The Fallopian Chronicles, Part 4
My pregnancy was, for the most part, rather uneventful. I was afraid at first because of my age (38 at conception). We counted each day from the moment we received the positive pregnancy test holding our breath, almost expecting a miscarriage. When that didn’t happen, my husband, David, and I felt relieved and we both began to relish all the changes that were happening. Even my ballooning belly made us feel giddy. At work, my friends commented that since becoming pregnant I was more even-keeled, less likely to blow up. The hormones balanced me emotionally like never before. It was like my body was meant to be pregnant and I joked that I should have been popping out kids since the age of fourteen like the hearty peasant that I was. Think of the heartache I would have avoided by merely having happy hormone balance! Not to mention being able to wear comfortable, stretchy maternity clothes.
I had excellent prenatal care. I felt like I was in very capable hands at my team practice. Each doctor in the practice made me feel they had a personal stake in my pregnancy. After each routine checkup, I left feeling great, eagerly awaiting my son’s birth. I took a new birth defect screening test called the Nuchal Fold Translucency screen (or NT Screen) coupled with two blood markers. It’s supposed to be 90% effective in detecting possible birth defects. My results were so positive, my doctor and I decided against amnio because the chances for a miscarriage with the amnio were greater than my chances for birth defects.
All was going well. I couldn’t believe it.
Then, at my 36-week checkup, the nurse took my blood pressure and furrowed her brow. “Hmmmm. Your pressure is up,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is that bad?” I asked. “Not necessarily,” she said, “it tends to rise in the last trimester.”
She had me lay on my left side and when she took my pressure again, it was normal. I was asked to come back in three days to get tested again. When I went in, the nurse took my pressure and left the room immediately without saying a word. Within seconds, in came one of the doctors who said my pressure was rising and I needed to go to the hospital immediately for a non-stress test on the baby, blood tests, and an ultrasound to measure the amount of amniotic fluid. My head spun! “What does this mean?” I asked.
“Well, it could be nothing and we’ll just monitor you. Or, if it is the onset of preeclampsia, we will induce you tonight, because the only cure for preeclampsia is to have the baby.”
It happened to be the day before Valentine’s Day so as I walked to the hospital next door, I phoned my husband and told him he may have a baby as a Valentine’s gift. He had plans for a “last night out with the guys before childbirth.” We decided that he wouldn’t rush home from work until I had some sort of verdict, so in I went to the triage section of the maternity floor all by myself.
This felt really weird. I wondered if I’d come in and they’d say they’d have to induce. I imagined being in a lot of pain; that it would all happen extremely fast. I’d call my husband between contractions and he’d show up right before the blessed event, trying to sober up.
At triage, they checked me in and asked me if I had a living will. I certainly wasn’t expecting this and wondered if I was going to come out of this thing alive. I imagined my innards being parceled out to desperate citizens of Berkeley eager to get my faulty Cajun organs: the liver with its susceptibility to cirrhosis, the heart with its susceptibility to attacks, the lungs caked with party smoking (though, for the record, I quit prior to getting pregnant), the eyes in all their nearsightedness, the ears waning into deafness from too many loud rock concerts. It’s funny, as much as you obsess about having a baby for the entire 40 weeks, you still don’t think of the baby as anything more than an additional organ in your body. Who would get the baby? My baby who I was sure was nothing short of perfect. A genius. A great Adonis. How dare these people take my child! At this point, it was still all about me.
I was hooked up to a monitor that checked the baby’s heart rate for about 40 minutes, and was then sent down to ultrasound for the amniotic fluid measurement and then blood work. All of it was fine, but from that time until I gave birth, I was to go to the hospital for these tests twice a week. I found out that this was pretty common given the fact that a lot of women get elevated blood pressure toward the end of their pregnancy. I wasn’t worried. I assumed that they were right — preeclampsia, if I got it, would be cured once the baby was born — and the chances of my having it were slim, right? I just didn’t see myself as high-risk anything. I was kind of excited to be on disability and to be home, watching TV, vegging out for a while. I was also required to collect urine for 24 hours in a gallon jug so they could get accurate protein levels. I behaved well and settled into the routine, making friends with all the nurses and technicians who were to care for me.
By week 39, my blood pressure was elevated but nothing extreme and when I lay on my left side, my blood pressure would drop down to normal levels. I continued to go the doctor and quickly developed an addiction to Star magazine and the Oprah show. But, by the end of week 39, I started feeling kind of funny. I had a slight, very dull headache and just felt tired. On Sunday night, February 29th, we were in the middle of watching the Oscars when I decided to call the doctor and report the weird feelings. He suggested I go to the hospital. My husband and I, having been packed since we were first told of higher blood pressure, were on our way within 15 minutes. This was it. We knew it.
At the emergency room, I had more urine checks and I was monitored. My doctor showed up, examined me, and said we needed to induce. Off we were. I was given a suppository to help induce labor and sent to our labor and delivery room, where I was soon hooked up to pitosin (a drug that also helps get labor going).
The delivery room was dimly lit, quiet, large, and peaceful. It was late, so I tried to sleep. David crashed on the couch. We just had to wait now. Around midnight, I awoke to terrible cramps and had to go to the bathroom. When I stood up, my water blatantly broke. No trickle. I felt a warm gush down my legs and left a slug trail of fluid as I shuffled to the potty.
Once the water broke, the contractions started to come on fiercely. From 2 a.m. until about 10 a.m. the next day, I was able to handle them, but I developed this intense fear that if they got too bad for me to cope, I’d be too late with the epidural. So, I wussed out and asked for the epidural. Within minutes, the anesthesiologist was at my back, pumping me with sweet, sweet pain relief. With that, they began pumping me with fluid (magnesium to reduce swelling, one of the symptoms of preeclampsia). I also had a cathode inserted with a lovely pee bag. I was on the bed, suddenly groggy and had turned this “natural event” into a medical procedure. Just the thing they tell you not to do when you go to the childbirth classes. But, with no more contractions, I was able to drift in and out of sleep.
By mid-morning, I was contracting and beginning to dilate. My friend and gay doula (we dubbed him my goula), Kirk, showed up and for a few hours, we chatted and joked while the monitors showed my contractions getting fiercer. The trend now is for women to hire doulas to help them along with labor. A doula is usually a woman who has been through childbirth. She will help a laboring woman by giving comfort, massages, etc. She can also help assist nervous husbands through the process. I shopped around for a few doulas but, in the end, I decided that I trusted Kirk more than anyone else. Kirk is a nurse and had delivered or assisted in the birth of at least 16 babies. Some of my friends were a bit concerned that I was to have a roomful of men at my delivery and they told me I was missing the point of havng a doula. The theory is that having a woman in the room with you other than another health-care professional makes labor easier.
Whatever.
Kirk would prove his mettle as events progressed. While chatting, mid-sentence, Kirk would look up at the monitor and go, “whoo, that was a big one. You didn’t feel that?” God bless science, cuz I couldn’t feel a thing.
Around four pm we were ready to push, so off I went. Push push push while my husband, my goula ,and three nurses gathered around my, ahem, “feminine gate.” I was pushing like all get-out. Because my water had broken more than 12 hours before, I started to run a fever. So, in went another IV with antibiotics.
Push push push some more. The nurse about to leave her shift declared I’d have the baby in the next 20 minutes. I was more motivated. Push push push.
But, something was wrong. The head was not budging. In went more needles... this time into the vagina to attach to my poor little baby’s head so they could monitor him. Up up up went my fever. Push push push went I. They noticed the baby’s heart rate going down to nil when I pushed. The doctor arrived. She said we should do a C-section. I was adamant and begged her to let me push. She said she’d let me push two more times and left. With the next push, she ran inside and said we had to do a C-section. The baby’s heart rate deceleration was dangerous. I trusted her and that was that.
The next scene is a blur for me. I got more drugs from the anesthesiologist and I was whisked away to surgery. Kirk and his partner, Julian, had to go the waiting room. I believe it was around 5 p.m., maybe later. They wheeled me into surgery. David showed up at my side in a scrub suit. I was scared. The operating room was no better than my dad’s auto repair shop. Well, maybe with less oil. Someone had Aretha Franklin cranked up very loud. There were stations all around. All empty. There was a screen blocking my view of the mutilation of my body. All I know is, within 20 minutes, they had sliced me open and out came our baby. I was crying because I couldn’t hear him. I was convinced he was dead or severely defective. I kept saying to David, “Something is wrong and their not telling us.”
But, all was well. Within a few minutes, David was able to cut what was left of the umbilical cord. Miles was cleaned off, swaddled and presented to Dad who in turn brought him over to me while they put my organs back in the cavity. I spoke and the baby turned his head to me right away. He was mine. It was amazing. Even though I was groggy and shaking uncontrollably from either it being so cold or from the drugs, I’m not sure, I won’t ever forget that feeling of seeing that baby. From the beginning of humanity, this is what it feels like to see your child for the first time. So cliché, yet so unique. How could I ever think of denying myself this experience?
Miles Landry Grayson was born at 7:29 p.m., March 1, 2004. Mother and baby were both fine.
