My Labour Story: Part Two... Bitchy Nurse

Okay, so Part One is below.

We had been hoping that my in-laws would be able to drive to our place and take care of the dogs during our hospital stint. Thing is, I was in there 4 weeks before my due date, so no one was expecting it. My in-laws were in another province, and my mother-in-law was set to be staying a few more days to help out my sister-in-law. She had literally changed her return ticket the day before to extend her stay.

My MIL had even called to make sure I wasn't hospital bound. At the time, I wasn't, so it was all good. Turned out we needed to call them ASAP to see if they could make it back to help us out.

We were in the hospital assessment room. It was more of a group exam room - at least 5 beds laid out in close proximity, with the ever-so-private curtain between. I was grateful that I was the only one in there, though I do enjoy a good overhearing-about-others'-vagina-issues eavesdropping under normal circumstances.

The Hubs got on the phone to notify his parents and see who was coming back to BC, and when.

As an aside: I had no birth plan per se. I think mapping out a totally unpredictable scenario is a bit like intentionally setting yourself up for major disappointment. I figured that shit would get crazy at some point and either me or the Hubs would have to make some major decisions on the fly. That's how I roll. But I was specific about two things: no students, and no males wherever I was given the choice.

The Universe laughed at me, as it ended up being a male OB who delivered her. (Notably checking my cervix every 2 minutes to see where the baby was... and for those of you who aren't aware, "checking my cervix" is a nice way of saying "jamming his hand up my hoo-ha").

In truth, aside from the man-handling, he was a top notch doctor and he did right by me and Baby D.

Anyway, the bitchy nurse came back and said that the initial OB on duty wanted to send her MALE STUDENT to come and take my background info. I am horrible at stating my needs and wishes, and Hubs was on the phone. I had to tell her I wasn't comfortable with that (I had already told her about no students and no males). She said "Well, that's what the OB wants".

I told her again I wasn't okay with that.
She told me too bad.
I told her no, I was not okay with that.

She rolled her eyes and left me.

However - small win, the female OB ended up coming to us herself. PHEW. Glad that worked out.

No one could figure out how the baby was laying. It had been a source of major stress for me in the month + before - my other pregnant friends here had been shown how the babies were sitting, but I looked like I had a two-butted baby, and the movements made no sense with where a baby's limbs should be. After baffling my own OB, the nurse at ER a few weeks before, the nurse in labour & delivery, and the OB there, they decided to do a bedside ultrasound.

THANK GOODNESS baby was indeed head down. They said she looked like a heart in my belly. I was just so glad that we had a shot at a normal "natural" (read: through my hoo-ha) delivery. If the baby had been in a whacked out position, my only option would have been a c-section.

(You guys all know how I'd recover from THAT. Read: not well. Though, turns out a vaginal delivery still had lots of surprises and recovery for me as well).

The nurse was a total bitch when I told her that I knew I was GBS bacteria positive with the pregnancy. (It's a relatively common thing that affects preggers women). I was told I would need antibiotics when my water broke in order to keep the baby safe and greatly reduce the chances of passing infection on. The nurse told me there were no records and I "would have been swabbed".

I told her I was positive, it was from a pee test SUPER early in pregnancy, and that I was sure of it. I even knew the approximate date and the ordering doctor. She continued to not believe me and be a bitch. She told the OB I was "under the impression" that I was positive, but that there was nothing in the chart. After a quick review, and me reiterating the details of the date and findings to the OB, she found it in my chart. The nurse laughed it off and said she "read it but didn't see it". Bah.

I know people can make mistakes, but I understood it was important to get it started, and she just kept treating me like I had no idea what I was talking about.

So, my MIL changed her ticket to come back that afternoon, the Hubs was off the phone, the OB decided to induce me.

There was talk of putting some kind of baby-forcing-outage gel in my inner depths, but then they decided against it since my water had already broken and it could introduce some nasty shizz in there.

So... they decided to start me on Pitocin/Oxytocin (a drug that starts strong and/or more painful contractions) post-haste and start the delivery rolling. But because:
A) I'm a wuss
B) I have an existing pain condition
C) Inducing drugs cause massively painful contractions,  and
D) I'm a wuss
E) (see A and D)

they planned to start me on an epidural at the SAME time as the Oxytocin.

And here I am before the agony started:

You may notice my barf tray. You're welcome. Also? I can rock a muthaf_ckin' blue gown, yo.

To be continued...


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My Labour Story: Part One... No, I didn't pee myself, thanks.

I had been feeling overly sleepy all day. Had meant to Skype with a friend from Ontario, and ended up falling asleep in a chair a few times. I had finally cleaned up the miscellaneous items and boxes that were at the side of my bed since our move in February, and it took all the energy I had. I was 36 weeks pregnant that Friday. Babies are considered full term from 37 to 40 weeks.

I ended up laying back down and didn't get to Skype. The Hubs came home from work and we chatted for a bit and watched a bit of TV, but I had to come up to bed. I think I may have coloured for a bit, napped, read, napped, and just fought to get up to go the washroom. The poor Hubs ended up spending HOURS assembling a porch glider on the living room floor. He didn't end up in bed until 1:30am or so.

That weekend we were going to install the car seat, pack the hospital bags. Our hospital tour was scheduled for the upcoming Tuesday. The Universe laughed at us.

I had been to the washroom and was finally falling back into that crippling-hip-breast-pain side laying position on our shitty, faulty Kingsdown mattress from Sears (post to follow, but Sears sucks ass and their customer service is horrible). Sleep was light. And my water broke.

My immediate reaction: W.T.F.?

I hopped up (it was, quite possibly, the fastest I moved my entire pregnancy) and proceeded to penguin waddle to the bathroom (easy-to-clean tile floors and all) as the water continued. I think I passed my mucous plug. I tried to pee. And then I remembered I was supposed to note the time and sit down, so I did on the floor. More water puddled out, and it actually felt surreal, like I was dreaming.

Now, because I had been so   energetic   vivacious   seizing the day   exhausted the days before, I was ripe for a shower. The concept of 72 doctors and nurses all over my unshowered hoo-ha for the next whoever-knows-how-many hours was not appealing. I did know though that I needed to go to the hospital at some point for the required antibiotics for Group B Strep once my water broke (or at least, that is what one resident told us previously).

It was 3:20am on May 25th, 2013.

I decided I would slowly have a fast shower (lol) and then go down the two flights of stairs to wake the Hubs and likely scare the shyte out of him with the news.

Waking him was cute. I was in my shower robe, and I said really calmly (and probably very cute-ly, if I do say so myself) "Hi hon, my water broke".

He sprung up into this crazy feral on-all-fours position (after clarifying with me that I was not, in fact, joking). I think the two hours of sleep, and four weeks earliness, sent him into a wee bit of a tailspin. It was really quite adorable and an incredible shift, because he is ALWAYS the calm one and I am ALWAYS the crazy/dramatic/high-strung one.

One of us realized we were supposed to call the hospital, so we called labour & delivery. The nurse said that it wasn't "alarm bells and whistles" but to head down to the hospital to be checked out. We tried to gather the few baby things I had set out, some clothes and socks for me, bedding and stuff for him, and tried to proceed calmly. It didn't feel like we were in a hurry, but he was quite absent minded and very cute. I had an eerie calm about me. Perhaps a little relief that the horribly uncomfortable interpretive-dance-ninja in my inner loins was finally going to be sprung free into the world. Or maybe I was just too tired to think. Could have been either.

Our dogs knew something was up instantly and they were barking their fool heads off outside at 4am. We made our way to the hospital around 4:30am or so. Registered at the emergency desk, then the Hubs wheeled me up to the labour floor.

There, we were promptly ignored and put into a group exam room. The nurse at the desk acted like I was foolish for being there and let us wait until nearly 5:30am before tending to us. From there, she checked with a little litmus-like paper strip to see if my waters were in fact amniotic fluid that had broken. She genuinely appeared surprised when the strip registered a deep purple, confirming that baby had really and actually sprung a leak.



THEN she stopped being a bitch and paged the OB (Obstetrician).

Shit was about to get real.

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I Birthed, Yo.

I have about 3.4 seconds to write this post, but wanted to update y'all.

I gave birth to a beautiful, wonderful, snuggly, amazing little girl in the wee hours of May 26, which was 4 weeks early.

It was a terrifying, painful, amazing thing. I will post a shizz ton of detail in the future, but wanted to sum that up now.

She shall be called "Baby D" from here on in.

I look forward to sleep sometime in the next two decades?



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