It is Thursday evening. A sharp pain like cramping of my lower abdomen would come and go. Given my high threshold to endure physical pain, and an aversion for pain killers, I decide to not panic and observe for as long as I can handle it. After letting an hour pass, when the pain does not subside, I calmly tell the husband, that this certainly does not feel like a normal abdomen cramp. He, almost leaping out of his seat, asks me, if this is ‘contraction pain’ I am experiencing. Bless the parenting classes we went for, this man is well prepared. So we decide to call the doctor’s clinic, a calming voice at the other end tells us to watch and keep count of the contractions, and also casually adds that, this must be ‘early labor’, or ‘Braxton hicks’ as medically known. Needless to say, the next few hours are spent doing what we are advised to - earnestly keeping count of contractions. I realize the pain keeps coming back in pattern, and the fear and anxiety of an early delivery becomes more and more palpable starting from this point.
The
day retires into a never-ending night of anticipating pain after every 5 to 10
minutes. But I know I still want to give it some time. Towards Friday afternoon,
I call the clinic again, and get referred to the Sister’s charity hospital –
the one we chose for delivery. They take couple of long and hard look at me,
and send me home. Why? Because apparently I am not dilated enough, in other
words, my body was slowly preparing for delivery, but I was not quite there
yet. They want to wait for another week since I have just completed my 35th
week, and 36th is considered ideal for labor and delivery. We drive
back home – a quiet drive since both of us are doing our own mental calculations
and weighing the situation. We reach home, clouded with questions, burdened
with the uncertainty of things. How bad is it going to be if I deliver within
this week? Will baby do just fine? Does this happen often? Why am I in labor so
early? Parents aren’t going to be here shortly, how will we manage? Will
friends be in town this week? We will see. We reach home, and the pain doesn’t
fade, but doesn’t pick up either. By next day (Saturday evening), I am
exhausted from the ordeal of hanging in there, of expecting the pain to
magically disappear, or to build up just enough for delivery, but neither of
this happens. And after testing my patience for as long as I could bear it,
slowly, steadily and eventually the pain picks up. I say enough is enough and
call the Doctor once again. He now asks me to go to the hospital for the second
time (I pray let this be the final time). We pick up our hospital bags (both
mine and husband’s), which was kept ready from a month (finally I get my answer
to why this was so important), say a little prayer, glance through the house
for the last time, because something was telling me, next time I step in, I
will be carrying a baby in my arms. Just the thought of it! Sigh!
In
the hospital reception counter, paper work gets done and a very kind and friendly
nurse preps me up for check-up. The resident Doctor, Dr Singhal, a petite young
Indian lady, repeats the ghastly and excruciatingly painful process of checking
for dilation once again, and declares that although I am progressing well, they
still can’t say anything for certain till it picks up and reaches 7cm dilation.
I squirm, change sides, as I lay on the bed of the room for early labor, almost
bruising husband’s hands for transfer of some magic power to help me endure the
pain, but nothing ever helps. Probably more than the pain, the uncertainty of
things makes me lose my cool. Will I finally get to see my baby today? Or could
dilatation stop and I could be sent home for one more time? Aren’t you going to
give me some sedative? ‘I cannot take this anymore, do you hear me?’ I want to
shout from rooftop, so they would listen. But only if they could feel my pain! By
2 am my screams and pain get harder to
ignore, they finally decide to give me painkillers, starting in small doses, going
up in every half an hour. The nurse and the resident doctor is keeping a close
monitor of how things are progressing and keeping the attending Doc, Dr.
Bartles (the one who was going to do the delivery) informed over phone, who
probably must be delivering another baby right at this point. An Indian
Anastasia practitioner walks in with epidural now. A cathode, to pass the
epidural through, is carefully placed on my spine. It fails the first time, he
takes the whole darn thing off my back like drilling out a nail from the wall; pokes
my spine for the second time in a different spot, between the same lumbers,
between frustration and annoyance, declares, “never seen anyone show such
resistance to epidural.” Well, not intentional! I wanted to say. He murmurs
that if it fails the second time, he would like the 7 am guy to do it, instead
of poking me for the third time. My mental calculation of the wait from 2.30 to
7 am sends me into a tizzy. But luckily, even before I could protest, it works magically
the second time. It slowly relieves me of the sharp piercing pain, just enough
to still feel the contractions, which I am told is necessary to be able to push,
and slowly my lower body starts to feel partially numb. Now the new nurse (new
shift) shoves a pipe up my urinary track right after a courteous hello (Jesus
Christ!! what the hell was that!); this is done so that I can relieve myself on
the bed, no question of getting up from bed now with all the wires hanging from
my body. By now I lose all sense of time and day. Probably around 10 am, Dr
Singhal shows up, checks for dilation for what I realize is the last time. The
process feels less painful now, thanks to the epidural. She says I am 8 cm dilated and this is when
she declares that I would be delivering in few hours from now! What so far felt
like forever now feels hasty, sudden, and almost abrupt. So there! The moment
has finally arrives. A mixed feeling of relief and nervousness grips me. I look
across the room for the husband who arrives just in time from an errand home. Dr
Singhal comes back in no time; a sense of urgency builds up in the air as the
support staff preps up the room for delivery.
Dr Singhal very casually tells me what she is going to do now, ‘I am going
to break your water now, okay?’ Holy mother of God!! What!! Sorry, whaaaaat? Did
you just say…are you going to…are you insane…can I run away? But alas, she is dead
serious. She does exactly what she says, just with a prick which I cannot feel,
she breaks my water; no sensation whatsoever, I mean by now even if a
bulldozer ran through my lower body I couldn’t care! This however helps move
baby slowly down the birth canal.
Now
I am ready to push, no I am not, I am only brainwashed to think I am. Nurse asks
me to push when the contractions build up, which is after every 15 minutes. Phew!
Now the technicalities of pushing - keeping chin down, of getting it right, of
believing I could do it, bruising husband’s hand for the final time, between
contractions, ice chips, to sooth the dry mouth from screaming my gut out, and
just keeping at it, not losing focus, not giving up, just trying to push baby
down, that’s all, but that’s everything. Thousand questions running through my
tired mind. When is the real doctor making his grand entry? Why is he taking so
long? Would he even make it? Or am I going to deliver with a resident doctor
after all the wait? And as I wreck my brain with these concerns, all of a
sudden, Dr. Bartels walks into the room almost stealthily in his white armor. A
middle aged man who has ‘gentleness’ written all over him, one who lets his
work do the talking, who doesn’t speak, but coos, and all that sass, who
prepares you (even in that condition), before touching you, a voice, soft
enough to sound gentle, and firm enough to sound confident, that comes with years
of experience I suppose, giving you the confidence that he can’t get anything
wrong; most importantly that I am not going to die! He is settled in now, but a
little hiccup – the nurse declares that I am not getting the pushing bit right.
So the husband, this time my knight in ‘midwify’ armor, cutely jumps in to show
how to push (sending me into a giggle fit in my mind) Good lord! Have to admit
the support and encouragement help. ‘You are doing fab honey’, the nurse goes, thanks
for the motivation, I need all of that and more. Doc calls husband to show the
hairy head that is visible now, hubs witnessing the unfathomable sight gulps so
deep and hard that it almost reverberates in the room; nurse quickly checks on
him to see if he is alright, something that needed doing considering how often
men faint in delivery rooms. After some more sweating and shrieking and pushing,
Dr Bartles decides to make few cuts down there, to make the process easier.
Quite freakishly I exactly know what is going on right now (Hail birthing
classes again), but too numb to feel any pain. I am asked to push again, nurse
getting excited, “daddy, is your camera ready?’ I, insanely happy hearing these
words, probably this is intentional to get me motivated for the final push, I couldn’t
tell, but hey, it worked! And with that one final push, baby’s head floats out while
the doc pulls out the rest of the baby from within me, as i lay there marveling at the miracle that birthing is! Baby cries relentlessly, shaking, almost fainting
with the wailing and protesting. The father is asked to cut the umbilical
chord. Time of birth is yelled across to the person who is assigned to record
it. I remember saying ‘O my God’ for as long as it tires me. An expression I
choose when my brain stops to function. I lay on the delivery bed – bare, exhausted, happy, proud and most of all, in pain, while the doc stitches
me up like the Thanksgiving turkey, with attention to minute details. Pictures of
baby are dutifully taken by one of the many attendants who swarm into the room
for various duties. Baby is wrapped in the trademark hospital cloth with pink
and blue stripes and handed to daddy and then to me for a wee bit, before she
is whisked away for tests.
This sure is my mini celebrity moment, despite the
obvious oddity of lying on a delivery bed in my full glory. The time of our
daughter’s birth is yelled out over phone to my dad. We thank everyone in the
birthing room profusely. Pictures are instantly sent across
million miles, putting anxious parents and siblings to relief. Friends arrive
on the scene and more than make up for absence of family. Congratulatory
messages from the hospital staff start floating in the room. And the two of us,
the new mommy and daddy, we declare that we finally became parents!! All so
dreamlike! We name our daughter ‘Tanaya’, Sanskrit for ‘daughter’, and hope and
pray that she lives a happy, healthy an a fulfilling life.
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