After about an hour, now feeling settled in our room, I started to envision myself giving birth and . . . completely started to freak out. I almost hyperventilated. I realized that this wasn’t one of the million daydreams I’d had during pregnancy. This was real. I became terrified at the thought of pushing a giant head through my vagina, and I was certain that my vagina would be the only one in the world not up to the challenge. How could it be? My vagina would never be able to open to a gaping hole the size of a watermelon. My husband was trying to calm me down, but it wasn’t working. I was just too scared.
I decided that my peace of mind lay with an epidural. I devised a plan, before the anesthesiologist walked in, to flirt with him so he would give me extra medicine. This goes to show you that I did indeed fall asleep during my one Lamaze class. Had I been listening, I would have known that a machine on a timer, not a person, dispenses the epidural medicine throughout your labor.
After what seemed like an eternity, a tired-looking resident walked in with his epidural gear, and I started working my charm. For some reason, I thought I was still this 125-pound girl wearing fake eyelashes. NO, I was a 185-pound massive whale with pasty, pale skin trying to “work it” with my anesthesiologist. Needless to say, the little man was not “getting it” but did do a great job administering the epidural. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt like I thought it would. It stung for about ten seconds and went away. And then the fun began. All the cramping below my waist disappeared. What a miracle! My husband tells me that it was at that point that I smiled for the first time since checking into the hospital.
The nurse told me to try to rest because it was 2 a.m., and I needed to save my strength. Strength? Then reality hit again. Things had only really just begun. I still had to squeeze a giant head through my vagina. Once again I started to panic. My husband was folded up in the shape of a pretzel on a tiny chair, snoring. I stared quietly at the ceiling trying to figure out a way to get out of this. I honestly didn’t believe I could go through with the delivery, and I reminded myself that it was still early. The nurse said I probably wouldn’t push until the afternoon, so I figured I would try to postpone my panic until then.
Every fifteen minutes a nurse would come check on me, so even if I thought I could get some shut-eye, it would’ve been impossible. The big hand on the clock moved to an erect position, making it exactly 4 a.m., and I started to feel something weird going on down there. I thought I’d peed on myself, but I had a catheter (a convenience I loved, by the way, and you will, too), so I knew that couldn’t be it. My eyes bugged out when I realized what this was. My water had broken! I shouted for my husband and kept yelling, “My water broke, honey; my water broke, honey!” All I got back was a grizzly bear snore. He was out for the count. Give me some of whatever he took!
I rang the nurse and she confirmed what I was thinking. (By the way, be extremely nice to your nurses, and they will reciprocate. Mine were clearly getting bitched at by the woman in the next room, and I could tell that they were giving it right back to her. Be friendly and give them respect . . . your hospital experience will be so much better!)
With the broken water now confirmed, the nurse proceeded to tell me that, because my water had broken, my contractions would get stronger and that active labor was now upon me. So what did I do? I started freaking out again. The clock seemed to be ticking awfully loud. Most women want to hurry up and get labor over with, but not me. I wanted the guy from The Twilight Zone to come out and stop time completely. My mom was flying out to be with us and wouldn’t get to the hospital until noon. I needed her badly. I was counting on her to help me or at least help me run away.
Fast-forward a bit (though again, it was an eternity) to 9 a.m. I hadn’t had one minute of sleep. My nails were mere nubs; I had been biting them all night and especially vigorously when they checked my dilation. The epidural was working, so pain wasn’t an issue. (How can you not get one of those?) At this point I was dilated to four, and my husband was STILL asleep. Denial is a powerful sleep aid, I guess!
In the next hour my family started to show up. First, my mother-in-law, whom I adore, followed by my sisters and then the most beautiful radiant human being that ever walked the face of the earth: my mother. She fell into my arms, and I gripped her hard, like we were about to go upside down on a roller coaster. I told her how terrified I was, and she calmed me by stroking my hair as only a mother can do.
Then it was noon, and once again, I felt something weird going on down there. For lack of a better way to describe it, I tell you that I felt this enormous grapefruit sliding down my vagina walls. No pain, just pressure. Lots of pressure. I looked at my mother with big watery eyes and asked her what the hell was going on. She smiled and said the baby was moving down into position and that I was probably close to being able to push. But I was sure I was not ready to push. It seemed like just minutes before I had been only four centimeters dilated.
I rang the nurse and asked her to check me again. Sure enough, Mom was right: I was dilated eight of the needed ten centimeters, so they called my doctor to tell him to be on his way. My husband finally woke from the dead and tried to comfort me. In fact, my whole family was now around me, but that didn’t stop the terror of what was to come shortly. MORE PRESSURE was building, and I heard this beeping going off next to me. I asked the nurse what it was, and she calmly smiled and said, “Oh, that’s your epidural machine; it ran out.”
My reply: “WHAT!? YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. NO FREAKING WAY. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I CAN’T DEAL WITH FEELING ANYTHING, NOT EVEN A LITTLE ACHE. GET SOMEBODY IN HERE NOW!”
She told me I was too close to pushing and that I needed to feel a little pain in order to push. But I told her in order to get me to push, she had better get that epidural going again. My doctor now joined the party, and I begged him to give me more if I promised to push better than any woman he had ever seen. He smiled and agreed, though I’m not really sure that he did give me more!
When—shortly thereafter—I was dilated to ten centimeters, the doctor told me it was game time. The family surrounded me, with my mom holding one leg and my mother-in-law holding the other. What a sight we must have been.
I started to push and realized I had no idea if I actually was pushing, because I was so numb down there. I didn’t say anything for fear they would take the epidural away. So I just pushed really hard like I was trying to go to the bathroom . . . bathroom??? Immediately I thought, “Holy shit! Am I pooing on the table? I have no idea because I can’t feel anything down there.” Fortunately, that particular panic lasted only two seconds. At that point it was as my mother had said it would be: I could have filled the room with poo and could have cared less. (I came to find out that I did fill the room with it . . . my husband broke the news to me at a much later date.)
My doc and nurses told me I was a great pusher (there’s nothing like “pleasing the teacher” to make you want to try harder!). They also told me to save some energy and to try to rest between contractions. I think it was at about this time that I noticed my body temperature rising. I yelled at my husband to get a wet cloth.
He came back with a corner of the cloth wet. Well, I lost it and yelled at him to “soak the fucking thing in ice because I’m fucking dying.”
More pushing, and the doc said he could see the head through the canal. Though it kind of surprised me, all of my sisters decided to cruise down there and take a peek. I watched their faces to see how excited they would be. Instead, they looked like they’d just seen a grotesque horror show and covered their faces and ran away. Understandable but certainly NOT THE REACTION I HAD HOPED FOR.
Now I was exhausted through and through. I had been up all night and hadn’t even had any energy when we’d started. As the hours went by, I was passing out between contractions. My husband was throwing ice on my body and my head (so much for that blow-dry) because I was becoming delirious. At one point, I managed to open one eye and saw the look on my mom’s face and knew something wa
s wrong. I looked down between my legs and saw that they were using a vacuum to try and get my baby out. All of my fears were coming true. I knew my vagina was not meant to get a head through it! As the doctor pulled the vacuum cord with all of his might, a nurse laid her entire body on my stomach trying to push the baby out. This was like battlefield labor and delivery!
My mom was crying, I was screaming, and my sisters looked purple. I was completely out of ammo and could no longer physically push. My doctor told me I had been pushing for two-and-a-half hours and it was time to start talking about a C-section. I raised my head with all of my might and said, “What the hell are we waiting for?”
What happened next is kind of a blur. I was prepped and wheeled to an operating room. On the way there, I was partly unconscious. Not from any drugs, just pure exhaustion. I could hear the people talking around me as they started to wheel me down the hall faster. I heard a nurse say that the baby’s heart rate was dropping. I was so out of it, I couldn’t even mutter an “oh no.” They literally threw me on the table, slapped some disinfectant on, and began. My husband was at my side, and I could see the terror in his face as we heard the nurse shouting out that the baby’s heart rate had dropped in half. Thirty seconds later they pulled the baby out and unwound the cord that was wrapped around his neck. I lay there strapped to the table, paralyzed from the neck down. Crucified.
They whisked the baby off to the side of the room in a panic. I’ve come to find out that with C-sections, they usually show you your baby over the curtain and tell you the sex. They didn’t do that for me, and I guessed that something was wrong. Tears were streaming down my face. I looked at my husband and asked him what was wrong. He looked just as panicked as I did and said, “I don’t know, honey.”
A nurse moved out of the way, and I saw my baby lying on a table, blue and not moving. People were all around, giving him oxygen, slapping him, saying, “Come on, little man, breathe.” That’s when I stopped breathing. It’s cliché because it’s so true: The world went into slow motion as a minute went by with no baby cries. My husband was pale as a sheet. If it weren’t really happening to me, I’d have thought this was a bad TV movie.
All of a sudden I heard a “waa waa.” He was crying! I wanted to jump up and down and scream, but I was still tied to the table. My husband walked over to the baby and ran back to me to tell me how cute he was. Then he went back to the baby to introduce himself. On my side of the room, nerves, medication, and exhaustion set in, and I began vomiting all over the place. Another lovely sight. But I didn’t care what the hell happened to me as long as my baby was okay.
Once they had our baby all cleaned up and ready for his closeup, my husband walked over to me and showed me my little boy wrapped like a burrito. I cried and cried. They unstrapped my hand so I could touch his little cheek and give him a peck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I said, “Look at him, honey; he blinks.” To see the baby blink and look at you makes it so much more real than kicks in your belly. Chills came over my body as I started to feel a new chamber in my heart growing. My husband’s face glowed like he had seen the gates of heaven open, and we stared in awe at the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.
Life was good. Life was going to be great. I had plans for this boy. I would fill him with so much love that he’d be able to conquer the world. Watching my husband glow with love also took my breath away. I don’t think he had enough room in his body to contain the amount of love he was feeling at that point. Our baby was alive and well, and we adored him.
Having a child is life-changing and so incredibly beautiful. You are about to experience the best of what life has to offer . . . the ability to GIVE life . . . and frankly, I’m jealous of the intensity and joy you will be feeling. I had a rough year, but as I said at the start, I would do it all over again in a second, and maybe I will . . .
Welcome to the best job you will ever have: mommyhood.
Let Me Repeat
(Husband No-No’s)
On the following page is a list of advice for your husband. Actually, it’s a short list of things he’d be well-advised to take to heart. Scratch that. These are his marching orders! Ever thoughtful of your needs, I put these specifics on the following pages so you can rip them out and stick them on the refrigerator. Notice that this advice is also written to him as though it were from you. My feeling here is that none of us can afford to be too clear on these issues. This way your beloved will know exactly what you need from him during these growing months. Who knows, maybe these directions will help him help you keep Psycho Chick at bay.
Take My Advice . . . • Do not stare or gawk at another woman or compliment the way she looks. I know my body is ballooning before your eyes, but if I catch you looking at anyone but me, you’ll kill my self-esteem. And I might have to kill you.
• Do not try to win an argument. It’s completely useless. In fact, surrender now and our lives will be so much easier. I know I’m not making a lot of sense right now, but try to remember that my body has been completely taken over and my mind is not my own. Take heart, I’ll be back a few months after delivery.
• Do not deny me my cravings. Your logic will not convince me that I don’t need ice cream or brownies or noodles now. Even if I claim to want a tin of sardines at three in the morning, you are well advised to get your cute ass to the store and get me some.
• Do not disregard my urgency to pee if you are the one driving the car. It’s much easier to take five minutes and pull over at the gas station than to try to clean your nice leather seats.
• With the exception of my belly, which is supposed to be getting bigger and is supposed to be adorable to you, do not call attention to the other parts of my body that are getting bigger. Even if you think it’s a compliment, I really don’t need the man I love to tell me that my ass looks good with some meat on it.
• Do not hound me for sex when I am not in the mood (if I’m ever in the mood!). Go masturbate. I’m completely fine with that.
• Do not do anything that might awaken the Psycho Chick inside of me. That is, unless you have a compliment that I couldn’t possibly misinterpret, don’t provoke me with unprompted conversation.
• Don’t ignore me when I’m blue. This may be more often than you think humanly possible, but remember that this is when I need a hug the most. Yours is the shoulder I most want to lean on.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to The Candies Foundation to support its mission to educate teens about the consequences of teenage pregnancy.
For more information, go to http://www.candiesfoundation.org.
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Copyright © 2004 by Jennifer McCarthy
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First Da Capo Press paperback edition 2006
eISBN : 978-0-738-21128-2
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nny McCarthy, Belly Laughs
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