A Pirate's Life - Dex's Birth Story

Here's the birth story. If I had more energy, I'd post it all in the third person, and, like the Geico commercials, would have a celebrity like Charro help me tell the story. Click on any of the pictures to see them full size..........

I spent Monday night & Tuesday morning trying to get a satisfactory kick count on Dex. His movements were sporadic, and lethargic. I hesitated to read too much into it, however, when I was able actually grab his leg and he didn't move away or respond, I knew something was wrong. I made the calls and headed into triage late Tuesday afternoon.

At triage we were able to find his heartbeat immediately, however, time on the monitor showed it was a "gray heartbeat". It was steady and consistent, but there was absolutely no variations in response to stimuli, etc. For some reason he had gone into "fetus hibernation"; the nurse described it as survival mode and says babies go into it when there is something wrong with the uterine environment. During this time contactions began in earnest, and my blood pressure began to rise. We got the call a little after 4 - OB wanted to do the section within the hour.

I was taken to a labor/deliver/recovery room and bereft of my clothing. I think it was at that point that it all hit home, and I started the bawling (when I get upset I sleep - can't sleep? bawl profusely). DH was on his way for the actual delivery (we figured our oldest daughter could supervise the group for an hour or 2 and had the neighbors downstairs available to her in case of emergency). DH arrived as they were doing the IV, etc., and having me sign all sorts of paperwork agreeing that IF they killed me we would kindly accept their apology and move on.

DH & OB arrived at about the same time and the OB immediately pulled DH to the side and began to draw pictures of my nether regions/pregnant belly on the dry erase board in the room. I knew they were up to something (besides porno pictionary) but I couldn't hear what they were discussing until they were done with all the blood draws, etc. and my OB came over. He explained that he would like to do a "tummy tuck" of sorts along with the c-section. He said that my stomach was so distended that I would have a "misshapen abdomen w/folds of skin" for the rest of my life at this point, but if I was willing he could do something to help that out. Normally I'm not much of a vain one, but phrasing it like that left me imagining myself walking around with a wiggly, jiggly mountain of flesh tucked into my pants for the rest of my life; I was pretty sure that this would interfere with my shuffle board playing in retirement so I agreed. He did some inital sketches on my belly and went from a decsion to remove a 2-3 inches oval strip of skin up to a 4-5 inches oval strip of skin. With that agreed upon we head into the operating room.

Into the OR. We got the spinal in, which I hate so much. They numbed 2 or 3 different spots and yet still managed to actually insert that massive spinal needle in non numbed spots 2 different times. They took my underwear off and threw them in the biohazard container (should I take offense at that?). Then came the poking with toothpicks to see if I was numb enough to dissect. This part of the c-section always bothers me. I mean, is a toothpick really scientific enough approach to determine if you should break out the knives and carve? Finally they called my DH in and we began.


It was completely different than my other c-section. Because of the "decorative trimming" plan, it took an extremely long time to enter (7 minutes to baby my butt). Dex came out completely covered in vernix (looked like a ghost) screaming like a banshee (thus sounded like a ghost) at 5:52PM. He screamed through the remainder of the operation, and I have to admit that even my nerves were fried after about 20 minutes of it; the people in the room with us were looking pretty nerve wracked too. LOL. We didn't leave the OR until after 8PM which should've tipped me off that my incision, dealing with the fluid, etc. wasn't exactly run of the mill. I didn't handle the length of the procedure very well. At some point around seven I started crying; when that became unsatisfactory I started cussing. Once I was bored with that I passed the rest of the time vomiting.

Back to recovery for an hour, where I finally got to hold Dex for the first time. I was still completely numb and but I got the chance to feel my incision site and realized that it ran the entire width of my belly - we're talking just a little short of hip to hip. I think I realized then that I had completely and totally screwed myself; recovering from this thing was going to be an ordeal.I mean, really, fat people play shuffleboard all the time, right?

From recovery we went up a few floors to the maternity ward. There they put me in a room with an extremely unpleasant woman who actually hated me because SHE didn't want to share a room. The irony of that wasn't lost on me. They settled me in, pulled the curtain around me and left me sitting there with some pads crammed between my thighs, a blanket and a remote. I stayed that way until about 2AM. I spent most of it pondering the wonder of being able to move one's legs. I gradually regained feeling in my lower body, and then wished I hadn't. This incision was a serious piece of work.

At about 2AM I felt a gush of blood. I at first thought it was the initial onset of the whole postpartum bleeding thing. It was followed by 2 more gushes that crept down to my knees and then off the bed around me. I thought then that it was a bit excessive, but still held off buzzing anyone as you can only imagine the blank stare one would get if you page a nurse in a postpartum maternity ward and tell them your hoohaw is leaking. Immediately after that I had this urge to push, and became the proud mother of a clot that was larger than a tennis ball, immediately followed by another. So, yes, at that point I buzzed the nurse. And, cookie for me, I was right on her reaction. I told her I was bleeding. She said that was what was supposed to happen - did I need anything else. So I told her that I had just given birth to two friendly little blood clots and if she didn't get in there quick I was going to name them and take them home with me.

What immediately followed that is kind of a blur. She came in, took off my blanket and ran out of the room. I remember freaking out and just saying over and over that she had left me. The blood was pouring out at this point. It was up my back, all the way down to my ankles and pooling around the bed and she had left me. Almost immediately she returned with 7 other nurses, some med students, and the resident. If they had read my chart they could've known at this point that I was a polyhydramnios mama and that a hemmorage was almost expected but no one read the chart until several hours later. Instead they began trying to clear the clots by the resident putting her entire hand up my hoohaw and grasping my uterus from the outside (ie that monster incision) and forcing down. I made it through about 10 minutes of this before I totally lost control over myself. I've never experienced pain like that in my life, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was surrounded by people who had no idea what to do next. They began dosing with morphine through the IV every 2 minutes and continued their "massage". I was screaming and yelling and crying to the point my poor roomate ran out of the room and down the hall (I don't know what happened to her, by the way, I forgot to ask the next morning). This went on for about 3 hours. I've never in my life lost control especially in paiful situations, but I do know that I resorted to biting, scratching, hitting, screaming, yelling, and they called in more people to hold me down. Again, if they had read my chart they could've handled this differently. When my OB was finally called in on the situation I had already lost a dangerous amount of blood and was competely out of my mind. He knew about the polyhydramnios issue (the uterus had been grossly over extended thus couldn't come back down) so he knew what to do, although it wasn't much more pleasant. They placed cervadil capsules up my bum and began pumping me full of pitocin. While this did eventually force the uterus to clamp down, it also put it into laboring mode. Laboring mode after it had already been sliced open, sewed shut, and beat up for 3 hours. Most of that is just a blur. I assume it was the morphine that helped with that or maybe a natural fight/flight/getting the hell out of here mentally response. Can't say. I did at one point sign some forms agreeing to a hysterectomy and they returned me down 2 floors and to a room next to the OR, but we managed to avoid it by the pitocin/cervadil action.

I spent the next day alone in that room. I wasn't allowed pain meds, water or food (because they weren't for sure if we would need to operate). Occasionally they would come in and give a small dose of morphine but if there was ever a point where I wanted to die it was in that room. They continued to bring me Dex and tried to hold him to my breast and force him to latch on. He wasn't in the best shape either at this point, and remember wishing that if I didn't die maybe some of these nurses would. Dex was a miserable little animal at this point, as they wouldn't supplement him with formula because I had signed up to breastfeed exclusively. Obviously that was not going to happen, but this hospital is extremely pro-breastfeeding and refused to consider any other route. At this point I was just a gray, mottled mess and I certainly couldn't move because I was now even more aware of how insane my incision was.

Finally, they were arrived with the blood for the transfusions and transferred me back to the maternity ward to began that process. It was an extremely long process, and at this point I had been without food for water for so long I was hysterical. Every time a nurse would come in I'd start bawling for something, anything and they'd freak out because they couldn't give me anything. LOL. I almost felt sorry for them. As they began the transfusions they allowed me ice chips which was heaven. I wasn't allowed food, juice etc. until the next day which left me without food of any type for over 36 hours. I will never forget that feeling.

Things smoothed out after that. The bleeding stopped and the transfusions were an absolute gift of God, I swear. I could function again. Once they gave me food and fluids, life was good and I regained interest in at least seeing Dex again. We spent the rest of the time in the hospital trying to catch up on that lost time, but it's been difficult. Without that initial bonding it was like he was a little stranger to me, and I was too exhausted and in too much pain to manage to fix that feeling. We gained a lot of ground, though, although it's been gradual. I got out of bed for the first time since Tuesday on Friday morning.

Saturday the agreed to let me go home and it was at that point they realized how much damage the hemmorage "massaging" had done to my incision. C-sections usually have between 7-12 staples, but mine incision had needed 36 to get closed up. The abuse it took through the hemmorage forced the staples into all sorts of strange positions including into the wound, backwards, upside down, etc. Getting them out was horrible, but it was worth it to get to come home.

All of this really took a toll on Dex too. The hemmorage affected my milk supply (it just won't come in) - something about the ?pituary gland? and although I thought we was getting at least enough, he lost 13% of his body weight and obviously became extremely jaundiced and lethargic. They did let him come home with us on Saturday with the agreement that we are the pediatrician's office Monday bright & early.

We are home. We are recovering. And I am in a state of absolute JOY, believe it or not. I'm grateful for the medical technology that we have to intervene on our behalf when things go wrong. Grateful that my son is healthy; that the hemorrage happened AFTER he was safely out of the womb. I don't know that I communicated it very well, but I consider my birth story to actually be a happy, encouraging one. We are both alive after all. Maybe I'll have some humor to interject into the story at a later date, but right now it's all too fresh to look back and laugh all that loudly. ;)

Dexter says "Peace Out, People!"