if you ever take a birth class and they tell you about "transition" and how it's a pretty fucking intense part of labor, well, they aren't exaggerating. there was hollering and crying and screamings of fuck, not to mention my arms almost being torn off and my finger coming dangerously close to being snapped in half by my brave and beautiful love.
but how did we get there?
michelle headed off to her appointment for her 40 week checkup and i went to work. this is tuesday morning around 10:15. i get to work at 11, and 15 minutes later, i'm on a sweaty climb up the hill back to my house to get our shit together for the hospital.
michelle had gone in with no worries, but the sonogram had other ideas, as it revealed what our doctor construed as a dangerous paucity of amniotic fluid for our little chupa. how are we to argue, ultimately, so it was time for artificial labor induction. not the natural childbirth we were envisioning, certainly, but also left open the possibility of working the whole thing naturally from that point forward - something i decided to call "supernatural childbirth."
from there it is a series of minor and temporary disappointments, until we get a baby, and then there are some more troubles with the old hospital system, but that's what we get for living in america.
each time a new thing happens that we haven't hoped for, we're still on the right track, still able to finish this thing the right way, but alas, it is not to be.
slow pitocin drip is started around 3pm, maybe.
we play scrabble.
we watch jeopardy's teen tournament rerun.
i eat something.
baby charley is having trouble handling the pitocin induced contractions, which had started off slowly and not too powerfully, but are nonetheless causing her to have alarming decelerations in her heart rate. we learn later that this is due to other factors, which are totally beyond our control, or anyone else's really.
so, around 9pm, the drip is stopped, and positions are limited to those that helped baby's heart rate stay up, and michelle's bag of water is artificially ruptured and baby charley gets a spike in her forehead so they can more accurately monitor her vitals.
at this point michelle is at 2cm and pissed. this shit happened so quickly that we didn't really have an opportunity to discuss it with our doctor before it happened, and we certainly hadn't wanted it. now, it later turns out to have been a good thing.
so, after a while, nothing really happening, we get the pitocin going again very slowly, and then michelle's body takes over, the pitocin stops, and shit gets real intense. before all that, we have some more heart rate fears, but almost exclusively when michelle is standing up or squatting or doing anything vertical. so she's on a urinary catheter and bed ridden and covered in wires and tubes and shit gets heavy.
she's going hard and fast and with no breaks and after a good hour or more of heavy action, i can she that she has lost the fight. time for an epidural. she feels time her hips and back are being torn open. she did though make it 90% of the way without help.
also, at some point, i don't remember when, she gets an amnio-infusion to try to "float the chord," or the cord, and see if that eliminates charley's problems. it does not.
we'd had an epidural catheter placed earlier, when things were more calm, in the interest of expediting an epidural if there was an emergency later. this degree of discomfort qualifies as an emergency.
dr. einstein pumps it up, and michelle feels better pretty quickly, but only gradually gets comfortable.
meanwhile, i'm relishing the opportunity to check to see that all of my fingers are in tact and that i'm not bleeding from my arms.
about thirty minutes or an hour later, or more, or less (time was pretty immaterial at this point), charley's bpms dropped again, and stayed down. michelle was at 10cm and ready to deliver, but no matter how they moved her, there was no way to get charely's heart back up to pace.
they get a few extra hands on deck and, working with urgency but not alarm, they talk of giving her something to relax the uterus, possibly allowing charley to restabilize. they wheel her into an OR, and i follow, but am told to get a set of scrubs on. i do that, and by the time that's done, literally 4 minutes, they are pulling charley out of an unconscious michelle's belly and saying, "here comes the baby, and it's not a good one."
this i see and hear from out in the hall, looking through the door.
not rad.
scary.
again, time is confusing, but maybe a minute later i hear a cry and i feel ok.
michelle regains consciousness right away, thanks to our einstein anesthesiologist.
charley's chest is percussed because her breathing is not so much happening, and she is full of meconium, lungs and all.
that means she pooped in her bubble.
anyway, they suck a bunch of it out and that makes her feel better. and by feel better, i mean capable of breathing.
i get to do a ceremonial chord cut, and i get a tiny bit of blood spray on me, which i like. i mean, i have to get dirty at some point in this process.
then they pick her up and whisk her off to the NICU, but not before einstein gets them to give her to michelle for a minute, and it's a beautiful moment, however fleeting.
i stay with michelle for a little and then head off to the NICU to check on our little magic monster.
2 days later, i have a beer.
ok, there's a lot i'm skipping, but i feel i should try to sleep while i have the chance and i'll pick this up later.
anyway, 6lbs, 5ozs, 20 inches long. sea section for the little pirate, charley jane cole.
here's a photo from when she was 7 hours old, with an ET glow, healthiest baby on the NICU...
there's so much more to say, like how many times i've cried after baby was born, and how easily and quickly it's happened, how ridiculously proud i am of how michelle has handled everything from the first moment on, and how and from whom we've had help along the way.
keep an eye out for part two. after i have my next drink. which may be in a few days.
crazy world.
