The Birth of My Papaya

When I was pregnant I was reading "The Lady of Avalon" one book in my favorite series by Marion Zimmer Bradly. (The series is centered around King Arthurian legend, but from the perspective of the women surrounding it.)

In all of the books in the series, there are births and deaths. The main characters are priestesses who are trained in childbirth. There is a sacred house just for childbirth. The priestesses use herbs as medicine when needed. I really did think it would have been wonderful to have a baby in that kind of environment. Daughters delivered their own younger sisters, mothers delivered their granddaughters. Truly beautiful. Sadly though, many births ended with death, either of the mother, child, or both.

When I had my daughter, I had taken all of the classes offered by the hospital. I didn't want to have an epidural, because I was scared about not feeling my body. They talked in the classes about having a "birth plan" with my doctor, and gave us forms. I took it to my doctor, I said, "Can we work on my birth plan?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I don't want to have an epidural." He smiled and said, "If your baby is under six pounds you might be okay without it." I said, "Can't I just use the pain medication until I'm fully dilated?" He said, "Sure, if you want."

Sidenote: For anyone not medically informed on this, it is controversial to give a laboring mother narcotics because of the fact that it does cross the placenta, and there is a possibility the baby could be born with respiratory depression. However, the baby's heart rates is monitored throughout labor, and even if the baby was born with such a problem, Narcan is available and reverses the effects of narcotics. It really is mostly a concern in the last hour or two before birth anyway. In my case, I was in labor for 24 hours.

So when I went to the hospital, I told my nurse I didn't want an epidural. She gave me some Nubain, which was great, it took the edge off the pain just enough, but I could still feel what was going on with my body. About 6 hours later, it was getting hard again, and I asked my nurse for some more pain medication, she said "Oh, we only give it once, you can't have it again!" So much for my birth plan. So I asked for a big ball to sit on, was practicing my breathing, etc. Then my water broke. I was not expecting the waterfall that occurred. My body started involuntarily shaking all over, I was not really screaming, but more like howling. The pain overwhelmed all of my senses. It felt like an earthquake in my body that was going to cause the entire infrastructure to implode. My husband looked at me. His face was white, and he was shaking too. I managed to whimper, "I think I need an epidural."

The anesthesiologist came in, gave me the epidural, and took all the pain away. After the epidural, I had to stay in bed (since the epidural completely numbs from the waist down.) So I laid there for another 12 hours, just watching my contractions on the monitor, not feeling anything. When it came time to push, I had a difficult time because I couldn't feel how hard I was pushing. It was exhausting, my mouth was terribly dry from all the panting. I couldn't feel what was going on, but I felt the exhaustion in my body.

Finally, the nurse whispered in my ear "Push, make this the last one," So I pushed as hard as I could, and the baby popped out. The doctor's head was turned, because as I found out later, she was preparing to do an epesiotomy. I guess the nurse didn't know that. The doctor caught the baby, handed her to the nurse, and then her eyes got huge. Next thing I know, she has her entire arm up in me and is pushing down as hard as she can on my belly. I was hemorrhaging. I wasn't totally aware of what was going on, I was elated to see my baby, I was crying and laughing intermittently.

The nurse brought my family in, I was trying to talk to them. The doctor pushed me down and said "Lay down, don't talk, you don't have the energy, you are bleeding." She made everyone leave. she had to manually massage my uterus for 2 hours. They gave me a plasma infusion, along with a whole lot of pitocin. Those two factors made my legs swell up like tree trunks for 3 weeks, which made it very difficult even to walk at home. This was especially annoying because I was trying to care for a new baby.

In addition to the hemorrhage, I also sustained a 3rd degree laceration that went into two different directions. That means that I tore all the way through the muscle layer of my vagina . That little complication also made the first three weeks at home incredibly difficult. That pain wasn't quite as bad as the labor pain I was experiencing when I broke down and asked for that epidural, but it lasted a few weeks.

In addition to my complications, my baby suffered meconium aspiration. The doctor was prepared for that because the meconium is visible in the amniotic fluid. She was prepared to suction her nose before her first breath to prevent that, but because the nurse wasn't in sync with the doctor, the baby shot out when she wasn't expecting it, and did aspirate. For that reason my baby had to spend her first three days in the NICU. She didn't have the energy to eat, so they put a feeding tube down her nose. Other than my first look at her when she was born, I didn't get to see her for 24 hours because of my condition.

I was also so ready to breastfeed before the delivery, but because of my weakened state and the fact that she wouldn't even take a bottle for 3 days, that was another compromise. I managed to pump enough to give her half the milk she needed for the first three months of her life, but then I stopped because it was interfering with my bonding with her. Being a new mother and not being able to breastfeed really did make me feel like a failure of a mother from the very beginning.

Had I not had that epidural I would have been aware of my body, and I wouldn't have pushed with the kind of force that I did. I wouldn't have torn like that, and the baby wouldn't have aspirated.

This story goes along with my last two blog entries regarding medical practice. Once again, while I am grateful for modern medicine, I am also disturbed by the severity of consequences for very small lapses in judgment. One thing is certain, had I been in this situation thousands of years ago in an environment like the priestesses of Avalon I described, I and my baby probably would not have survived.

I am grateful that my baby and I are fully recovered and healthy and happy now. We worked hard to get here.