My Labor Day labor day entry. Long!

Which actually happened on Easter Sunday of 1984, but since this is Labor Day…

I think I have mentioned before that I have never gone into labor on my own. All my pregnancies ended with an induced labor, usually about 2 weeks post my due date. My second pregnancy in 1984 was no exception. I don’t have any pics like MM does, but I think my pregnant belly was just as large. At examination time, the doctor always commented “That’s a big baby!” then gave me serious, evaluating look.

I went for my last regular OB appointment the Wednesday before Easter, and they said they would induce me right after the holiday if I didn’t go into spontaneous labor first. Which of course I didn’t.

Early Saturday my “waters” broke – so embarrassing – to sit down to brunch & wet your pants and the dining room chair too! (At least I am not riding the elevator at work which had always been my nightmare: I’m in a crowded elevator. The 'up’ button is pushed. The car goes up and my water goes down, hitting the floor with a massive splat and everyone gasps.) That didn’t happen, TG.

I call the doctor’s office and they say to come in on Sunday Morning if labor doesn’t begin spontaneously, which of course it doesn’t. So at about 10 a.m. on Easter Sunday Tom and I go into Fairview Hospital. Getting admitted and changed and connecting up with my midwife team takes a couple of hours, so I don’t get my pitocin until almost noon.

(I like nurse-midwives. IMO you have a much nicer birth process with them because they get to know you better before the birth, and during labor they stay with you pretty much the whole time and guide you nicely through the process – not popping in & out all the time like the doctors do. If you are doing an unmedicated childbirth, which is always my desire, I think you have a way higher chance of success with midwives than with doctors. But I also believe in modern medicine. Totally! You should always give birth in a hospital so that if something goes wrong with you, the baby or the process the doctors and equipment you might need are just down the hall and not all the way across town.)

The Birth.

My midwife team is great! It consists of 2 midwives and a student midwife. Labor goes fine. I do not need medication. After about 4 hours of escalating contractions I am ready to push. But of course the midwives all say “Don’t push yet! You’re not quite fully dilated!” Everyone reading this who has ever given birth knows how almost impossible it is to not push once the push impulse takes hold of you. I manage to hold off for about 5 minutes, but then– hello! – I’m pushing now.

For someone who does not go into labor spontaneously I am a World Class pusher.

First push, nurse-midwife says “I see black hair!” They do a quick episiotomy because it will be a big baby.

Second push and the head crowns. Midwife says “Okay, on the next contraction really push hard! Maybe we can get the head out!”

Third push, I really push. In my little world of visualization what I am doing, lol, is sticking my right shoulder into the baby’s butt, bracing both feet against the wall of my uterus and pushing off! It sounds a bit weird but that’s what I was doing. In fact I was so busy with my extreme push that I couldn’t hear the midwives all yelling “Stop! Stop pushing!!!” So my third push had that baby out and since it was so fast there was no time for them to rotate and get the shoulders out one-by-one. Baby came out with her shoulders squared and I felt a big rip. Tom’s face got such a glorious look of combined wonder at the sudden baby and horrific wince at the ‘rip’ moment.

My Birth Epiphany.

Right after the baby is born they lay her across your chest, still attached to you by the umbilicus. Such a sweet moment. I kiss baby’s head and tell her her name. I promise to always care for her and be there for her. Then I have my birth epiphany for the second time (first time was with my first daughter.)

It is such a wondrous, magical moment when you hold your child - a complete and separate human being - but still attached to you by a pulsing umbilicus. For me, it is a powerful and primal moment. I know that my own mother gave me life in just the same way, holding me while I was still attached to her. I have a vision of a great line of mothers going back and back into time – all attached by one great umbilicus. Because giving life when you give birth is a flesh-to-flesh thing. Every daughter born of a mother has an endless connection - a direct, physical, flesh connection to every mother in her birthing line! The great umbilicus stretches back through all of history, through all of pre-history, through early cave woman, all the way back to some little Australopithecus afarensis 3 or 4 million years ago! And back before her into an unknown evolutionary past which may be forever unknown. But I am connected to all of it and all of them, flesh to flesh, blood to blood, by that umbilicus and the physical act of giving birth. Such a moment! It takes my breath away! I am touching the face of eternity.

A midwife clamps the cord and shows Tom where to cut. He cuts the cord, severs the connection to eternity, and is given his daughter for the first time. Now she belongs to him, for his eternity. The midwives assign my daughter her first Apgar score – 9.5. Not bad. All that remains is to deliver the placenta. A piece of cake in comparison with the rigors of birthing a baby, right? But this is where my complications begin.

WARNING. DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU ARE PREGANT AND/OR SQUEEMISH ABOUT BLOODY MEDICAL TYPE STUFF

My Complication.

It is now maybe four or five minutes after I have given birth. I’m not really sure because I was busy having my epiphany, lol.

The midwife puts one hand on top of my marshmallow belly, finds the uterus so she can gently push down on it, and takes hold of the protruding umbilicus. And just like that I feel a hot gush between my legs and hear a ssssplat! sound on the floor. The midwife says jeez or something and runs out of the room. The other midwife hands the baby to Tom, looks distraught and says “The umbilicus broke off. We need a doctor now. You’ll be okay.”

And I know what is happening then. There is a steady pulse of hot gushes and blood gobs smacking wetly on the floor. The placental blood vessels do not constrict. So long as the placenta remains attached to my uterus it will pour out blood. It is kind of like having your throat cut in terms of inevitable bleed-out unless something is done. And it is an OB emergency. When the call goes out every doctor who is not already handling a worse scenario must respond. And they come running!

Tom looks at the blood a bit confused. He has no idea if that is normal or not and the midwife’s running out has confused him. He figures out it is an emergency pretty quick though as doctors and nurse start pouring into the room and talking fast.

The first two docs arrive within seconds of each other. One immediately starts an IV line so I can be transfused as needed. The other says “Excuse me. I’m sorry” and sticks his gloved arm into my vagina and up into my now flaccid uterus. It was a big baby, no? He sticks his arm in up to his elbow, and then he starts feeling around, trying to find the placenta and physically peel it off – the only way to stop the bleeding.

I have no idea what Tom is doing while this goes on, because there are now 2 or 3 more doctors standing by my bed and a bunch of nurses with them. I can’t see Tom at all. The doctor again apologizes and explains what he is doing and why. I think it is good that I already understood more or less what was going on, so I don’t panic at all. I just say “Okay.”

It is a very bizarre feeling to have someone’s arm stuck into your body! And while the doc feels around, the blood continues to gush out around it and splat on the floor. In a few moments he finds the placenta and starts trying to peel it off my uterine wall. The blood continues to gush. He scrapes hard! I can feel his fingers grabbing and picking away inside me. It doesn’t hurt because there are no nerve ending associated with pain inside your uterus (at least I don’t think so) but it feels like I am being punched out from the inside. Weird pressures. Not at all comfortable, although entirely bearable.

Finally, he gets a good grip and peels the placenta away from my uterus. Just like that the gushy bleeding stops. When the doc stands back I see that his whole arm is bloody, and the front of his scrubs as far down as I can see are covered with blood.

As soon as the bleeding abates & the placenta is out the extra doctors all leave. The bloody doc looks me over and decides that I need to be moved to the OR to have my rip sewn up. I already had a major rip, possibly the arm wrestling inside my uterus made it worse – I don’t know. Anyway, I had 3rd or 4th degree tears (I forget which it’s called). I tore into but not through my rectum.

So they get ready to wheel me off to the OR. Tom looks conflicted because baby and I are splitting up now. I tell him to stay with the baby and off I go to the OR. On the way there I feel suddenly desperately cold. I begin to shiver violently. I guess I was beginning to go into shock from all the blood loss, but in the OR they put warmed blankets over me. Heaven! The shivering stops immediately. I notice that I have a bag of clear solution now attached to my IV. I’m not sure just when that happened – I was totally looking down at the long-armed doctor the whole time!

I need internal and external stitches. The arm-doctor, wearing clean & unbloodied scrubs now takes his time, doing a good job, and we chat a bit. At one point he tells me he will need new shoes. I guess I filled his shoes up with blood, lol.

And that’s the end of my little emergency. One hundred years ago I probably would have died, but thanks to modern, trained medical staff it was just a 5-minute thrill ride. And this is why I always tell people to have their babies in a hospital. Good midwives use a hospital. Because they know that once in a great while everything is going to go to hell really fast.

Oh yeah. They wouldn’t let me go back to the birth room to see my blood! One of the midwives commented that she had to go back to the room and help clean up the blood. “You wouldn’t believe the pool of blood back there!” she told me. I really wanted to see just how much blood had gushed out of me, but they wouldn’t do it. For some reason that really bummed me. It was my blood, why shouldn’t I be able to see it?