First I'll tell you that Stevens word is sorry. He says 'oops yahee'. The h is silent. He doesn't pronounce s at all and only sometimes pronounces r.
I was thinking today and I thought I'd tell you about my having babies. Technically I don't really consider it 'giving birth' as I didn't have either boy naturally. On with the show.
Mikel was my first baby. He was 2 weeks late. He never dropped. My water never broke. I didn't go into labor. I was induced at 8am the morning of January 24 that year. The day before, they put some crap on my cervix to get it to soften. They put me on pitocin to start contractions and broke my water. It looked like a plastic tongue depressor, that thing they used to break the water. I was hooked up to the monitors. It's hard to believe that the baby's heartbeat is supposed to be around 160 to 200 per minute. Then you get to watch the contraction paper. It took a few hours for it even to start to curve at all. I decided that I didn't want to be hopped up on any kind of pain medication until I needed it. Around noon or so the doc came and I wasn't dilated yet. Stubborn baby! Talk about embarassing. Having a baby in the hospital is safer, yet still sucks. All the nurses look at the one place you don't allow almost anyone to see. Bad enough you do that once a year with your gynecologist. I have to tell you, I was pretty bored. It took a while to even get contractions that hurt. They did start hurting. There's this chart paper they use to print out of the machine. The worst I ever got was a half curve. This baby wasn't wanting to come out, and I wasn't waiting until he wanted to, to get the pain to go away. Fuck this shit, this was gonna go on for a long time. Pain meds, and now! They gave me morphine. It did nothing for the pain and made me throw up. The nurses seemed to think it was weird it didn't work. Probably my immune system. It's not like I ever expirimented with drugs to know what would work. The doc came to see me 4 times that day. Around 7pm he said I was only dilated to 2 and had been since noon. When I first got pain meds. They made me wait for the morphine to wear off before I could get something different. An anesthesiologist came up to give me an epidural. I have to say, with that big ass belly it's hard to bend around a pillow to arch your back and hold still too. I think I told him I was in love with him! LMAO! I'm sure that wasn't the first time he ever heard that one. So on with what my doc said. They had turned the pitocin drip up as far as they could. They can only turn it up for a while then they have to turn it back down. However that works. So he says we can do this some more and take the baby tomorrow or we can do it now. From examinations and whatnot he was fairly sure that baby was not coming out the natural way. Kid still hadn't dropped. What's supposed to happen is they drop and irritate the cervix causing it to thin and you to have contractions. Not my baby! I was bored with the waiting and unwilling to go through this till the next day and have a c-section anyway. So I said, lets do it now. I was lucky, I had a doc that wasn't gonna make me go through 3 days of pitocin just to see if the baby would come. It's not good for the baby to be dry for a long time anyway. Had to wait for the anesthesiologist to come again and numb me from the waist down. Wheeled into the little surgery they have on the OB ward. They shaved me, didn't expect that. I'm sure it wasn't easy for the nurses either as my belly wasn't easily moved. I remember Bill sitting in one chair and the guy with the oxygen mask in the other. He was very nice. Didn't feel anything but pressure. I did feel the knife, just wasn't painful. Weird. I also felt them put the baby on my chest before they cut his cord. Then I felt a heavy pressure on my chest. I asked what it was. Apparently they take the uterus out too, for a reason I forgot. Probably to remove the placenta. I know they showed me the baby, I just don't remember seeing him. I was drugged after all. I could hear him screaming. Babies are not happy to be out of that warm belly. He was the most adorable baby. Afterwards one of the nurses told me he probably shouldn't have been born naturally anyway. His shoulders were too big. Doc may have had to break one to get him through. Then the doc said I could have a natural birth next time...if it was a girl. Why? Because they are smaller at birth. Oh, and Mikel was 8lb 15oz and 19 inches long.
With Steven it was less of a big deal. Remember I hadn't had anything normal happen with Mikel. Since he was a boy, we scheduled a c-section 5 days before his due date. It was a Monday. On Sunday, the day before, I woke up and felt wet. So off Mikel went to his grandparents and we went to the hospital. I only lost my plug, the water didn't break. I didn't know what it was like for the water to break on it's own so, it's an honest mistake. Anyway, they said since I lost the plug, the water would soon break and labor by monday most likely anyway. Or worse, in the middle of the night. So the doc on call said we could do the c-section that day or wait until monday or the middle of the night, whenever the water broke. Screw that shit. I said lets do this. Then we can watch the Chiefs game. Yeah, I know having a baby or football game. The game started by the time we were in the little surgery room. Had to wait for the anesthesiologist a bit. So the whole time they are doing their thing, we are talking about the game. LMAO. What's the score, who'll win. I don't think they would have talked about it with me awake, but I was asking. I was having my tubes 'tied' too. So that took longer. All they do is snip about a quarter or half inch of them out. This way the egg never reaches the uterus, no more babies! The doc asked me if I was sure atleast 10 times. I was getting pissy about it. I understand why he asked but jeez, I signed a paper months ago. Maybe it's because I was 25. (It wasn't yet April.) Anyway, I think Bill got to watch the last half of the game. I was rather disappointed, I love to watch football on sundays. Being drugged doesn't go well with watching a game. This time, I was itching all to hell from the epidural. They gave me Benadryl for it. Needless to say, it didn't work. I was scratching my face into the next day. Steven's birth wasn't all that exciting. He was 8lb 0oz and 19 inches long. He was born on December 15.
I never did like being pregnant. I didn't like the birth thing either. I only wanted the end result. Some women like those parts too, I think they are nuts! So when someone wants to talk about the birth process, I am as ignorant as anyone who hasn't had any babies at all. I didn't have any of the normal things that come with it. Water never broke, no real contractions to speak of, my one labor was induced, baby never dropped, etc. If they wanna know how to deal with the after of having a c-section, I know that part!
You know, my kids never kicked anyone when they would touch my belly. They moved and kicked me. If their daddy put his hand on my belly they would reach out and just touch his hand. With my sisters, they just ignored it. It's funny my boys didn't have anything normal before their births. I knew Mikel was left-handed before he he was even born. He only used his left hand to touch. I know this only because I know what position he was in once he was to big to really change positions. Everything he's done since has been with his left hand. Steven hasn't decided which he his. He could be both. He uses both hands equally. Even with coloring and drawing and eating. |