got told the most I could have was 2 hours. If by then I hadn’t dilated more than 2cm at 13h15 I was going into theater, otherwise I was putting the baby at risk. I agreed, of course I did, my baby’s health was more important than anything else in the whole universe. Then I did what any self respecting pregnant woman, unsure of what was to come and totally off track from her birth plan, would do…I started to cry. I learned later that TheConcierge, while totally calm in the room with me, met my mom at the hospital entrance crying. I cried because I wanted a vaginal birth, I cried because my husband wasn’t there, I cried because my Doula would never make it, I cried because we really did not have the money for an emergency C/section, I cried because I was scared.

At 12h30 after 3 attempts of getting an anti-biotics drip in, my doctor came in, checked my cervix and found me still at 2cm and the liquid still getting greener. No more stalling, the breaks were coming off and I was being wheeled away, my mom by my side, waving at the rest of my family sitting in reception. Wheeled into the elevator, down to pre-op where I filled in some forms, and then Dr B the anesthesiology comes in to explain the spinal, that I may feel my blood pressure drop and that it was totally normal, they have something to give me for that. That I may feel nausious and that too is totally normal and they have something to give me for that, oh and there is a slight change, but it only happens in 15% of cases (see I told you that number comes up again) that I will feel extremely cold and shivery. There is nothing they can do about that.

Into theater we go, my mom goes off for a few minutes to dress in scrubs, I get told to sit on the edge of the bed and hold still…yeah right, have you ever tried to hold still when a needle goes into your spine? Then everything starts to tingle and moving is difficult. I get helped into a horizontal position. Blood pressure drop  Nausea  Cold and Shivers  and . The metal frame gets put down, Dr B puts a new drip in (the 3rd one came out of the vein and started filling tissue with saline and antibiotics) the cloth goes over and the tugging and pulling begins.

To be continued…

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