From: larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu (Tracy Larrabee)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: My labor, part 2: having Alec
Date: 6 Jan 1993 00:42:00 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
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Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: My labor story, Part 2: having Alec
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Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
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I posted the first part of my labor story two weeks ago, and then I
didn't get around to doing the second part (christmas and mastitis
were two things holding me back, but that's another story).  In the
part of the story I posted, I was in labor for 17 hours and the
medical gang tried unsuccessfully to stop it.  At 2:00 pm on December
8 they unhooked me from my magnesium sulfate IV and told me to go
ahead and have my baby.

It took an hour or so before my vision and blood pressure stabilized
enough for me to get out of bed, but as soon as it did my husband and
I went into the shower and then for a cruise around the hallways.  It
was such a treat to not be on any drugs and to be able to walk.  I
felt pretty weak, but I was vertical and that was worth a lot.  Dan
and I worked out this system where we would walk along slowly and
then when I had a contraction he would lean over on to the wall and I
would hold on to his back or his waist and lean all my weight into
him.  His warm, smooth back felt great and the area between his 
shoulder blades made a great head rest.  The contractions felt less
painful like that, but I was so weak that we couldn't keep it up for
more than a lap or two before I asked to go back to bed (remember, I
had been on total bed rest for a month before this event).

After my first walk I had several cups of broth and my nausea pretty
much disappeared.  The salt in the broth tasted incredibly good, and I
am not normally interested in salty foods.  One of the nurses said she
had seen amazingly positive results from administering salty fluids
to laboring women.

Soon after this my friend Anna arrived (with her video camera). I had
been influenced by a couple of women on the net who said they were
really glad for the video later so they could connect to reality after
a quick, emotional, or confused labor.  Anna's job was to record some
stuff for me to see later (but not for anyone else to see).  (I'm
*very* glad I did this, even if Anna did concentrate a bit much on
crotch shots.)

By this time Dan and I were pretty good at getting through the kind of
contractions I was getting then.  His help really made a difference: if
he was out of the room talking to someone or visiting the bathroom I 
felt significantly more pain.  Every hour more I felt like I was 
experiencing more pain that I ever had before and the most pain I
could possibly feel.  Anna started pressing on my back while Dan helped
me with my relaxation.  Every once and a while someone would examine
me and comment on how well everything was going.  From the time they
turned off the drip I was dilating at about 1 centimeter per hour.  I
was in pain, but I was handling it and I felt positive and happy to
be doing something.

Around 8 centimeters (I've forgotten the time--probably around 10 or
11 pm) my doctor showed up with a student.  She said Kate (the
student) was to keep her awake.  She had Kate watch Dan and Anna and I
do our thing through a few contractions and made comments about how
well I was handling labor and how this was a model for a laboring
woman and her support communicating and working together to great
effect.  Soon this speech would come to sound ironic to me.  

My doctor announced I was almost ready to push because I was almost 9
centimeters and my baby might come out then since I was only at 34
weeks.  She wanted to break my waters "to speed things along."  "Why?"
I wailed?  It seemed to me that things were moving along swimmingly
and I didn't want my waters broken.  I said I was willing to change my
mind, but she should talk to us and explain why this was a good
idea--especially since I had heard of labors becoming pretty painful
after the woman had her waters broken.  She said it would speed
things along, and that other than that it shouldn't affect the pain,
but it was up to me.  She seemed interested in speeding things up
partly because she didn't really like the position the kid was in.
She said he was "acynclitic."  What that means that his head was
cocked so he was presenting the side of his head.  Sort of the part
you think of being under one of those pointy birthday hats when it is
on slant-wise.  

My doctor said another alternative was nipple stimulation.
The nurse who was in the room at the time said she couldn't allow
me to stimulate my nipples without putting me back on the monitor
full-time.  After having spent so many days on the monitor, I really
didn't want it on.  I was laboring in the nude, and every once and 
a while they would hold the fetal monitor up against me and check that
things still looked good.  I found this much more comfortable than
wearing the monitor and much less psychologically restrictive.  I 
got the impression that the nurse didn't really care what I did, but
she couldn't officially know about it (mostly because she said, I 
can't let you stimulate your nipples without putting back on the 
monitor, and then she left).  So I stimulated my nipples some, and
we continued intermittent monitoring.  Soon after that a new nurse
came on and my doctor went to take a nap.

The new nurse suggested that I try laboring in a position designed to
get the kid to stop being so cock-headed, and I agreed.  The position
was on my side with my spine sort of twisted and my hips elevated.  At
this point my labor slowed way down and became even more painful. I said
I sure wished I had a mint, and the nurse actually found me a mint (it
really tasted good).  She had to interrogate many other nurses before
she found me a mint: I was really grateful. 

I became kind of disoriented, and I picked up from the nurse that
people were suddenly much less happy about how I was progressing.
After some period of time in that position the nurse examined me and
announced I was only 7 centimeters dilated (and I had been "almost 9"
an hour or two before that).  I got up and took another shower, took
one last lap around the maternity ward, and got back in bed to wait
for my Doctor.  I began to feel I should have let her break my waters
(why I felt that way is something I don't really remember well now).
I was feeling really discouraged.  I thought I had been through
transition, and here I had to do it again.  The nurse said it was a
good sign that I was discouraged.  Yes, I was familiar with the
Bradley emotional signposts of labor, but damn-it, I had gone
backwards on the dilation scale and I was upset!

My doctor showed up, broke my waters, and all clear and organized
memory of what happened next is completely gone.  I thought I had been
in the worst possible pain: I was wrong.  I thought I had been
disoriented before: I was wrong.  As soon as she broke my waters
things were totally overpowering, painful, and disorienting.  I
started screaming--or at least that is what I thought I was doing.
Turns out I was yelling and I followed my husband's directions to keep
my sounds low in my throat.  I don't remember it now, but he says he
was groaning and moaning along with me and that I did much better that
way.  He told me to relax various parts, and I did it, but I was still
screaming in my head.  

My doctor said later that from her standpoint I was still doing a
fantastic job of handling labor and she would have been willing to
display me to anyone as an example of effective cooperation between a
woman and her support team.  But I began to feel ashamed of myself.  I
began to say things like "Oh, just shoot me," and "Do something, just
do anything to me."  I knew that if someone had said "Here is this
fine drug that will take the pain away but it is very bad for your
baby," I either would have asked for the drug or almost asked for it
(probably depending on my husband).  I couldn't think of my child: I 
could only be overwhelmed by my pain.  I could never fault a woman
for having any sort of drug in that situation, and I never will. I'll
have more to say about drugs and my situation later.

I didn't have hardly any time between contractions, but I said to my
doctor during one pause "I'm going to like, pushing, right?"  But she
didn't give me a clear answer (or I lost the answer during the next
contraction).  Later she told me that in her experience a lot of women
who handle labor well really hate pushing, but she didn't think I
needed to hear that then (she needn't have worried: I had no idea I
was "tolerating labor well") Anyway, I didn't have long from them to
wait to learn how I liked pushing, because soon after that my doctor
told me it was time to push.  Actually, it was more like:

        Doctor: Tracy, Tracy, it is time to push.
        Nurse:  It is time to push out your baby, Tracy.
        Dan: Time to push, Babe.

and all the time I am looking out of it and whining about "then, why
don't I feel any urge to push?"

So I tried to push.  And I thought I was in pain before that.  I had
no urge to push, not too much knowledge about how to push, and very
little affect when I tried to push.  The nurse, my doctor, and my
husband began the long 3 hours of guiding me through the process of
pushing.  The whole time they said the baby would come in the next few
minutes.  The pediatrician was called into the room (where he napped
on the couch) and the nursery was notified.  I remember hearing the
nurse say "You know what, she's just going to figure this pushing thing
out in a couple of pushes (like she did with transition) and this
baby is going to be born."  But the little guy just didn't want to
come out.  

They coached me through pushing; they taught me what was effective
pushing; they made me push in several different positions (another
thing I felt guily about later was that I didn't want to get into the
positions because it hurt to move, but all I did was say it hurt and
then get into the positions: we can be so hard on our selves).  But
the little guy just didn't want to come out.  One position involved 
hanging upright over the top of the bed (with the head of the bed all
the way up) until a contraction when I would come down in a modified
squat.  That hurt like the dickens, but everything did.  Anyway...

I would push him part way down the canal and my doctor would say it
was great, but then when the contraction would end he would zip all
the way back into my pelvis again.  The post-birth analysis was that
he had his elbow hooked over my pubic bone into my bladder which made
it had to keep him down because he kept pulling himself back up.
(Even now, at 4 weeks of age, he enjoys sticking his elbows up over
his head.)  All I know is that I was delirious with pain.  I know 3
hours passed, but I couldn't feel the time.  I just held on to the
voices telling me what to do and tried to do what they asked.  I
remember crying "Why is this so hard?  He is supposed to be small!"

Eventually my anti-episiotomy doctor gave me a nice big episiotomy and
got my son past the point where he was stuck.  When he was born he was
blue.  I saw him for a second or two on my stomach before they whisked
him off to be examined.  To be perfectly truthful, I didn't care very
much.  I was still in a fog of pain and I just wasn't very sensible.
I didn't feel like a Mom yet.  I certainly didn't insta-bond.  I watched
them examine him for 5 minutes or so in my room, but it was sort of 
a detached intellectual interest: I knew I should be interested, but 
it wasn't really as important as my own disorientation and pain.  

They gave my son oxygen (they said they just gave him "whiffs") and
worried a lot about how floppy he was (very poor muscle tone).  He
wimpered and cried and sounded like a pretty normal baby to an
ignoramous like me.  They took him off to the nursery, so my husband
went too.  My friend Anna stayed while I delivered the placenta (more
pain) and got stitched up (no big deal).  I was exhausted and miserable.
At this point I had last slept on Sunday night and it was 3:45 am on
Wednesday morning.  I felt very emotionally upset as well as physically
uncomfortable.  My doctor tried to talk to me about it and all I did
was say I didn't feel like a Mom.  She said various comforting things
about my having done a good job and my need for rest and that she 
would see me later.

The nurse came in, helped me to the bathroom (I couldn't really stand)
and eventually into pad, panties, shift, and robe.  They wheeled me to
the nursery so I could see Alec.  That's his name: Alec Larrabee Mills
(had he been a girl she would have had the middle name of Mills and
the last name of Larrabee).  When I saw Alec he looked so small and
helpless (though he was a huge 34 week baby at 5 pounds 13 ounces).
He had a little IV and a lot of sensors and he seemed to be working
hard at breathing, though he didn't have any oxygen or a ventilator.
I didn't want to touch him.  I just sat there and cried.  I didn't
understand until later that when Alec was born I was hit with a wave
of grief for the last child I carried--the one who died last February.

After that brief visit I went to my recovery room and slept for 5
hours (as did my husband).  When we awoke we saw Alec again, and this
time I held him and I only felt wonder and happiness at his existence
and not grief.  They said his floppiness was gone and they thought it 
was a remnant of the magnesium sulfate I was given.

This was the beginning of my time spent in the level-2 Nursery.  I
would like to write about that too, though I can't tell for sure if I
will be able to make the time.

I said later I would have something else to say about drugs.  As I've
said, I could never fault any woman--any person--for accepting relief
from that kind of pain.  I asked my doctor why it hurt so much, and
she talked about Alec's coming down acynclitic and the elbow thing.  I
said I couldn't imagine having a term baby if it was that hard to have
a small one.  She said the discomfort doesn't seem to be correlated
like that and that she thinks there is more connection to how little
sleep I had had for days and how little rest I had had for weeks.  I 
was very weak. She said her impression was that I had a very bad time,
but I handled it well.  I told her I felt ashamed of my behavior and
my lack of maternal feelings when he was born.  She told me I behaved
well and I should stop listening to fairy tales and enjoy my son.

She said next time, if I want an epidural, it is my choice, but every
birth is different.  She said she was glad I didn't have an epidural
this time because the pushing was difficult enough for me with all the
strength and sensation and that it is possible I wouldn't have been
able to get him out if I had less sensation and control.  We don't
know: we never will.  I'm not really unhappy with how the labor
*went*, but I was sure unhappy with how it *was*going*.  I didn't get
any "magic of birth" feelings.  I was just miserable.  But it is over
with, and Alec is wonderful, and he is OK, and right now dealing with
the rest of my life seems impossible, but very worthwhile.  I wonder
if I will ever again not feel overwhelmed by everything (good and bad).

Anyway, thank you again to all of you who have helped me through this, and
please forgive me if I owe you email.  I don't know if I will ever get
to my email, to be truthful.  But please know that you helped me--that
you made a difference.  

It was all worth it.  I may have underestimated the pain of Alec's birth,
but I also underestimated the way I would feel about Alec.  Like every
mother before me, I am amazed at the intensity of my feelings for him.  
He's requesting his dinner now, and I am still being treated for mastitis
(and Alec having his dinner on time is part of the treatment), so I think
I will stop running off at the keyboard.

--
Tracy Larrabee          larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu