On the day my first daughter was born, I got up before dawn to use the bathroom. I was used to frequent urination during pregnancy. My water broke during my short walk from the bedroom. I thought at first that I had lost control of my bladder. But after using the toilet, I felt my first labor pain. Uh-oh! My baby was two weeks early!
I went back to bed, thinking that labor was going to take awhile and there was no need to wake my husband yet. But this was my first child, so what did I know?
My obstetrician had come highly recommended, but I was disappointed that he seemed always in a rush and didn't really tell me about everything I should expect. With his hand on the door knob of the exam room, he would ask over his shoulder, "Any questions?" I never felt truly welcome to take up his time with questions.
The labor pains became painful right away and not spaced very far apart. I woke my husband. We got up and dressed, but my mind slipped into a weird space, and I sat on the edge of the bed doing nothing. He called the doctor who told him to wait until the labor pains were two minutes apart. They were already two minutes apart! The doctor, obviously drowsy from being wakened so early, merely repeated his instructions.
My husband packed a bag for me and prepared some soup to keep up my energy for the upcoming ordeal. After I finished eating, we drove to the hospital. While checking in, nobody offered me a wheel chair, even though I was suffering very strong labor pains. I couldn't think straight, otherwise I would have asked for one. I walked endless hallways -- it seemed miles -- to the birthing center.
A nurse tended to me, giving me a gown to wear and a cot to lie on. My husband sat nearby on a chair. The nurse led me away to prepare for the birth. She had me climb up on a tall gurney. No one else was in the room. There she lifted the hem of my gown and told me to put the soles of my feet together like a frog. She shaved off all my pubic hair with a razor. She announced that she was going to give me an enema. I informed her that for the prior week, I had been afflicted with diarrhea. She said she would only give me a small enema.
She brought an open-topped glass container full of water and set it on a shelf above the gurney. A long narrow colon tube extended from the base. She inserted the tube into my rectum and drained some water into me -- I don't know how much. After she withdrew the tube, she carried the container toward the exit, instructing me as she went that I could use the adjoining bathroom when I felt like it. I was left alone, feeling dazed. I sat up and discovered that my feet were swinging a foot off the floor. I wondered how I was going to get down.
Being pregnant put extra weight in front of me, resulting in an unbalanced state. I feared that hopping off the gurney would make me fall on my face. I felt like Humpty-Dumpty. I leaned far back and carefully slid over the edge on my back. The nurse didn't return until I was coming out of the bathroom.
Back on my cot, the labor pains became excruciating. I had figured wrongly that medical science would have come up with a way to dull the pain. The nurse explained that she didn't want to give me anything that would harm the baby. After birth, it would be struggling to take its first breath. Putting tranquilizers and pain killers into my blood stream ahead of time wouldn't do the infant any good. I had heard about the epidural that would take away the pain, but she said the doctor was in charge of that, and he hadn't arrived yet.
It has been said that labor is the greatest pain that humans experience. I was ready to believe that. Eventually, the doctor came and injected an epidural. All the pain vanished. What a relief!
On the delivery table, the nurse strapped my wrists to the sides. I protested that I was claustrophobic and begged her to remove the straps. She said she didn't want my hands to touch the baby or to contaminate myself. (I often wondered later, when I could think, why they didn't put sterile gloves on me or something.)
My baby was born about 4 hours after my water broke at home. The nurse placed her on my abdomen while waiting for the placenta to come out. With my hands secured, I couldn't touch her, and I panicked that she might roll off me and fall to the floor. Eventually, they took her to the nursery and me to my room. I was exhausted and starved & I asked for something to eat, but they said I had missed the breakfast hour and would have to wait until lunch. Meanwhile, they brought some jello which was almost no help at all.
During the week that I remained in the hospital, they sent a 'candy striper' volunteer (dressed in a white and pink striped outfit) to deliver my baby to me a few times a day. The infant was always asleep and showed no interest in nursing. She went without sustenance for 3 days until the head nurse lost patience and came in to show me how to be a mother. She slapped the baby on the sole of the foot until she woke up and opened her mouth to cry. The nurse grabbed my breast and thrust the nipple into the baby's wide-open mouth. My daughter immediately started nursing. After awhile, the volunteer (who looked like a teenager) came in and announced that my time was up. The baby wasn't allowed to nurse longer. As the girl hurried from my room carrying my baby, she barely missed hitting its head against the doorjamb on her way out.
Looking back, I think of that whole experience as barbaric in many ways. Was it the Dark Ages of childbirth?
~ Sally