I Got You, Babe

December 10, 2012 at 10:54 pm (Uncategorized)

They say that once you look upon your baby’s face for the first time all your pain and discomfort and misery over the 40 weeks it took you to reach that point fades away and you remember none of it. Well, either they lied or I’m just not one of them. I remember everything. The real question is: was it all worth it? The answer: Absolutely! Would I ever do it again? Probably not.

After the almost impossible feat of coordinating each of my doctors with one another and with the hospital, it was finally arranged that I was to be admitted early on the day of my C-section. The rule of thumb is that you cannot eat or drink anything at all for 8 hours before the surgery, and while my C-section wasn’t scheduled until noon-ish, they still insisted that I begin fasting at midnight. While I found that completely ludicrous and unnecessary, it unfortunately still had to be done or they would refuse to do the surgery. As such, I had to arrive at the hospital around 1am lest I become dehydrated, aggravate the NCS, and wind up unconscious on everyone.

It took several tries to find a delivery room that was cold enough to house me while I waited to be transferred into the operating room. They attached me to an IV with a “bolus”, which is basically when they flood your system with a ton of fluid to keep your pressure up. While it was scary not being able to drink my handy-dandy Gatorades that I refused to leave at home (I insisted a couple bottles be tucked into my pocketbook as my security blanket), I convinced the anesthesiologist to allow me ice chips. The ice chips were oddly reassuring, especially when it melted into water and I was able to drink sneakily. It wasn’t much, but the pre-op hours weren’t nearly as terrifying as I imagined they would be. The anesthesiologist turned out to be the head of the department for the hospital, since they wanted me in the best of hands. She decided that instead of the spinal, that they would instead give me the epidural. Her reasoning was that it would provide them with better control and that they could ease me into the drug instead of a single shot from the spinal that could have unexpected side effects when paired with the NCS. I agreed. It hurt. A lot.

When they wheeled me into the OR, the first thing they did was the epidural. A strong woman had to hold me while I hunched over (a position that wasn’t all that difficult since I am naturally hunchy) to make sure that I didn’t move because even the slightest movement could leave me paralyzed (yippee). Unfortunately, I am apparently not hunchy enough, because the epidural went in too far to the left and it took the anesthesiologist multiple attempts before she had it satisfactorily centered. The pain of repeated efforts wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was the sound it made… Like a tin can or a stick running along jail bars like in those old cartoons.

Then it got real fun. The team entered. I thought I was transported into a horror flick. I can’t even begin to accurately describe how truly creepy it was to be in there, alone (they hadn’t yet let in the baby daddy), with a good 10+ people surrounding me, covered head to toe in what appeared to be hazmat suits straight out of a post-apocalyptic freakshow . Granted, I am aware they weren’t actually in hazmat suits, but I suppose that’s what happens when the drugs start kicking in.

I was beginning to get really nervous when I felt the show was going on the road and they still had yet to allow my plus-one into the OR. Fortunately I suppose someone must have remembered about him because one moment he wasn’t there and the next he was holding my  hand. I was trying very hard to stay conscious. Good drugs good.

I remember forcing myself to stay awake because (a) I wanted to be alert for my baby’s arrival by doctor-stork, and (b) because I was afraid that if I fell asleep I’d never wake up.  I also remember them pushing on my stomach, which I assumed was to determine the positioning of the baby so that they’d know where they would have to cut and yank. What I didn’t realize was that the sensation wasn’t them pushing, but that they had already made the incision and were busy pulling out the baby. Somebody had forgotten to inform me… Or perhaps it was a collective decision to allow me to remain uninformed. As it turns out, I was grateful for the lack of awareness. I probably would have had an anxiety attack if I had known… and if the drugs would have allowed. And here I thought they were simply taking an awfully long time to get started!

Unfortunately, the most potent memory of the ordeal was when I heard the doctor say, “Uh-oh!”. It has been prominent throughout history (or at least my own history), that the words “uh-oh” are never followed by anything good. Then I wondered ‘why isn’t he crying?’

As it turns out, the baby’s seemingly endless activity throughout my pregnancy resulted in him getting himself into trouble; or as the doctor later wrote in the report: “severely tangled”. The baby had managed to get the umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck, twice around his torso, and twice around his arm. In addition, the cord was so thin, that even though he wasn’t considered premature, he came out weighing a mere 4lb’s 7oz.

Uh-oh indeed.

The doctor and C-section team worked really fast and managed to save him. The nurses initially told me that I would be able to have skin-to-skin contact with the baby right after they took him out (they place the baby on the mother’s chest for a few minutes since she is incapable of holding the baby in her arms due to the drugs). Instead, they cleaned and wrapped him (daddy was still able to cut the cord, though, so that was something), held him out to me for about 5 seconds so I could give him a kiss while pictures were taken, and then they whisked him off to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). I didn’t get to see him again for two days after that.

Typically, after the allotted time in recovery, the new mother gets wheeled to the newly renovated several-star hotel-esque accommodations the hospital offers, where you meet with your baby once again, and the little person gets to stay with you until your dismissal from the hospital. In my case, the anesthesiologist decided I needed to go to the cardiac telemetry ward to be monitored overnight. It was not fun. They had no idea what to do with a Cesarean patient, nor did they have any idea how to handle me, and things were a mess. I was ridiculously unhappy, and also ridiculously irrational because I was still refusing to sleep for fear that if I did I wouldn’t wake up. It takes some serious willpower to defeat the increasing pull of the heavy-duty drugs into dreamland, but I somehow managed to resist for quite a while. I think I finally relented and fell asleep in the AM hours.

Between the surgery and my eventual bedtime, I did have several visitors. They were surprised, as was I, of how little pain I was in. I kept refusing the morphine that was offered to me because I had bad experiences with painkillers and NCS a few years before when I had gotten my wisdom teeth pulled, was on vicodin for 2 days, and ended up going through severe withdrawal due to a low tolerance, most likely instigated by my NCS medications. When I woke up the morning after surgery however, the pain was definitely there since whatever they gave me in the OR had worn off. In fact, I never knew such unimaginable pain existed. At one point the nurses tried to move me an inch higher than I was since I had slipped down the bed, and it was so painful that I ended up screaming and crying in agony. People who know me are aware of my stoicism when it comes to pain, but this was just unbearable. I spent the entirety of the day in tears, freaked out a bunch of nursing students because I couldn’t prevent the waterworks even when asked simple questions, and was just utterly miserable. I think it was the combination of pain, crazy hormones, and the fact that I didn’t even remember what my baby looked like and was in no condition to go visit him. I also had received no calls from any of the NICU doctors or nurses telling me what was happening with him. Family did go spend time with him, but they didn’t return well-informed.

I was also miserable because I kept being told that if I didn’t get up and start walking around the pain wouldn’t lessen. I thought these people must be absolutely out of their minds if they think I’m capable of adjusting myself in the bed, let alone getting up and walking around. I managed to do it eventually, after several hours of bawling and insisting that I’m incapable of moving ever again. Of course they were right. By the evening I was moved onto the fancy floor where the mommies get to live for a few days, and by the following evening I was finally up to wheelchair-ing my way to visit my baby.

The moment I laid eyes on him I cried. He was so tiny, but so, so incredibly beautiful. The nurses wouldn’t let any of the visiting family (including the daddy) hold him until mommy got to, and honestly, I was terrified. He was just so small and fragile looking… I thought that one touch to his head might make it cave in, which made me cry even more. I went constantly for prenatal care and this was a huge oversight on their part. The NICU nurse had to put him in my arms for me, and as I looked down at him, I realized how truly thankful I was for having NCS. After all, it was only because of the NCS that I had the C-section, and it was also only because of the NCS that the Obstetrician agreed to deliver him 2.5weeks early. If I didn’t have NCS, I wouldn’t have had my baby. Plain and simple. He was too severely tangled to have had a safe vaginal delivery, and he was too small from the thin cord to have gotten enough nutrition and oxygen… likely he would not have even made it to full term.

Who would have thought that my being cursed with NCS saved my baby’s life? NCS, as it turns out, was a gigantic blessing. I even had a couple days in the hospital when I was so pumped up with oxygen, extra blood, and large volumes of fluid that my NCS went away. I had forgotten what it felt like to be normal for 10 years now… I’ve been dizzy for 10 years… and for a wonderful 36-or-so hours, I finally got to remember. I was so happy and relieved not to have the world spinning, and not to feel like the ground was moving beneath my feet, that I cried when the NCS settled in again. It’s back with a vengeance now, but crazily enough, when it comes down to it, I will be forever thankful that I have NCS. It is the sole reason that 7 weeks later, I have a healthy, thriving, incredibly beautiful baby boy.

Then put your little hand in mine
There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb
Babe
I got you babe, I got you babe
I got you to hold my hand
I got you to understand
I got you to walk with me
I got you to talk with me
I got you to kiss goodnight
I got you to hold me tight
I got you, I won’t let go
I got you to love me so
I got you babe

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