Moanna’s Birth Story – Part 4: The Truth and Moanna Come Out

After being harassed to death bythe hospital staff, I finally agreed to speak to the anesthesiologist. I would have never guessed that the anesthesiologist would be the person to shed the truth about what had really gone wrong during my labor. Finally knowing that it wasn’t my body that had failed me during labor (the hospital staff and the secret narcotics were to blame), gave me the motivation strength to get Moanna less than two hours later.

If you need a refresher, you can catch with the links below…
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Nurses started to come and check on me more frequently. All of them asking if I wanted any pain relief, and some of them strongly pushing me to “at least talk to the anesthesiologist.” Finally, when the nurse who started my Pitocin wouldn’t shut up and leave me alone to focus on my contractions I told her we would talk to the anesthesiologist. What I really wanted to tell her was to “Shut up and get the F$%& out of my room” so I could return to my painful meditative state. I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate, but I knew that telling her to send in the drug king would make her leave.

We waited on the anesthesiologist to come by as I continued rocking myself through the pain and Steve watched in fear. Dude man came and answered questions as any anesthesiologist would. “There is no risk to the baby. It doesn’t cross the placenta. You will feel a million times better within a few minutes.” Then the truth came out…  “Really the epidural is far less risky than the narcotics you got last night.” WHAT!?! I don’t think Steve understood quite what was going on, but I immediately connected the dots and was instantly furious. “So you’re telling me that when I thought I was just getting nausea medicine, I was also getting a heavy narcotic which made me AND Moanna drunk and also stopped my labor from progressing? That’s why I had to have Pitocin and the Pitocin has led me to you?” Steve’s jaw was hanging open. The anesthesiologist was wide eyed and responded very hesitantly, “Yes ma’am. That appears to be the case.” I wasn’t mad at him; it wasn’t at all his fault. He was one of the only people who had been at all honest with me during the entire experience.

We talked with the anesthesiologist for awhile longer about this epidural business. I was far from excited about adding yet another drug to the cocktail of crap that Moanna was receiving. This was not at all in my plans for this birth. I had been violated in more ways that I could have ever imagined. I really didn’t want to add to my wounds, butI could tell that Steve was on the verge of having an emotional meltdown, and that he couldn’t handle much more if I was going to remain in this zombie mental patient state for much longer. He really wanted his happy and sarcastic laboring significant other to return. Reluctantly I agreed to the epidural.

I had to wait for the drug king to do a quick surgery. Knowing that relief was on the way, Steve was much more present and active in helping me through contractions. I’m sure it was hard for him to watch me behave like a crazy person, and have little to no way to help me through the pain. Now that he knew, I only had to go through such an intense amount of pain for a little bit longer, he felt much better about life.

Time passed and the dude returned with the unpleasant nurse. As he was prepping me, the nurse asked if I was sure I wanted the epidural because she’s had patients that didn’t want it but went ahead and got and ended up regretting it. I wanted to punch her in the face. NOW she wanted to show some confidence in me. Actually, it probably wasn’t confidence in me that she was showing. Most likely, she was washing her hands clean of the situation and didn’t want to have any responsibility for ruining my birth experience. It was her way of saying, “You can’t blame me for this. It was your choice to have the epidural.”

I had already accepted the fact that I was going to have an epidural and spent the past however long it took for the anestisiologist to return from surgery focusing on getting through until the pain was removed by the epidural. The idea of making it through to the end without pain relief was gone. I told her very bitterly that I was going to get the epidural. She wanted to check my dilation (I hadn’t let anyone touch me since the doctor incident) because it might be at the end and I wouldn’t need the epidural anyway. I told her NO ONE was touching me until the epidural had kicked in. If they were so set on the fact that I didn’t need to be in labor pain then I sure as heck didn’t need to be in extra pain because someone was up in my crotch.

I got washed and prepped for the epidural. The anesthesiologist tried to place the needle in the middle of a contraction. The giant needle in my back and the crazy contraction caused me to jump up and away from the anesthesiologist. The needle and tubing came out of my back and he had to do it all over again. I am not kidding when I say that the pain of that needle going into my back (twice) was the worst pain of my entire labor. Steve may remember things differently, but I’m pretty sure that was the only time that I screamed out in pain. I had literally been stabbed in the back in so many different ways.

As promised the pain of contractions quickly disappeared. As soon as the stuff kicked in, I allowed the nurse to check me out. I was at about eight centimeters. Steve relaxed as soon as he saw that anguish on my face melt away, and for the next little bit we both relaxed and hung out while we waited for Moanna.

Not too long after the epidural was in, less than an hour for sure, I told Steve to go fetch a nurse because I was feeling Moanna drop down. The nurses came and checked me, and confirmed that it was time to push. They asked me to try and relax and resist the pushing urges until they got the doctor. I tried but Moanna was on her way, and she wasn’t stopping for anyone. People started filing into my room to get ready for Moanna’s arrival. Finally after getting fed up with waiting on the doctor to arrive from his office next door, the nurses gave me the go ahead to start actively pushing. Thankfully, I had enough feeling in my pelvis that I was able to tell the nurses when it was time to push and when it was time to rest. By the grace of God, they followed my lead and allowed me to push and rest when the urges came. As I was resting between pushes, I heard them whispering to one another about how it wouldn’t be the first time they had to catch for this doctor because he takes his time showing up. When the doctor finally showed up, he strolled in to the room, tilted his head to the side and gave my crotch a glance as he blew bubble gum and walked back out. Moanna was in a hurry to make her debut and as she was crowning the doctor was nowhere to be found. The nurses tracked him down again and just before she came out he walked in to catch her and deliver the placenta.

I pushed for less than half an hour, and less than twenty minutes of that was active pushing. Moanna was born at 12:33PM. Steve cried. I cried. Moanna screamed and flailed about. She was perfect. While they cleaned me up and did some paper work Moanna stayed on my chest for a good while before I let the nurse take Moanna to the table next to me to weigh her and do the other new baby stuff. They cleaned her up, swaddled her up, gave her back to me and encouraged me to start nursing her.

I wish I could tell you that Moanna latched on and that we all lived happily ever after in new family bliss. Unfortunately that is not the case. The hours, days and weeks following Moanna’s birth was a struggle for the three of us. All new families struggle at first to adjust to the new rhythm of life, but I feel confident that a lot of the struggles that followed Moanna’s arrival would have been nonexistent had the doctor and nurses respected my desires to have a natural birth.

Continue reading in Part 5

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