Third Birth: Pushing for the doctor's attention

  Twelve months, two weeks, and five days after I left Baptist with the birth of my second child, I was back in labor and delivery with my third baby. I had hired the same doctor and the same doula, Penny Williams--both of whom rejoiced with me in our fertility.

   My largely uneventful pregnancy with David ended with a magnificent 10-day run of contractions. The first contractions hit on April 1, and I lamented an April Fool's baby. Each day after that exhausted me, filled with mild contractions scattered throughout the day. Finally, the day before David's due date, the doctor stripped my membranes. He told me he expected me to go into labor the next day, but he had a conference to attend, so his backup doctor would be delivering David. The exact scenario occurred with birth #2, so I was not caught unaware.

   I did, indeed, experience intensified contractions throughout the night. Having had a week of hopefuls, I hesitated to call Penny until I felt more certain that these contractions would lead to the birth today. I walked with my husband around our apartment complex for a few hours, then I called Penny at 10 am or so. She had talked my doctor into allowing me to receive a shot of Rocephin at home to combat the Group B Strep I carried. My husband, a nurse, administered it to me before she arrived. I walked, ate, and bounced on the birthing ball until about 1pm, when we decided to make the 45-minute trek to the hospital. I ate some grapes.

   I honestly don't remember much about the ride, but I do have this wonderful memory of Penny, carrying my huge, bright pink birthing ball through the corridors of the hospital and into the elevator while I moaned and groaned with each contraction.

   Here, at the hospital, the story turns sour. I waddled up to the check-in window in obvious pain. The nurse, unhurried, shuffled some papers and asked me to take a seat. On her papers, I noticed aloud a friend's name who apparently was already checked in and delivering her baby. The nurse did not take kindly to my Hippa violation. She called me back in her own sweet time, but she specifically refused my husband or my doula admission. I was unsettled, but my husband was seething. Penny let that nurse have a piece of her mind, too.

   Baptist has a safe-haven policy, where they admit women alone so they can ask if they are enduring any abuse. I wasn't. I told them so. Then I asked for my husband and my doula. Nothing. For 45 minutes. They checked my cervix and determined I was at a 9! Still no husband. Or doula. Or birthing ball.

   Or doctor.

   While Chris and Penny were in the waiting room seething, I was fighting my battles alone. I had asked my doctor if there was any way I could go without the IV during labor, and he agreed without hesitation. However, my doctor was at a conference. The admitting nurses had never heard of such a thing, and basically told me that it's hospital policy, and they would not treat me if I refused it.

   I was having the baby, and they were going to put me out on the street?

   So, of course, I consented. Sadly, the first nurse experienced some difficulty inserting the IV. She poked and prodded, then passed me off to the second nurse. She had no more success, but during her attempt, my husband burst into the room, so angry, he was shaking. I told him they made me get an IV and now they couldn't insert it. He demanded to do it himself. The poor nurses were shaken and confused, but he showed them his Baptist badge and said, "I am an employee of this hospital. I have successfully inserted more than 1,000 IVs, and my wife has veins like ropes." Unfortunately, the vein had already been blown. I still have phantom twinges from the blown IV insertion point.

   After they found a good site, they started IV antibiotics to combat the Group B Strep, per hospital policy. I explained that my doctor had prescribed a shot of Rocephin for that, and it had already been administered.   

  "Doesn't matter," they said. "Hospital policy."

   I was about sick of hospital policy.

   Then, they wanted to monitor the baby and check my cervix. I compliantly lay on the bed, strapped to the machine, legs open, when the back-up doctor whirled into the room, face hard as flint, eyebrows furrowed. I felt his hands on my legs, as I expected, but I couldn't see because of the hospital gown. At this point, Penny rounded the corner and shouted, "Hold up!" She looked at me, "Did you tell him he could do that?"

   "Do what?" I asked. As far as I knew, he was just checking my progress.

   "Break your water!" she replied.

   "No, I did not," I said, clipping my words.

   Well, that irritated the doctor. But after discussion, we eventually decided it would be okay. My mother and my husband's mother had joined us, and each was answering phone calls during the short wait before pushing began. The ringing seemed so loud and annoying at the time, but I was floored to see the doctor take a call or two. Probably personal, considering he was speaking French into the receiver.

   After he broke my water, the contractions approached uncontrollable intensity. I vomited during transition. The doctor spread my legs, told me it was time to push, and then turned on the television. Then he turned around to watch the debate on immigration.

   While I was pushing.

   Hmmm, I wonder if that's hospital policy?

   David didn't take long to crown. But it was long enough for me to burst the capillaries in my eyes again. I looked like a freak science project for a solid month! He was born facing up, which accounted for the incredible back pain and strange frontal sensation as he descended.

   He weighed 9 lb 1 oz, but I don't think I needed any stitches. My husband handed the baby to me after they cleaned him up, but I couldn't hold him because of the frontal pain in my nethers. That baby bruised me!

   What an ordeal. We had decided to name him David Brayden, but after my mom saw his face, she turned to me with tears in her eyes, and said, "He's just like Walter." So David's name was changed to David Walter on a whim. My brother has managed to make it cool, so maybe David will have the same luck.

   The doctor recommended Pitocin after delivery to stop the bleeding. I had heard this was standard, but I wanted to avoid unnecessary interventions. Penny examined me and said, "I'd do it." So I did. And I had no hesitations or problems with it.

   I nursed David well and sent him to the nursery for the night. I enjoyed rooming in with my first baby, but I learned to appreciate rest when I had the chance, with three children under the age of three now.

   A few days after his birth, I discovered a very distressing bulge in the birthing area. I called Penny, a little panicked and worried that it might be my uterus. She recommended I see a doctor as soon as possible, where my fears were allayed. It was a urethracele--a part of my ureter had bulged out, swollen, from the trauma of birth. I needed a healthy uterus, after all, because within eighteen months, I delivered twins!

   What I would repeat:

   My doula. I loved having someone in-the-know to stand by my birthing choices and guide me in making intervention choices.

   Laboring at home. I know the nurses and doctors hate seeing someone come in at 9cm, but the hospital "policies" are so restrictive that it makes pain management difficult without an epidural.

   What I would change:

   My communication. I wonder if I had contacted the back-up doctor myself instead of waiting for the hospital to do it if he might have been less irritated. I also wonder how badly the admission nurse treated me because I highlighted her Hippa violation.

   My husband's absence. I wonder what would have happened if I had just waited with my husband in the waiting room if they refused to admit him. That's probably not the best way to get on the good side of the nurses, but they made him wait 45 minutes before admitting him. To put it in perspective, David was born two hours later.

   Pretty much everything about the hospital policies, the doctor, and the nurses. This experience drove us to choose a home birth for our next delivery. However, when we discovered twins, we consented to a textbook hospital labor and delivery. But we did finally enjoy a wonderful home birth with our sixth and final baby.