L&D

Labor & Delivery

So the idea of giving birth to another human being, regardless of their size, can be a terrifying prospect, but what’s more terrifying than the actual process is how little people share on the topic. You can read all the books and online blogs… you can ask your doula or your doctor, but at the end of the day, when you go to give birth to your blessed spawn, you are going in blind to one major detail or another.

I’m not one to be candid with the world, but I will be here, because there is a need for more disclosure on at least what we faced as first-time-parents when we went to the hospital.

Our little bundle of joy was four days late when we went to get induced. He was showing no signs of wanting to be born on his own, and the doctors at one point had said that the placenta craps out at forty two weeks, so that, along with an unrelenting work schedule, and unpaid maternity leave, made it sensible to induce.

Going to the hospital, we went to get induced with the silly notion in our heads that inducing was synonymous with quicker. Once induced we were told that we could expect our baby in 24-48 hours. The pitocin, a concoction made to act like oxytocin, was horrendous. I wanted to be drug-free when we gave birth, but that was impossible after the pitocin set in, a mere fifteen minutes after it was administered… it felt how I would imagine getting beat into a gang would feel… as if being kicked in the stomach and back every minute-and-a-half. It was horrendous.

It took morphine to deal with the pain from the much more heightened pain that results from a pitocin-induced contraction. There were other details… We wanted a water birth, and had a beautiful tub room, but the hot water stopped the contractions for ten minutes or so, and then when I got out (because you need to have contractions to have a baby) the pain was unbearable.

By the end of our second evening in the hospital, I finally pleaded for the sweet release of the epidural. Thirty plus hours after the process began, we began to push…and the epidural had worn off almost completely by the time we started pushing, so that part was easier to discern. Almost three hours after that, we had a beautiful healthy baby that I was able to see for only a couple of minutes before being whisked off to get stitched up for an hour or so, all-the-while not knowing how our baby was doing.

Take-aways- induced does not mean quicker, induced DOES mean getting beat into a gang, and tubs are not for everyone.