OMG she said vagina in her blog! It must be dirty! Let's read it!OK, did you get that out of your system yet? It's a body part, for chrissakes, like an elbow or toe nail, or a frenulum (look it up). While there are a wide variety of entertaining uses for the vagina, it evolved to serve one main purpose--birthing babies. Now, if you ladies out there don't happen to be using your vagina for this purpose, fear not. This blog entry is NOT a rant about how the role of vaginas is simply to grow babies, so get working on it. I encourage you to keep on keepin' on with whatever makes you happy and feels good.
No, this is a tragic tale of a childbirth gone awry, inspired by Eve Ensler and FailBlog. An odd combination, don't you think? Perhaps I should share the impetus for this story, lest you question my sanity and whether it's wise for me to be around your children.
Last semester (I live not by seasons or calendar years, but by the semester-based academic calendar) I was privileged enough to see the play "The Vagina Monologues," written by Eve Ensler, at Georgia Tech. It is a series of vignettes, ever evolving and expanding in scope and subject, that speaks to women and girls about the process of growing up into one's body and one's sexuality, whatever that sexual preference might be (or might be for the next few days...). They talk about sex and love and loss and sorrow, all through the perspective of how the vagina is experiencing it.
I must say, it's quite radical and cool to hear women engage in a discourse about what makes their vaginas happy. Isn't the rest of mainstream society really just a discourse about keeping penises happy? The vagina definitely deserved her own play, at least. I was honored to be named a Georgia Tech "Vagina Warrior" for my work in helping to end sexual assault and intimate partner violence on campus and around Atlanta. I have to say the the pleasure of typing out "VAGINA WARRIOR" on my annual report to the school chair and on my curriculum vitae gave me immense pleasure....
But now to the fail part. The "Vagina Monologues" was about women/vaginas as strong and successful, with their bodies giving them pleasure in whatever exploit they choose. What if yours doesn't happen to work that way? What if you experience....vagina fail?
The process of having a child is never easy, but it becomes particularly more complicated when one is trying to have a child later in life (say, after 35). I am one of those persons, and "vagina fail" has become a mantra over the last several years. Here's the timeline:
- March 2004, start trying to get pregnant
- June 2005, actually do get pregnant
- October 2005, not pregnant anymore (you do the math--it sucked--her name was Grayson Josephine D'Unger)
- November 2005, WHAT? Pregnant again????
- August 2006, Sam is born
- March 2008, start trying to get pregnant
- December 2008, pregnant again! Yay!!
- January 2009, not pregnant anymore
- March 2009, start trying to get pregnant
- today, July 23, 2009, STILL NOT PREGNANT
So, my vagina is not cooperating. I thought that we were a team! But difficulty in getting pregnant would not lead me to label my vagina a failure. I did indeed get pregnant and have a beautiful, healthy, large, baby boy on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 8:54 PM. No, here's where the feeling of failure comes in.
I read all the pregnancy, labor, and delivery books. I take a hypno-birthing class (OK, don't laugh, it's about learning deep breathing, relaxation, and meditation to cope with the pain of labor, which, if you haven't gone through it FOR FORTY FIVE HOURS LIKE I DID, is a burning hell). I don't want to be induced--only natural labor induction, like exercise, sex (what you REALLY want to do when you weigh 300 lbs.), and eating a lot of basil.
I knew childbirth wouldn't be easy, but I had these beautiful images of holding yoga poses while the baby slides out into a warm tub, and I am the first to touch him. Soft music, warm scented candles, the whole works.
That began to be stymied when Sam just kept getting bigger, but showed no inclination that he wanted to come out and join the non-womb world. One week late. Two weeks late. I try to ignore the ultrasounds the doctors are pointing to saying, "he's a big one--we guess 10 pounds 4 ounces." I try to kick-start things naturally, to no avail.
Then, the midwife makes the call. You're 14 days late with a big kid and you're running out of fluids in there. We have to induce to assure a vaginal delivery. Damn, damn, damn. This is exactly where I don't want to be- just checking into the hospital and not even in labor. I was hoping to fly in to the maternity ward when I was about 9 cm dilated, hop in a tub, do some squats, and pop out a kid. Hah!
But then something happens. As I sit in the waiting room, waiting to check into my bed for the night, my labor kicks in. I had been having fairly uncomfortable and very regular (every 10 minutes) contractions for 24 hours, but they decided to kick it up a notch IN THE WAITING ROOM. So now I'm not a woman waiting to be induced, I'm a woman who is in labor. GET ME A F&$%@ ROOM!!! Having pretty hard contractions in front of the flotsam and jetsam of other people's families in the waiting room is NOT my idea of a calm, natural birth. What should have actually happened is that they should have sent us home. This was active labor, but it was early active labor. I was only dilated to about 3 cm, so I had a ways to go. I should have gone home, labored in my own tub, my own shower, on my own bed, and walked around my own neighborhood. Instead, my job now seems to have shifted to convincing the nurses that I'm progressing "fast enough," whatever the hell that means. My midwife and doula are trying to hold them at bay, as the nurses offer drugs and epidurals and labor stimulants. IT WILL INTERFERE WITH MY GODDAMN YOGA POSITIONS!!! There is nothing like a laboring woman to clear a room with her anger....
They persuade me to try pitoscin, which is the anti-christ of labor inducing drugs. Contractions come faster and harder, though (in my experience) they don't seem to work as effectively. This is when most people pick up the white flag, surrender, and get that spine-numbing epidural put in their back. I resist. Four hours on pitoscin, no pain killers, and little progression. ENOUGH I say (and by "say," I mean while shouting expletives at the nurses). They turned that horrible stuff off and I went back to "normal" labor--starts out slower to ease you in, then gradually progresses. In this phase, I dilate to 5 or 6 cm.
Tis not enough for the nurse nazis. "Let's break your water." Wow, that sounds like fun. Please do. It comes out looking like I'm about to birth Kermit the Frog--in other words, green. This is a good reason to freak out if you were, say, 36 weeks pregnant and in labor. This means that meconium (AKA your baby's first poop) is in your amniotic fluid. Gross. Not only gross, but it *can* be a sign of fetal distress. But, if you happen to be 42 weeks pregnant, it just means your baby is ready to get the hell out and poop in his diapers. This would have been helpful information BEFORE they broke my water.
Now the legal stuff kicks in. Meconium in fluids = potential fetal distress. If we (the hospital) don't intervene, we could get our asses sued if this baby comes out with problems. What does that mean for you, the woman who has been in labor for about 40 hours? It means your bathes are gone. Your yoga positions are finished, unless you happen to know a yoga position that is just lying flat on your back. They hook me up to a garden hose to flush out all this crap (yes, it's as fun as it sounds, and more!), and I have to lay there. This is not how women were meant to have babies. Even if you are not a proponent of natural child birth, I'm assuming that you at least agree with the laws of physics, gravity being one of them.
The shit hits the fan. I am in massive pain. Massive is not a massive enough word for it, but I can't think of anything else. If I were in this pain and could be moving around (which is what my body was SCREAMING for me to do) or in the tub, that would be one thing. But I am in pain and immobile. The worst of both worlds. But beyond the pain, now I'm scared. I was in control before, but now I'm not. I'm losing it. I try--I really do. But I can't take it anymore. I submit. I get the epidural. Actually, I request the epidural but, due to some anesthesia-related emergency in the hospital (i.e., it's cocktail hour), I have to wait an hour. One hour in the most hellish pain you can imagine. And now I'm really pissed and scared.
The epidural comes. Sweet relief. I am disappointed that this baby will not be a natural birth, but I can at least calm down now, get my emotional state back in order for what's to come. Or so I naively thought. I relax for 15 minutes or so, but then I want to shift to a new position. It's a pretty light epidural--still have some sensation--but I do need a little assistance from the midwife to shift into a new position. She helps me, then something happens. Monitors start beeping. Red lights keep flashing. Is it a fire drill? What the hell? In this new position, Sam's heart rate starts crashing. It goes down to 60 beats per minute for almost 4 minutes. This is brain damage territory. A crash cart arrives. Doctors and nurses I've never seen. Bill is in hospital scrubs faster than a lawyer can yell "lawsuit!" I think he might have a heart attack. I think I've already had a heart attack. They work on me--not sure what's happening. Beeps start to slow down. The red light is off. Calm. He's stabilized. My brain is not, but that's not really the concern at the moment. I hope that's the end.
It's not. It happens again. And again. Three times and the doctor is pressing for a c-section. The midwife checks me. I am now UN-dilating. WTF? Sam's head is wedged at an angle and causing too much pressure. If I could move, I could move him around. BUT NOW I'M STUCK IN BED. This can't be happening. I read about this. I did everything right. The midwife says that I'll probably just keep doing this until it becomes an emergency. I give up. I can't do it anymore. It's been two days. Get him out of me. Please. C-section happens.
Can Eve Ensler write about this?
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