I wake up Monday afternoon and feel a little crampy. My due date is still a week, possibly 2 weeks away, so I didn't think much of this minor abdominal discomfort that I was feeling. Up until that day, I hadn't even had fake or practice contractions. Less than 4 hours later, I was doubled over the counter at the nurse's station while Adam was checking us in at Tri-City Hospital.
I was already 2cm dilated when we arrived and had progressed to 4 within a few hours. I thought this was going to be a pretty easy delivery. The baby had been sitting low for several weeks, they could feel her head during my routine exams. I was dilating fairly quickly and my contractions were minutes apart within a few hours starting them.
Labor pains = Imagine having developed severe food poisoning, the kind that is inevitably followed by explosive diarrhea, and someone stabbing you in the guts every few minutes.
I was in labor for an excessively long time, and it took 3 hours of pushing to deliver. The nurse said that 2 hours was uncommon, so she consulted the doctor after about 2 and a half. He threatened me with a c-section and Emily was out with one minute to spare. She smelled like hard boiled eggs.
This would have been the worst part if the anesthesiologist hadn't botched my epidural. when I stood up after delivery, I had this pounding headache that started from my spine and ran up into the base of my skull and exploded into the top of my head. apparently, he had accidentally poked a hole in my spine on one of his first 2 attempts and i was now leaking spinal fluid that was causing this tremendous pressure that felt like someone had cracked me in the back of the skull with a baseball bat. But, a headache is a headache and I had no idea how serious it was going to be- I was excited to see Emily. I hadn't gotten to really spend any time with her yet, because they had to sew up my tear and I let them take her away for procedures immediately because she wasn't really all that active when she came out. she wasn't making much of a fuss and because she had endured 3 hours of pushing, i thought i should let them see her first.
hours later, this headache had gotten so bad that I couldn't even pay any attention to my new daughter. I still hadn't learned what it really was, so when they had another anesthesiologist come in and explain it to me, all I heard was that it would eventually go away, or they could go back in and patch it, which meant poking another needle into my spine (that would be poke number four-no thank you) he also said that there was a 50 percent chance of the patch working if I did it that soon. so i thought I'd wait it out. They kept me there an extra night for that, which was good for everyone because we Had the nurses' support for Emily for an extra day or two. It was hard trying to breastfeed and hold and try to interact with Emily, or anyone for that matter because every movement sent paralyzing pain into my skull. It made my eyes throb and muted my hearing for spurts at a time. The shots of morphine were useless and pain pills even more futile.
by the next day, i still couldn't move and the pain was causing tears to literally pour out of my eyes. This day was spent waiting 12 hours for someone to come and do the patch procedure.
we finally made it home by 10 pm Thursday night, having gone in on Monday afternoon-it was nice to be home, but scary to be on our own with this new life that was in our hands. I couldn't even begin to feel the feeling you should feel when you have a new daughter until the next day. That spinal headache robbed me of that for the first few days but now it's starting to become real.
No comments:
Post a Comment