I was talking to my mother the other day, and she mentioned she had been reading my posts (and strangely, wasn't upset.) She said that she remembered when all these things I write about happened, and that one of her co-workers was impressed with the lie about boys that didn't eat vegetables turning into girls, and thought it was super-creative. "You remember that?" I asked her, and she also remembered something else - it worked. "Wow, you're right, I totally forgot that it worked! They ate all kinds of vegetables for months!" She also mentioned that in the post about our telephone conversations, I had left one out, and asked me to tell it because it was so funny. And so I am, the funny parts, and the not-so-funny parts.
I was pregnant with my first child. I was in the military, eight hours away from my entire family, recently married, and a little worried. Any of you with kids, you remember when you (or your wife) went into labor, right? I don't think I'll ever forget...
I had cleaned like a fiend the night before, and woke up at 6am with painful cramps. I called into my platoon sergeant to tell him that I thought it was time, and that I wasn't going to be there at 7:30, and he said, "You've said that at least once a week for the last four weeks!"
"Yeah, but this time, I think this is really it! My due date was two days ago, and..."
"Yeah, yeah, I don't want the details, just go into OBGYN sick hall after lunch. Let me know what they say," he told me. Guys are the same everywhere, even in the miltary: they don't really want to hear the gory details. "If you're not in labor, I expect you in this afternoon." Such a sweetie, right? To be fair, I had gone into premature labor at least four times.
I re-folded the baby clothes, re-packed my hospital bag, took two or three showers, and killed about four hours. The labor pains weren't stopping, this is it, I just know it! And it didn't even hurt as bad as I had heard! I was going to breeze through this labor thing!
Well, my husband was working, so I tried to call my mom, who didn't answer. I wanted my mom! Crap! Now what? Then I remembered my Grandma, an experienced 'birth-type-person' who had six kids - she would be able to tell me exactly what the fuck was going on, and more importantly, she would be home. It was almost eleven, so she should also be up by now. She answered, and I asked her how to time contractions. She told me to time from the start of one contraction to the start of another, so I got my stopwatch, and started timing them. "The last one was twelve minutes," I told her.
"Twelve minutes?" she asked me, chomping her gum in the background.
"Yep. What's that mean?" I asked. Not that I was worried or anything. Aren't they supposed to be closer together, though?
"Well, we have to time more than one to find out how far from delivering you are," she told me. So we talked for a while, about how I was sure it was a boy, even though the doctor thought it was a girl. She told me about how when she was pregnant for her twins, one was lodged, and she went into premature labor at seven months and her water leaked, but since they were lodged, she wouldn't deliver until the lower one was moved, so she just 'labored' for three and half more weeks on bed rest to give them a better chance. (I wasn't really worried for me, I could do three and a half weeks of this standing on my head! This shit was easy! All that stuff I'd heard about labor must have been about wimps or something.) The next contraction came along and it was ten minutes from the last one. She told me since it was my first, it would probably be a while. I told her the contractions didn't really hurt. She laughed (a lot) and told me labor hurt, and I should just remember to breathe.
We got off the phone, and I called the hospital. They told me to come in after one, but not to drive myself, but said that I could wait until after three when my husband got off of work. I went ahead and called the dispatcher to try and get a message to my husband to come straight home after work, instead of stopping at the PX as he had intended. The dispatcher had just had a baby not too long ago, and after exchanging symptoms, she promised to give him the message. "It's still early, I don't want to go to the hospital yet, so he doesn't need to leave work. Just tell him not to stop anywhere, ok?" she agreed.
I hung up the phone, and it rang almost right away. It was my aunt, my mom's sister. Grandma must have called her. She was also an experienced "birther," because she'd had both of her kids naturally with no pain medicine. I told her it might be too soon, since it didn't really hurt yet, and she told me, "If it doesn't hurt yet, don't worry, it will. I'm not going to lie and tell you it doesn't hurt, because it does. And I'm not going to tell you that you'll forget all about it when you hold the baby, either - that's total bullshit. What I will tell you is that it's a bearable pain. It's going to hurt like a bitch, but you will get through it." The most memorable words spoken, one's I've treasured in the many years since, the many kids since.
I got off the phone with my aunt, and the phone rang AGAIN. This time it was my mom. And as soon as I heard her voice, I wanted to cry, so instead I yelled: "Why didn't you answer the fucking phone!" All of a sudden, I wasn't 21, I was five!
"I was grocery shopping! I didn't know you'd go into labor! How're you doing? Is it hurting really bad?"
"Fine, the pain's about a two on a scale of one to ten, and I've been timing my contractions, which is why I called you to begin with, but Grandma told me how. But how close together should the contractions be when I go to the hospital?"
"Honey, I don't know how to time contractions, or when to go to the hospital. I had you and your brother cesaerian, remember?"
"Yeah, but you were in labor for me for a while, when did you decide to go to the hospital?"
"I was seventeen, and I don't remember much about the labor, I went to the hospital when your grandma told me to ... What's that sound in the background? Is that the TV?"
"No, the TV's off. It sounds like sirens. Must be something going on on post," I told her. The sirens were getting louder, I'd started to hear them when she called. That's not... it couldn't be! "Mom, it could be my husband, I left a message for him to come home after work..." By this time, the sirens were so loud I could't hear anything on the phone. They had to be close by, maybe right outside my door... Then the sirens stopped: "Mom, I might have to let you go, it sounds like my husband's here."
Just then, my husband burst through to door, like Kramer from Seinfeld. Through the open door behind him, I could see red and blue flashes. "You ready to go?" he asked me. "Where's your bag?"
"You're a little early. Wait, why are you still wearing your weapon? Well, go upstairs and change, it's going to be a long night, you might as well be comfortable," I told him, but my husband is still staring at me, standing in the same spot. "Hold on, Mom... Ok, what did dispatch tell you?"
"That you were in labor and I needed to come straight here."
"Shit, you needed to come straight here after work, not now! Dammit! (into the phone:) Mom, it looks like I'm going to the hospital now... (to my husband:) What are you waiting for, you might as well change clothes. You don't want to go to the hospital wearing your BDU's, do you?"
"But I'm here to pick you up."
"Yeah, I got that! Just go change, please?"
Just then, his partner walked in. "Uh, did you lock your door?" he asked my husband.
"Yeah, why? Did you?"
"Yep. The keys are still in it, too." I could see the lights still going. Fucking great. Well, I wanted to take my car anyway, I'm not going to the hospital in a fucking squad car, nuh-uh, not happening! It's like a bad episode of Cops! And what if my water breaks in the car? I'd never live it down!
"Mom, I've got to go, my husband's partner locked the keys in the car with the lights on and the car running and I think he needs the phone. I love you, I'll call you later, OK?" I asked my husband's partner if he needed to use the phone but he said, no, he'd already radioed for someone to come out with a Slim-Jim to unlock the door. My husband went upstairs to change and I grabbed my overnight bag and I was ready. "Do you want me to leave to the door unlocked for you?" I asked his partner as we're walking out the door. "You could just lock it when you leave," but he declined, and sat on the porch while we took off. After this travesty of prepared-ness, I had better fucking be in labor! I bitched the whole trip about fucked up communications, and my husband hit every fucking bump in the road.
We go to the hospital, and they hooked my up to beeping machines, and told me that yes, I was in labor (pain three on a scale of one to ten) and to walk around the hospital. "Ok, thanks, but I'm going home," I told the nurse. "I just wanted to make sure I was actually in labor." She asked me why, and I told her: "I can walk at home, and if it's going to be a while, I want something to eat, something besides ice chips to drink, and I want to smoke. Will I get any of that here? I didn't think so." So we left, and went back home. I asked her before we left when I would know it was time to come back, and she told me when my water broke, or when it hurt too bad. Ok, tangible guidelines. Sweet! Although that pain thing, well it only hurt about a four on a scale of one to ten...
Almost immediately upon our return, I noticed that it was ... hurting a little more. I would call it a five on a scale of one to ten, and I'm seriously regretting coming home at that point, but I might as well make it worth my while: I drank a glass of tea and ate a sandwich. By the time I finish eating, my contractions were steady at six minutes and my pain scale was at a five, so we headed back to the military hospital.
I labored for two more hours, and dilated up to seven centimeters, but I didn't go any further. They broke my water - still no more dilation. (Ok, I'd say, seven now! Seven on a scale of one to ten, and can-I-have-something-for-pain-pretty-pretty-please-this-hurts-now!) They gave me something twice to try to make me dilate - no dice, it just made it hurt more (EIGHT!) They had me sign a consent for an emergency C-section because the baby was in 'distress' (me too!) and I wasn't dilating any more. By this time, I'm on demerol, which is supposed to help with the pain. Does it girls? NOPE! It makes you sleep in between contractions, so it seems like one long painful contraction that Never. Fucking. Ends. Ever.
This fucking hurts! Ok, I'm going with a nine on the pain scale now! More pain meds please? What do you mean I've had enough? IT STILL HURTS! We wait another hour or so, and my contractions are two minutes apart, lasting a minute and a half each time. What the fuck is taking so long?! I called the nurse in, and told her I felt like I had to poop. She moved me to the bathroom but nothing happened. We danced this dance for about twenty minutes, and I think I moved to the bathroom two or three more times. The nurse finally told me that I must be feeling the urge to push, and she checked me. Yep, still seven centimeters, and she told me not to push. WHAT? What the fuck are we waiting for, a gold-plated baby blanket? A platinum rattle? Get this fucking thing out of me and/or MAKE THE PAIN STOP! I think I yelled that at her. She was not amused. And she outranked me. Yes, the fucking bitch pulled rank and told me to be quiet. While I was in labor! I might have called her a fat cunt, I'm not quite sure. (Ok, yeah, I did.) She was leaving, so maybe she didn't hear me. (Yeah, she did.) Not that I cared at that point. TEN, BITCH! TEN! I thought it didn't go any higher than ten? My aunt lied, this is not fucking bearable!
A little while later, I told my husband to get the nurse. He jumped right up, then asked why. "Don't fucking question me, just go get the Goddamn nurse!"
I could hear them talking outside the door, and I heard my husband say, "I don't know why, she won't tell me."
The nurse came in and asked me what's wrong now. So help me, I'll strangle that bitch if she comes close enough! If I wasn't as big as a house and in excrutiating pain, I'd punch her in her fat cunt mouth! I was moaning during a contraction (because I was already hoarse from screaming) and she told me to be quiet, I was scaring the other patients. "Fuck them, and fuck you!" I'm done with this shit, get this thing out of me now!
She evidently could tell what I was doing. Maybe it was the red face, the blood vessels bursting in my eyes, or the fact that I was grunting like I was taking a humongeous shit (ironic.) Whatever it was, something gave it away: "You can't push, you're only seven centimeters. The anesthesiologist will be here soon. You have to have an emergency C-section because the baby's going into fetal distress and you're not dilating," and she explained that they had called him over two hours ago, but he hadn't responded to his page, and there currently wasn't anyone to knock me out for the surgery, since his assistant couldn't be located either.
I started truly freaking out, and they had to hold me down, while I screamed, "You're not going to cut me open without anesthesia, are you?!" (In retrospect, I shouldn't have called her a bitch. Or a fat cunt. Or Nurse Ratchett. Ok, I didn't regret the 'Nurse Ratchett' thing, she must have been the understudy. Or the inspiration.) In between my shrieks, the doctor assured me that it would be totally unethical to cut me open without anesthesia. "We just have to wait on the anesthesiologist. It'll be ok, he'll be here soon. Just don't push, ok?"
I tried, I realy tried. Oh God, it fucking hurt! I lasted about 20 minutes, and I started pushing again. TWELVE! I think that pain chart is rigged, because I didn't see the face I was making on there anywhere!
My husband told on me: "Nurse, I think she's pushing!" You dirty rat-fink bastard!
She comes in and tells me, "You stop that now! You can't push, you're only seven centimeters. You'll kill your baby!"
But I was too far gone: "I don't fucking care, I'll have more! This baby is coming out now! I'm done!" My husband almost got punched, but he's always been spry. Lucky for him. Move closer, Nurse Ratchett. I just want to say 'hello' to your face with my fists...
They moved me to another room, where I delivered the baby at seven centimeters on an operating table still waiting for the anesthesiologist to arrive, and for the record, I don't recommend it. I went into shock and almost died, but the baby was finally out by that time. In the end, the doctor had to use forceps to get him (and his abnormally large 'alien' head) out. Oh my God, the pain stopped! "Just another push or two for the placenta, then you're done!" Nope, I'm done now, can't you just cut it out or something? It's a rope, right? Just pull the fucking rope! I don't know if I said it or thought it, but eventually the doctor was done. "Ok, that's it!" I heard him say, and that was it for me. I didn't even wait to find out whether it was a boy or girl, I was out. And evidently I tried to kick the doctor while he was sewing me up. Huh, I must have thought it was the nurse! (Hunter green shirt, white pants - seventeen years later, I still remember her name and what she looked like. And I haven't watched One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest since, either - I empathize too much with Jack Nicholson now...)
I woke up an hour and a half later to some woman puking next to my bed and I found out I was in 'recovery.' Fabulous! "Was it a boy?" I asked my husband, and he said yes. "When can I have a shower?" I had him ask the nurse (since they had such a rapport, and I really wanted a shower) but I didn't get one because I passed out again.
There's more to this story, but I'll just hit the highlights:
-How the baby had never been in 'fetal distress' at all, his monitor just kept slipping off his abnormally large, perfectly-rounded, alien basketball-sized head. (Not that it mattered because of the whole 'tore me a new one' thing, but his head was the same circumference as another baby that was a whole pound-and-half larger! We started calling him 'Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin' right away (later shortened to 'pumpkin') because he had very little hair, and his head was ten times the size of his body. And perfectly round. Well, except where he had two 'U' shaped marks on the side of his head from the forceps.)
-How the anesthesiologist didn't show up until five hours after I delivered. (I talked to him, he seemed to take a personal interest in my cartoon-like alien son. I thought he was just some creepy 'Chester' (as in, "Get that fucking child molester-slash-stranger away from my child!) until the day nurse told me he was the anesthesiologist. He was already gone by the time I found out, or I might have punched him. I already had plans for Nurse Ratchett but I didn't see her again. Lucky break for both of us or I might have ended up with a labotomy.)
-How I was in the hospital for four days because no one told me I had to have a bowel movement before I could go home. (I'd been holding it, so I could 'go' in peace in my own bathroom, while they'd been watching me like a suburban housewife walking her dog, waiting for me to poop. Once they told me what the holdup was, within two hours I was done and on my way home. Well, how in the fuck was I supposed to know?)
-How the water in the hospital only got as hot as 'not-quite-icy' for showers even though it was November. (The nurses thought I was having convulsions, because I was shaking so hard when I showered. That's how I found out about the bowel movements, as in: "What the fuck do I have to do to get out of this Goddamn cuckoo's nest and get a real shower?)
When I went in for my six-week check-up, the same doctor was there. I asked if he remembered me, and he said he didn't. "I'm sure I look different in the face. Maybe you'll recognize your stitch-work. Anyway, I delivered about six weeks ago... at seven centimeters."
He jumped up (from his postion staring at my nether-regions) and said, "Oh my God, that was you?" He turned to the nurse helping him and said, "She saved her baby's life! She had almost 50 stitches, inside and out!" And that's when I found out what had really happened: "You almost died, and the baby too!" (Whaaaat!) "If you'd waited for the C-section, you would've both died! The anesthesiologist showed up several hours after you had already delivered, and he's doing Leavenworth time now. I think he got ten years! And his assistant was dishonorably discharged from active duty. Yours is the worst delivery I have ever seen!" And he shook my hand, saying what a good thing it was that I listened to my instincts. (Huh? Was he talking about the whole, 'Get this fucking thing out of me' instincts or, 'Kick the nurse in the head' instincts?)
I drove home in a daze, and when I got there, I started telling my husband what I had found out, but he already knew: "I had to testify at that anesthesiologist's trial, and his assistant's court-martial. Turns out, they were uh, having sex in her room at the barracks. He left his pager at the hospital and didn't get any of his fifty-plus pages. That nurse got in trouble, too, but just an Article 15."
No shit! Oh. Well. Uhm, I guess I better forgive you for that whole 'tattling to the nurse' thing then, I thought. Especially since you got payback on Nurse Ratchett for me. And I kissed my pumpkin-headed newborn again, and tried to rub the forceps marks out of his 'Charlie Brown' head.
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