TL;DR

Mar 14, 2012 21:31

And then there was the one about the woman so overwhelmed by the prospect of writing a full recount of giving birth that she hid from the task for two months.

Stupid, amirite? Oh, well. We can pretend I was super busy and not actually playing Sudoku on my phone most of the time.

The baby's first name is Markus and his middle name is Falk (which means falcon). I tend to call him Snuffles - because he does. A lot. He was born on January 11th, 2012 at 19:11. It was 13 days early. He weighed 3374g and was 52cm long.

I'll give a slightly less detailed recount of his entry into this world, methinks. Or not.

On January 10th, I was induced to give birth almost as planned. I say almost because they were so busy in the morning that we were called in 45 minutes late and I had a CTG and other preliminary examinations performed, only to be told that unless I was ripe enough for them to break my water right away, I'd have to come back in the late afternoon. I wasn't and I did.

Fast forward through the part where Maz's mother was spending the night with us but absolutely nothing happened to me going back the next morning for a 7:45 appointment to get my second suppository. (I could've stayed at the hospital if I'd wanted but fuck that.) Seeing as it was a work day (Wednesday), we didn't ask a friend to drive, plus Maz stayed behind to get Kupo to pre-school. So, basically, I took the bus alone and had to walk from one end of the hospital to the other (because that's how brilliantly the buses are placed) aaaand that's when the contractions started. On that walk up for my second suppository.

Needless to say, they never gave me that second suppository but rather did more CTGs and kept forcing their fingers up inside my damn uterus to see if I was ready to have my water broken yet. Maz, of course, came down as soon as I told him there were contractions. At some point they decided that I was open enough to have my water broken and off I went to delivery where a midwife and her student (teaching hospital) were ready for me.

One thing I pretty much said right away was O HAI, I WANT DRUGS ASAP! They then made sure I understood all the alternatives and potential side-effects, but I was probably fairly dismissive, saying something to the effect of, "Yeah, yeah, and there's like a one in a million chance it'll permanently paralyse me, GIVE IT TO ME!"

Of course, they can't give an epidural until you're at a certain stage, so at first I had to endure these increasingly painful contractions. Seriously, I was surprised how much they hurt. I even commented that they hadn't hurt that much with Kupo. I don't know if anyone believed me at the time, but I still maintain that it's the truth. It hurt more this time. In fact, my uterus felt fairly like it was being torn apart, which is ironic for reasons I'll get to in a bit.

There was also an enema. Again, I'll spare you the details, but let me just stress how LOVELY it is not to fear pooping on the table. I really recommend it.

The midwife and her student were taking things fairly easily, which annoyed me. At some point I was like "okay, this hurts, GET THAT EPI!" but they kept saying I wasn't dilated enough. Well, long story short, when they did finally get around to ordering it, the anaesthesiologist was busy and before the wait was up... it was fucking too late.

To their (meager) defence, it completely blindsided them how quickly it all suddenly went. The student had been allowed to go have dinner but had to be called back before she could actually eat so they'd obviously anticipated it would take longer. They should've bloody listened when I said it hurt.

It was really hard, to be honest. A lot harder than the first time. With Kupo I had been on a contraction-stimulating IV and exhausted with no pain relief, whereas this time I was well-rested and had no IV but it motherfucking hurt and I had been cheated out of my pain relief yet again. :(

I did manage to get them to give me carbocain for the last bit, though, which is a local anaesthetic and, possibly as a result of that, the actual pushing phase was barely even unpleasant and took all of six minutes. But then again, it just felt so good to be able to do something to make the pain end that it's possible the carbocain was superfluous.

Also, again the midwife didn't know how to call it. She was like, "All right, three or four more contractions and you're done!" and I thought, "Fuck that shit, I'm going to make a liar out of you!" and did it in one.

So, then the bratling was out, and after a brief (but remarkably unpleasant, since I hadn't even felt a thing after Kupo was born) battle, so was the placenta. I was mostly relieved to be done and marvelling that I wasn't even really that sore. In fact, after they'd brought me food and such, what was predominately on my mind was whether my room up at Maternity would have a decent TV and working internet.

Buuuuuut of course it couldn't be that easy.

Ever since giving birth, I'd still had period cramp-like pains, which I'd been told were perfectly normal. I told them that they hurt and they said that unfortunately it was also normal for it to be worse second time you gave birth. Hm. Okay. A couple of hours later the pain had accelerated enough for me to go, "Ok, but can I at least have a couple of paracetamol, then? Pain's getting worse."

In retrospect, they really did seem to dismiss my mentions of pain too easily. :P

Because after, as I was on my second pad, I told the student, "I need a new pad. I can feel this one is soaked too." And she looked at me oddly and then took a good look at the bloody battlefield that was my bed. Then she went to get the other midwife who was like, "Hmm... Perhaps if you go to the bathroom we could change the sheets for you."

I wasn't actually thrilled at that prospect, although I don't recall why. Maybe I was simply feeling lazy or, you know, anaemic, but I did sit up, only to feel extremely dizzy and nauseated and be told to lie back down.

Then all of a sudden shit got serious. Doctors, nurses, other midwives were called. My bed was tipped so I was head down while the student was effing sitting on me, pushing down HARD on my abdomen, while a nurse was sitting on the other side of my bed putting a second tube in my hand (my left one already had one - just in case) and the other women were pushing and pulling my bed, or running ahead to alert whoever needed to be alerted and get an OR ready for me.

Again, I just wanted PAIN RELIEF and, also, to have people stop asking me my full name and social security number. Why the fuck they needed to do that three or four times on the way, I'll never know, but I suppose it's nice they don't want any mix-ups.

I became less grumpy when I was promised they would put me in full narcosis. Although, to be honest, I wasn't really all that grumpy. I remember making jokes. I also wasn't scared. Obviously things were getting fixed. Mostly I felt a little bad for Maz who'd just been left behind with a newborn while I'd been hurried off because I was, quite frankly, bleeding to death.

He took it all in stride, though. I'm not sure how to take it that the doctor lately told me she'd never seen anyone handling anything like that as calmly as he did. :P

In any case, they did as promised and knocked me out. When I came to, I was being taken to Recovery and I had two IVs (one in each hand), an oxygen tube, and both a regular catheter for urine, as well as a balloon catheter up inside my uterus.

They said I'd lost more than 2½ litres of blood. That's basically more than half the bloody in any average human's body. Yay.

Recovery sucks, by the way. I developed a fever due to an infection and had to stay there all night. It was like trying to sleep in the middle of Copenhagen Central Station or something. Too many lights and people all over the place.

Maz and the baby came to visit me at about 1 in the morning (6 hours after giving birth) and then they went back to the maternity ward. The nurses offered to look after the baby if Maz wanted to go home to Kupo and maybe get some rest (cuz, you know, men are delicate little creatures that need rest after their significant others nearly kick it giving birth to their progeny... idk, the coddling of men when it comes to babies annoys me). He called Recovery to have them ask if I was okay with that. I wasn't thrilled, to be quite honest, but Kupo hadn't seen either of us since early in the morning and he'd probably be frantic to wake up to us still being gone. Especially since he knew we were at the hospital. He hates every mention of hospital ever since I was in for almost a month. I couldn't care less about Maz's rest, though. Sorry, Maz. :P

So. Yeah. There I was until... I think about 8 in the morning when I was finally allowed to be rolled back. At first to a double-room but, fortunately, after a few hours they put me in a private one. I tend to like some privacy when people constantly need to stare at my naked crotch, just saying.

Although there was some amusement to be found in the fact that Maz (who visited with his dad and Kupo before I was moved) simply waltzed over to my temporary roomie and her wife and began leisurely chatting. Apparently he knew her. And he mentioned another mutual acquaintance of theirs that he'd just seen leave with her newborn.

Seriously. If all this (his calmness and how he knew the whole maternity ward) had happened in a book, I'd be suspicious of some sinister plot twist. Alas, my life is not that exciting and Maz just tends to know people in odd places.

In any case, everything is fine now. The baby is doing well and the only repercussions from my bout of bleeding were the need for three bags of blood, an infection that put me on antibiotics for three days, a low blood count I needed to be monitored for, and some precautions that they will take (medication, brief hospital stay) if I should ever need to give birth again.

I'll take a shotgun to the next person who claims you shouldn't give birth in a hospital because it's ~*~not a disease but a beautiful and natural thing~*~ though. Or, well, maybe not a shotgun. I don't have access to one. But I will place my foot firmly up their ass. And I will make sure to wear pointy boots that day. Very pointy boots.

All right... a few select pics of my various progeny. (That sentence would work better if I had more kids XD)

Snuffles at 2 days old:



Snuffles at 2 weeks old, talk to the hand:



Snuffles at 6 weeks old:



Snuffles at 8 weeks and 4 days old:



Snuffles at 8 weeks and 5 days old:



Kupo and Snuffles that same day:



Kupo and Snuffles today, Snuffles at 9 weeks old:



Kupo when he was finally allowed to use his Build-a-Bear gift certificate he got for Christmas (3 weeks ago) - yes, he wanted a Girl Bear:



Aaaand, that's it for now!



Aaaand, that's it folks!

kupo, pictures, health, mazvn, snuffles

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