The Journey Pt. 2

Ok... so I left off on ice dancing.

At about this time I'm feeling vague pressure DOWN THERE (around my anus and pubic area) so I kind of off handedly mention that to my nice nurse. She checks and sure enough, Tomie is getting closer! So we start a-huffin and a-puffin and getting down to business. But due to the epidural, it still doesn't feel that bad. (ha ha, that should have been clue number 1)

After about an hour, Michelle, the nice nurse lets me rest and comes back in a little bit to check my progress. By this time, the first nice doctor has gone home for the day and is relieved by another nice doctor. This nice doctor however declares that I haven't progressed much and that we should throw in the towel and have a c-section. Me, being the stubborn donkey that I am insist on continuing.

After about another hour of pushing with Michelle the nice nurse, she has to go on break and is replaced by two hardcore nurses. They're also nice, but are hard core in that fitness instructor kind of way. Instead of Michelle cooing about how strong I am and how the baby is coming down all the time (All lies I am to find out later on) they tell me that I have to "WANT IT BADLY ENOUGH. PUSH! PUSH!" Instead of the nice gentle perinium massage with mineral oil that Michelle did with me, these nurses are much STRONGER (basically it felt like they were tearing me apart in there) Josh picks up on this tough love theme too and is also barking (although much sweeter) in my ear.

I just have to say....OUCH!

Then I go through my third doctor. This guy means business. He looks at me and clucks his tongue and tells me that Tomie just isn't progressing and that we could push for another hour, but since the water has been broken for so long, it doesn't look good. He leaves the decision up to me but suggests that we go for the c-section. Again, my inner donkey kicks in and says "No thank you very much, I'd like to deliver vaginally." He tells me that he's going to come back in an hour. After he leaves, the nurses ramp it UP! I feel like I'm in delivery boot camp. So after 20 minutes I throw in the towel and tell them that I just can't. Upon this display of wimpiness, one of the boot camp nurses lectures me on how much better it is to have her vaginally. At this point, I'm biting down on my lips to avoid saying anything too mean. Instead I look up at Josh and beg him to rough her up for me. But he's deferring to me, damn him. I push for about one hour more and the whole time they're lying to me, telling me that they can see her hair. When I call her out on the lies, she makes Josh go peer over, and he's also lying to me.

In the meantime, one of the relief nurses point out that Michelle, the nice nurse has been gone for a long time. Then the two proceed to talk stink about her while she's not there. I'm about to defend her because she really was a lot nicer than these two.

Finally Michelle gets back and takes over from the two brutes. They passively-aggressively report the progress I've made while Michelle took her sweet ol time on her break. And she gets right back in there with the mineral oil massages. She also tells me that she can see Tomie's hair and gets me to push again. Ahhh, it's so much more motivating to me when someone tells you how strong you are when you're pushing rather than it's not enough and I have to go harder. Honey, flies..and all that. As Michelle coaxes my ego, I start pushing harder to spite the two army sargents. She was so encouraging but then, I realized it was all a sham... I'm pushing as hard as I can and she tells me that it looks good and how strong I am and then she says that it'll just be a little while before the doctor will deliver her and we can see her in person. This is all well and good and encouraging, but then she pauses just after saying that Tomie will be there any time now and bites down on her lips as if to say, "Whoops...don't think I should have said that."

At that point, I had a crisis of faith. And besides, I was bone tired and in a lot of pain. The scapel happy doctor came back at that point and he examined me and declared that I have been fully dialted for three hours now and that Tomie was now at +1. Which is great, but then I remembered the chart from my Lamaze classes saying that she needed to be at +5 to crown. Um ..yikes. Three hours...and little progress. I declared that I wanted the C section at that point. THEN scapel happy doctor goes off to tell me that "Well, I might as well try for another hour and we'll see the progress." I repeat that I want the C section. He wanders off and I'm thinking..."Damn, is punishing me for not going along with it earlier???"

Okay, won't go into the details about the whole C section stuff, but at 5:18 am, 20 hours after we had come into the hospital, Tomie is finally pulled out of me. We hear her cry loud and angry. It sounds so great. The anesthesiologist grins at me and says that she sounds fiesty!

They let Josh stand over the blue curtain to get a good look and first picture of her. Here's what he saw



I feebly ask, "What does she look like?" Long pause. Finally, the doctor, THE DOCTOR, says, "She's really cute." To be charitable, let's just say that Josh perhaps was having a moment of overwhelming paternal pride...



Here's a naked shot that shows how much she weighed...(Oh boy, she's gonna love that I posted THIS on the internet..ooops. does this violate appropriate use rules? On second thought, if you would like to see this one, email me and I'll send it to you.)

And then finally after they did all the checking, poking, prodding, cleaning and all that, I finally get to see her myself. And although Tomie got cleaned up a bit, I negelected to bring my personal make up and hair stylist, so brace yourself for the truly scary. I'm not all that photogenic to begin with and then you pile on hours of labor and surgery on top of that...yikes. But Josh likes this picture because he says it truly conveys how tired I was by then.



THE END