But it is, and now, thirty hours after it all began, I have a little baby boy who is undeniably the most precious being I have ever seen.
I honestly don’t know if I can bear it.
His name is Tenzin Walker.
Suffice it to say, all is not peaches and cream. Tenzin is in the neonatal intensive care unit, but I am too exhausted to write the entire saga, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
December 23
The Entire Saga:
Yesterday at five o’clock I was so hungry I felt I could eat the headboard off my new bed. Glen brought me what I craved: quick, greasy take-out that I ate with abandon. A huge hamburger with onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese, a Greek salad, and two orders of french fries disappeared within minutes.
At seven, I was checking e-mail and noticed the vivid purple and red streaks of the sunset outside my window. I felt relieved that I had cleared all the writing assignments from my desktop. I went to the bathroom and saw a little blood, not a clot, but enough to think that something might be happening. I called Glen and then Sonam, who asked if there was a lot of fluid. I said no and she said it may be starting, but maybe not. She told me to breathe, stay calm, and keep in touch.
I made it to the bed before the first contraction hit. It was like the contractions I had been having except this one extended beyond my belly deep into my pelvis. It was slightly orgasmic, and I thought that if this was it I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to have an epidural. Then the contractions started coming every ten minutes or so, with growing intensity. After forty-five minutes, I could no longer sit still. I asked Glen if this was it, was it happening, and he said, Could be, but let’s just stay calm and wait and see.
He got a little pad out and started taking notes, and I got really upset. Of course, I was writing cryptic messages to myself in my tiny blue notebook, but him doing the same thing made me feel like an animal under observation. I got pissy and he said I was trying to control his experience. I had a flash of depression: Were we really going to have an argument as I was going into labor?
No.
Once he put the notebook away, labor took off like a rocket and I couldn’t hold on to any thoughts at all. The contractions started coming faster. There was a two- or three-minute break between them, but after the first minute, I dreaded the coming of the next one and began to clench in anticipation.
I called Sonam again and told her how fast they were coming. She said it sounded like I was in labor and she was going to pack her bag and come over. The pain started to get super-intense. I had a strong urge to take off all my clothes and lie in the bed with Glen until it was all over, but the only way I could survive the contractions was to keep getting up and sitting down. Then one of them hit and hurt so much that I fell to my knees. I spent the next two hours going from the floor of the bathroom to the toilet.
Sonam arrived and found me on all fours on the bathroom floor. She checked me and said that I was completely effaced and already a few centimeters dilated. She said we should get ready to go to the hospital. I didn’t think I could get to the front door, let alone the hospital, and I think I screamed that out, along with some other unsavory epithets.
Glen swung into high gear, getting the food bags and my hospital bag and my coat and blankets and pillows covered with garbage bags in case my water broke in the car. I kept calling for him and he kept coming back to the bathroom every few minutes to tell me he was getting everything ready and that now was the time to execute our plan, not rethink it. Which would have made more sense to me if I could have executed getting off the bathroom floor.
From somewhere far, far away, I think the living room, I heard Sonam call Natasha and tell her that we would be at the hospital within the hour and she should go over and start setting up the birthing pool. That sounded so reasonable, but it also sounded like Sonam and Glen were both completely out of touch with reality. In between contractions, I told them so in a conversation I had with them in my mind. In our little imaginary chat, I told them that there was no way I could leave the bathroom floor, and we should prepare to have the baby in the bathtub. I had plenty of towels and there was a toilet and a shower and they were both there and, well, what more could we possibly need?
But then Glen and Sonam were helping me up and leading me to the car, and I was grabbing all kinds of random things like scarves and little bottles of massage oil and my favorite socks with the anti-skid patches on the bottom and several notebooks until Glen cut through it all and said, Rebecca, we have to go right now. And I thought, Okay, got it. I can’t back out of this, I can’t procrastinate, I’ve got to just get with the program and get my ass in the car. Then we were in the car and speeding along in the dark and I literally thought I was going to die. The contractions were coming in waves and the pain was so intense and unbearable I couldn’t do anything but scream and freak out and lose my mind when they hit.
Which is what I was doing when we drove up to the emergency room and a security guard offered to get me a wheelchair. I said no, thanks, and then he asked again, directing his question to Glen and I almost tore his head off. I don’t want a wheelchair, I screamed. Just open the door and tell me where to go.
I don’t remember being in the elevator but I do remember Natasha coming down and getting all of our bags and I remember getting to the room and throwing myself onto the futon. After a few minutes, the contractions forced me to my hands and knees and I started crawling around screaming that I couldn’t believe all human beings came here this way and that every single mother had to go through this.
Sonam and Natasha were calm and trying to help, but it was not at all like I thought it would be, with soft lights and my aromatherapy atomizer spritzing lavender-scented negative ions into the room and Natasha rubbing my back and Glen whispering in my ear and Sonam directing nurses and giving me visualizations. It was chaos and mayhem, and there was no room in the experience for anyone but me. I asked Natasha to rub my feet and arms and legs, and she tried for about forty seconds before I ran to the toilet and then decided that what I wanted—no, desperately needed—was to take a shower.
Glen turned the water on and stood with me while I gripped the safety rail, lay my head on the plastic wall, and wailed that I didn’t think I could make it. Then I got into the birthing pool, the thing I thought would be my salvation, and it was, for about ten minutes. Then it got too hot and I couldn’t move around enough so I had to get up and go back to the bathroom.
By this point it must have been one or two in the morning and we had been going since eight. I got up on the bed and hit the toilet a few more times and then Sonam checked me and said I was about four centimeters and we needed to get to eight, and that’s when I realized there was no way I could do it. I was exhausted and it hurt so fucking much and I just couldn’t believe that I had so much more to endure. I looked at Natasha, Sonam, and Glen standing respectfully at the periphery of my experience, in it with me, but only as far as they could be. Then I said, really loud, I want an epidural.
The three of them looked at each other, not sure what to do. Looking into their blank faces, I reminded them that I asked them to get me an epidural if I wanted it. They started to deliberate, and then to try and talk me out of it. At which point I began to plead for the epidural. Please, you guys, don’t make me beg. Just get me the epidural. I have got to have the epidural. Please go get me the epidural.
The moment Sonam went to get the anesthesiologist, I started to feel better. It still hurt like bloody hell, but I knew it was going to end and that gave me a moment’s respite from the horrifying thought that I was going to be in this god-awful pain forever. The sun started to come up and the room got very still, punctuated by me screaming at anyone who entered the room: Are you the anesthesiologist? Get the anesthesiologist. When is the anesthesiologist coming? Where is the anesthesiologist?
I have never been as happy to see another human being as I was when the anesthesiologist walked over to my bed and told me t
o sit up so that she could insert the epidural. I was almost weeping with gratitude. She introduced herself and told me what to expect and I felt a stick and some jostling at the base of my spine and heard some tape being pulled from a tape dispenser. The nurses were talking to each other but I started to lose track of what they were saying, and slowly, slowly the pain began to lessen until I was relaxing in an extremely pleasant haze, and Glen was rubbing my forehead and telling me to take a break and get some rest.
That was lovely.
I floated in and out of consciousness for a while, and everyone took a breather because I was calm and not crawling around like a madwoman. Glen called my father and left messages for a few friends. Sonam got some juice. Natasha rubbed my feet and fluffed my pillows. The nurse had me breathe some extra oxygen and told me I was doing great. Then, just as I was really getting into it, and thinking I was finally going to be able to get some sleep, Sonam checked me and said that I was fully dilated and it was time to push. She said it might be hard to feel the contractions because of the epidural, but that I was going to have to really focus and try my best.
Even though I didn’t want to go back to work, I was game to push because I thought that meant I was almost done. After what I had just gone through, how hard could pushing be? I got up on my elbows and grabbed Glen’s hand and started giving it my all, bearing down and grunting and straining and making hideous faces, none of which had any effect whatsoever. I couldn’t feel anything below my waist. The baby wasn’t moving, but Sonam did see that he was posterior, turned around, which was going to make everything even harder.
Right around this time, when Sonam was telling me that a shot of Pitocin would intensify the contractions and make pushing easier, the nurse started getting adamant about the oxygen. The numbers coming out of her machine were not good, and suggested the baby was going into distress. His heart rate was down, which meant he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I could tell that she was a little concerned, but trying to make it sound totally normal so I wouldn’t fall apart. This was not effective. I believe I started to say “What is wrong with the baby?” over and over again and when they told me, I tried to take in the oxygen, but the mask was so awkward and uncomfortable that it was hard for me to push, worry, and breathe at the same time. The Pitocin started to kick in and so did the pain. I pushed and pushed until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then Sonam went to find the anesthesiologist to top off my epidural.
At that point, time began to be a major issue. The nurse’s machine was beeping and she kept putting the oxygen over my face and doctors started coming into the room to see what was going on and provide backup. I was making a little headway with the pushing, but not much. The baby would come out a little and then go back. He did that several times, until I was completely exhausted and didn’t think I could do any more. That was when I started saying, Just cut me open and get the baby.
Then he made it out a little farther, but got caught under my pelvic bone on the right side. Which hurt like hell, in addition to all the other hurting like hell going on. Then he and I did the “Okay, let’s get you out from under my pubic bone” dance for what seemed like an eternity. I was pushing so hard I thought the sides of my head were going to burst open. I was pushing so hard I thought I was going to knock myself unconscious. I was pushing so hard and I still couldn’t feel the baby coming out.
The room was filling up with people but I couldn’t focus on who they might be or why they were there. Sonam’s backup doctor came in completely covered in OR blues and stood very close to me, speaking directly into my ear. She said, The baby is in distress. If you can’t get the baby out in the next few pushes, we are going to have to do a C-section. Do you understand what I am saying? I looked at Glen and he was stable and calm, and then I heard Sonam tell the doctor that she knew I could do it. She is definitely going to get this baby out, she said.
The only thing I could think to do was get on my hands and knees and try to get him out that way. Sonam was yelling, Push your baby out, Rebecca. Bring your baby into the world, Rebecca. Come on, push. I could feel all the people in the room watching, suspended in the moment. I had a flash that I should feel embarrassed about being naked on my hands and knees in front of a room full of strangers, but honestly, I couldn’t have cared less. Really. It was more like, I hope they understand that they are experiencing a goddamn miracle right now. It doesn’t get more real than this.
Then time opened up, the seconds expanded into a dozen dimensions, and everybody in the room fell into it. At the exact moment I thought I was going to collapse and be wheeled into the OR and cut open, I felt the baby’s head pop free and Sonam said, That’s it, one more big push, one more, come on. And I pushed and then he was slithering out of my body and everyone in the room broke into applause and I started crying and fell back onto the bed.
People were making all kinds of oohing sounds and Sonam said, You did it! You had a healthy vaginal birth! Then she asked if Glen wanted to cut the umbilical cord. Glen said yes and took the scissors and did a blessing over the baby in Tibetan. With one snip, me and my boy went from one to two. Sonam placed him on my chest and the two of us lay there together, exhausted.
He was breathing heavily and looking around with calm curiosity. I couldn’t see him so much as feel him, his slippery, smooth torso and floppy limbs. And his mind, I felt his perfectly open and clear mind. He was so present, so unencumbered by ideas about what he was seeing that I felt I was holding a being from another planet.
Then they took him away from me and I started to hear doctors mumbling about meconium and they asked Glen to go with them to the NICU and then I was just lying there, with a gaping hole in my belly and no baby in my arms.
When I arrived at the NICU, the nurses brought me over to Tenzin. I almost broke down. He was completely naked, strapped under an oxygen tent with tubes and monitor leads coming out of his arms and legs. He looked cold, even though there was a warmer over him. The right side of his face was bruised, and skin was peeling off all over his body. His breathing was so labored that his chest and neck lifted off the table each time he took a breath. I couldn’t touch him because he couldn’t come out of the tent, but I got close to the plastic cover and told him that Mommy was right there and he didn’t have to worry and he’d be better soon.
He didn’t move. I thought I was going to pass out. The word “agony” doesn’t begin to capture what I felt.
Because the neonatologist wasn’t there yet, the only thing I could do was talk to the nurse assigned to him and try to forge a bond. I hoped that my love and concern would be transmitted through her to the baby. Then I went to my little hospital room filled with unopened bags of stuff I thought was so essential to labor and passed out.
Four or five hours later, one of the neonatologists, Dr. Morales, came into our room. She said that Tenzin has meconium, the first waste product of the baby, in his lungs and that is making it hard for him to breathe in enough oxygen. He’s getting oxygen now under the tent, and they’ve started him on a round of antibiotics to ward off infection. She said he is very vigorous, and has a very strong cry, which is a good sign. She said that babies with meconium are usually in the hospital for a week to ten days. She said we just have to watch him and hope the meconium cycles through and that he will be able to breathe on his own soon.
December 24
There are three neonatologists here who rotate. We met the second today. Turns out he is the father of an old college class-mate, which is vaguely comforting.
Anyway. Dr. Thompson came into my room and we had a long talk. He thinks Tenzin had meconium in his lungs before he was even born, and that once he began to breathe, it corrupted the lung tissue. He said there was no meconium in the amniotic fluid so they didn’t realize that he needed to be intubated at birth. I wanted to say no, it wasn’t that there wasn’t meconium in the fluid. There was no fluid. My water didn’t break at all, probably because Tenzin was further past term than any of us thought and shoul
d have been induced.
But I didn’t say that and instead just tried to listen to him without panicking. He described the meconium as tarlike and extremely noxious. If Tenzin breathed it in for several minutes, which he must have because he was on me for at least that long, there may be some lung damage. He says it is unlikely, and usually babies with meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS) go home after their time in the NICU breathing normally and have no long-term effects. He said the X ray shows that the right side is more “involved” than the left, which makes sense because that was the side that was hurting so much during labor, the side that got hooked under my pelvic bone.
I am able to process what the doctors tell me about Tenzin, but I must be in shock because that is all I can do. I can’t believe how hard the labor was and how unprepared I was for it after all of that preparation. I can’t believe he’s in the NICU. I can’t believe I am not nursing my baby right now, bathed in the idyllic glow of postpartum. Instead, I feel like I’ve been in a car accident.
I went online and put in “in utero meconium aspiration.” The first listing that came up was “in utero meconium aspiration: an unpreventable cause of neonatal death.”
THERE WILL BE no neonatal death on my watch.
Janet the breastfeeding consultant brought me a big yellow breast pump today. Even though I’ve gone over breastfeeding on the antidepressant a dozen times with Marie, Dr. Lowen, Sonam, and anyone else who would listen, I had to get another opinion from Janet, who referred to a book she carries in her pocket that says that the benefits outweigh the risk. I revved up the pump and got to work. Just a little colostrum, but it was enough to put in a bottle and take over to the NICU to store in the fridge.
Baby Love Page 15