Husband's birth story

This post is very, very different from anything that I've written.  I don't think of myself as a control freak, but ever since I read it, I have been fighting the urge to edit it before posting.  However, I keep reminding myself that 1) the blog is (semi-) anonymous, and 2) the whole point of blogging is to put out things that are raw, true, and unedited, and 3) I don't think I've ever read a full birth story written by a dad out on the internet, which means this thing is rare and therefore important.  Soooo...I've successfully fought off this urge and you are getting the verbatim words that husband wrote, no matter how much I might cringe at them myself :)

Secondly, it's so raw that it needs a disclaimer: it's gross, intense, and definitely not safe for work.  I, in fact, may never read it again.  If this disclaimer makes you not want to read it either, I totally understand - please take this opportunity to move along to some other part of the internet!  I also have to make it clear that while husband was writing this, he was also on paternity leave taking care of newborn Maya, so if you at any point read a weird interjection that doesn't follow from the previous text, it's about the baby.  Lastly, he never really finished writing it, so it just kind of…ends.  Perhaps fitting?

Now without further ado, may I present: Husband's birth story!

Dec 21 2013

Today was a day involving a life event that I've often thought about: the day you leave a hospital with your first child. It has always struck me as such a curious phenomenon: you show up for birth as 2 people more-or-less living the way you want to. You leave the hospital changed forever, entirely responsible for the life of your new baby. It happens so quickly, and what in our training and background ever really prepares us for this watershed moment? In our case, I will probably look back on it differently, but it felt too busy and too tired to be overcome with emotion during the actual homecoming. Alison is damaged by C-section and labor, and it is clear that both she and Maya need a ton of help from me. So, we turn in forms, check out, get drugs from pharmacy, get lost in the labyrinth of medical complex, delicately load baby into car, go back into building to get Alison (in wheelchair) while truck (with baby) sits out with engine idling (and I worry that someone is going to steal the truck, or that I will accidentally lock the baby in the car...). Then we help Alison, and it's a miserable ride home with her C-section wounds on the bumpy roads, and we stop at our work building to pick up my exams which are waiting to be graded....

We get home in cold rain, rush baby in, start breastfeeding again (and needs my help to pump out that stiff colustrum), then I cook quickly, Alison has meltdown (entirely understandable) over what labor has done to all her "down there" parts, I check diapers, etc. Now I'm hoping Alison is actually sleeping..I'm sitting on couch watching Maya wiggle in her sleep.

The evolutionary chemistry at play is incredible. I get an intense drug-like-high that sweeps my body in waves, when I watch Maya sleeping or hold her (when she's not wailing, anyway - it's harder then!). It's like a pulse of pleasure that lasts 10 seconds or so and actually brings tears to my eyes. Over and over again. Guess that's my testosterone levels dropping, but this is a pretty good trade for awhile....

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The birth experience was pretty intense. 9 months preparation

Tuesday, Dec 17. I walk home from campus. We'd sent Alison's parents & brother back to CA that morning. Alison goes into labor that evening at dinner (thawed pesto for dinner which we'd craved but couldn't eat as her parents are too picky). But she didn't eat much as felt very sick.  And then weak but directed contractions started, maybe 15 mins apart. Went to bed hoping they'd continue. I made ALison walk up and down our stairs, she wasn't thrilled, but I hoped to continue labor - we wanted to do EVERYTHING to avoid the possibility of an induction that we had scheduled for Thursday evening. We even had sex, hoping it'd accelerate things.

Next morning, 4 am. Contractions still going. Now I'm excited, too excited to sleep. So I get up and do...can't remember. Read or whatever. Lots of bloody mucus plug lost during the night.

Morning: walk around neighborhood. Contraction frequency picks up on hills, drops otherwise, but still going. I cancel all my meetings for the day, thinking this might be real.

Seemed like when we stopped walking frequency dropped to 20 mins or so.

at 1pm (dec 18) we go birding at the airport, as some snowy owls have been seen there. Figured why not, since the contractions were still going but it wasn't clear what else to do. It was a cold clear day, and we found 2 snowy owls, a flock of snow buntings, and a flock of horned larks. She was still having contractions, which made things interesting: a couple of friendly birders showed up when we were watching the owls through the scope, and it made for awkward conversation when Alison had to politely dismiss herself to sit in the truck.

Came back, Alison felt worse. Maybe worse than at any other point of her pregnancy. She went upstairs (3 pm?) saying she needed a nap and a bath. At this point, we are at ~15 min intervals. I'm downstairs on the couch, reading or something...and within an hour, she's basically wailing through the house. I find her laying in the tub, crying, bits of tissue floating around in there. We try to time some contractions, but she's already having a hard time figuring out where one starts and one stops. "I don't think I can do this without medication", she says. I try to encourage her. I'm not really panicked yet, but the rapidity of progression here was worrying. I call Triage at the hospital, our midwife calls me back. I explain the situation. She is completely unconcerned but suggests we come in anyway, with no urgency.

The pain is getting bad, and the coping is not working. Contractions maybe 3-5 minutes apart when she can separate them. But she's a mess and I'm already wondering if we are capable of doing much but lay on the side of the bathtub moaning in pain.

At this point, I am really fucking glad that there are no relatives in the house anymore.

Bags are already packed, but we throw the last-minute stuff together.

At Triage, Alison's not doing well. Our midwife suggests we check in, even though Alison is only 3 cm. That ends up being good, because it was clear very quickly that things were going downhill. Within an hour of checking in, we were nearing a continuous state of wailing. Alison (and I) may not fully remember this in the future, but the record needs to show that she was largely incoherent, in the worst pain of her life, and (I suspect) fighting the contractions to a point that it was actually making things worse.

We had a lousy nurse who - through all this - asked a series of utterly inane questions of Alison, even as Alison was quite clearly incapacitated and beyond incomprehension. E.g., after 15 questions like this, I remember: "How would you rate your interest in your medical history: low, medium, or high"? straight off form questionnaire, and she's asking this during the peak of a contraction. Alison blurts out something like "we both have PhDs in biology, can we please ask these questions later..." and the nurse asks some followup question like: "do you deal better having your medical information in writing or when people talk about it with you", and now I make it clear that we need no questions at this point. No awareness on the part of this nurse that maybe Alison wouldn't be all that keen on answering these questions at this particular point in time.

Blur at this point. Now Alison's basically whimpering, it's 10:30 (?) pm and she's been laboring hard for 6-7 hours. She's very clear she wants drugs and wants them NOW. Epidural team comes in.

(we just had a bowel movement, and some choking)

What happened next was almost surreal, in terms of Alison's (personal) transformative experience. To put this in context, Alison has spent the past 9 months preparing for a natural childbirth, listening to pregnancy meditation, explaining all the problems associated with C-sections and pain medications etc. She would tell you (and has told me, during the past few days) that she has been overly judgmental of people who get c-sections or who choose pain medication. She's believed that people who get c-sections do so (often) because they aren't prepared for birth, or go with at attempt at unmedicated birth.  

Now, all that goes out the window. She wants drugs NOW!!!

After the epidural is in, I cannot believe the calm and transformative (I mean: transformative!!!) effect it has had on Alison. Before: borderline incoherence, weeping, misery, near-inability to complete a sentence, contractions piling on top of one another. After: Alison is at peace. She is making pronouncement after pronouncement about the wonders of modern medicine, and "why wouldn't people use pain relief?", and saying that she now completely understands why people just go in to get their baby removed via c-section. I think she said: "fuck Ricki Lake" (and RL's "Business of Being Born" anti-C-section documentary). She said: "I will never judge anyone for their birth approach ever again".

She is calm, relaxed. She feels pressure, but no pain.

We go to sleep.

The cervix dilates.

By noon, we are 100% effaced and > 10 cm. Neither the midwife, nor the midwife's assistant, can feel any cervix.

We start pushing at 1pm (Dec 19). This is a long, mostly miserable story where Alison pushed valiantly and did substantial damage to herself, and where - after 4.5 hours - another Dr came by with an ultrasound and revealed that the baby was posterior, with the head rotated forward, and that there was pretty much no way that the baby was coming out without help, and that it was far too risky to try forceps. So, only one option - a C-section.

Pushing: smells: like a rodent colony (bedding in a mouse or rat cage), very strong and musky mix of urine and feces and whatever a rodent colony smells like (it did not smell like human feces but rodent feces). Must ask about this smell. It was intense: serious damage, hemorrhoids, extreme swelling of vagina and labia, blood, etc. And this went on for hours. At this point, there is so much damage (and the baby is still way up in the vagina/cervix), that I cannot even imagine how much damage would have happened if the baby actually came out that way.

I think men are more honest than women about what birth is like. I don't know whether this is due to selective memory or (in part) a subconscious desire to shield expectant mothers from what the experience will be like, but I've never really heard women talk honestly about how messed up birth actually is. Men will talk, and I've heard many men drop references to women screaming in the delivery room. Women sometimes use language like this, but it always comes across as though they are just exaggerating or being a bit metaphorical. No: at least some women really will scream, as if they are in the most intense imaginable pain, for at least some part of the birth process. And I think it probably is this severe for some.

9 fucking months of birth plan preparation, nightly pregnancy meditation, 10+ books on natural childbirth, and much much more, to culminate in this: you have no option but a c-section. In one 5 minute examination by a pair of MDs with an ultrasound, Alison is left knowing that her only path is a c-section.

She has about 5 minutes to cry about this before they whisk her off to the operating room. I wanted to be there for the whole thing, but they left me in (several) waiting rooms until - supposedly - the start of the operation, when

12.26.2013

A delay in recording this. So it goes. Writing is much more difficult when you are learning how to be a parent.  Not sure the best analogy for this, but it's a bit like committing to floating an intense rapid-filled river with steep and inescapable canyon walls. You can't do anything but go with the flow once you've started. There is no getting rid of the baby for a week, a night, or (often) even a few hours.

Maya is 7 days old. We spent the first 2 days of her life at the hospital recovering from C-section. Then, home. Chaos thereafter. You worry about the difference between colostrum and "normal" milk, and whether your baby is getting enough of it. You worry about the color of her shit, and whether there is enough of it. Maya's urine looks like red chalk for several days, so you worry about that (brick dust, a sign of dehydration). You go to the hospital (for blood draw), the pediatrician, the hospital again, and the pediatrician again, all in the space of 16 hours...then you do it again 2 days later and only skip a day because it's xmas and everything is closed (but still you call the pediatrician and email your midwife on Dec 25).

Monday-Tuesday were a little worrying because your baby lost more than 16 ounces and her bilirubin (~18 mg/ml ?, don't remember units) is way too high (common problem, but still jaundice). You are happy when her shit finally stops looking like tarry black meconium and more like yellowish runny diarrhea.

We've been on an intense breastfeeding regimen: every two hours, start-to-start. This basically gives Alison an hour to rest between sessions. And I am overwhelmed with trying to keep up with everything, since I'm looking after Alison's needs, Maya's needs, and my own needs, all at once. So, ~3-5 hours of bad sleep per 24 hour period for the past week for both of us (probably less for Alison).

I don't actually know where Alison has found the energy for this. Usually she requires much more sleep than I and is quick to tire, but here she's found some "supermommie" reserves and seemed - until yesterday - to be incapable of exhaustion. Now she's sleeping on couch with Maya, as we went to the pediatrician today and found out that everything was going great: Maya gained 5 oz in two days, her bilirubin dropped from 18 to 10, and the big bloody barf she upped this morning on her white onesie was actually Alison's nipple blood and not Maya's blood (should be fresh red blood if from Maya).

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Back to the birth. I almost missed the operation, because they left me in a waiting room while the anesthesiology team did their thing, then remembered me and finally sent someone running (literally) after me. They brought me into the room when the surgery was underway. They wanted me to sit, but I stood - I wanted to watch the operation. It ended up being very difficult to pay attention to anything: Alison was frightened and drugged, with major abdominal surgery underway; I'm trying to pay at least a minimal amount of attention to the surgery itself. Maya is clearly jammed into Alison's pelvis. Doctor #1 tells her to expect upward pressure as they have to push up into her vagina. I look. What I see isn't encouraging: the doctor on the other end (abdominal) is hauling on Maya with great force, trying to dislodge her from the pelvis - it looks to me like nearly uncontrolled force, in that something seemed likely to slip, or that Maya was unlikely to make it out in one piece. Then: wailing baby, bluish, with umbilical cord. Baby wisked away to far side of operating room and scale after cord clamp, I follow as instructed by Alison. The blue quickly fades and she continues wailing. Nurse gives a quick scrubdown and hands her to me. At this time, I imagine the entire experience is surreal for Alison: