I thought I ought to write this labor and delivery piece before it completely goes out of my head. It has been a month since Dinomyn was born, although the time has just flown by. Not the individual days, mind you...those drag on like molassas, but the time as a whole has gone by quickly. So, here goes.
1. The first thing they don't tell you is that you will be spending the majority of your labor outside of the hospital. That's right. For most women there's something like 18 hours worth of contractions (like every 10 minutes) that you have to go through before they'll admit you. Around here they have a phenomenon called the "Wymount Drop" where the woman has one severe contraction in the parking lot of Wymount heading to her car, and the baby just comes right then and there. Sounds great to me! I started having real contractions Saturday evening, we went to the hospital at 2:30 pm on Sunday, and weren't admitted until 6 pm on Sunday. Then Seamus came at 1 pm on Monday. So, that's like 36 hours worth of contractions, 20 of which were out of the hospital.
2. Contractions: they hurt like a mother. The books say that they feel like severe menstrual cramps. That's a load of crap. They feel like someone is sticking a knife into you and then twisting it around for a minute or so. And those were the initial ones. I didn't have to feel the bad ones at the end after they pumped me full of drugs. I can only imagine what those would have felt like. I mean, come on, this part of your anatomy has to go from an opening smaller than your pinky finger to 10 centimeters. Imagine your anus doing that, and you might get the picture. 10 centimeters is a lot! And then you have to push the wet St. Bernard through the kitty door. Who thought this up?? I can think of lots of better ways to give birth. Like marsupials. Their babies hatch the size of a grain of rice and then crawl into a pouch for a few months of growth. A grain of rice sounds pretty good to me.
3. Leave your stuff in the car. It's funny and sad to see a pregnant lady and her husband carry all their stuff up to the delivery room, only to be turned away because she's not far enough along in labor yet. The secret is to leave it in the car, then you psych yourself out...thinking "Oh, we're just going in to get checked, we probably won't be staying". When your baby realizes this, it says "Oh, no you're not... I'm coming now whether you like it or not." Reverse psychology. Works every time. Then you can be like us and bring up your change of clothes, your pillow, your 10 inch TV, your XBOX... Yes, the nurses looked at us strangely when we pulled that one out.
4. Bring something to distract yourself. I thought labor was going to be a quick intense experience. Instead, it was a long, boring, intense experience. The books I brought were crap. I couldn't concentrate on reading with the whole knife-stabbing thing going on. TV and video games, however, were the perfect diversion. I'm not saying that I couldn't feel the contractions (believe me, they were felt) but one can vedge out in front of a Simpsons episode or blame losing at Mariokart on the contractions felt during the race. Plus, I was in that room for 23 hours, and that was just the labor. At 2:30 am, it's nice to have something to do when you can't sleep. Then you go into a recovery room for the next 48 hours; the XBOX comes in handy there, too.
5. More strangers will see you buck naked than any other time in your life. Also, you won't care one bit. I would have done the Dance of the Seven Veils for these people if I thought it would stop the pain and make the baby come quicker. Seriously, give me a pole and watch me go! Even afterward, I'd be nursing the baby and someone would knock and I'd say "Come in" without even thinking about it. Modesty has no place in the labor and delivery ward.
6. GET THE EPIDURAL. I cannot stress this enough. It doesn't hurt the baby and it's worth every penny you pay for it. You have to be at a certain point in delivery before they'll give it to you, but once you're there, GET IT. I had mine at about 4 am on Monday, and I actually slept through the last few hours of labor. The pain is completely gone, along with all feeling from the belly button on down. It feels wonderful. It's a continuous drip of medication into your spine (through a tiny, long flexible catheter they place there), but they also give you a button that you can push and release extra numbing effects if you have a really severe contraction. Fun, huh? It sure beat the narcotic they gave me before. That took some of the edge off and made the room spin, but the pain was still there. We could hear the girl in the room next to me screaming, so I guess she went Au Natural. Big mistake.
7. You will lose control of your bowels. Some women poop on the floor during delivery. Some just pass gass into the face of the doctor. I was guilty of the second. Why do you think they wear those masks. To protect you from their diseases?? No, to ward off the smell. It's embarassing, but it's happened a thousand times to these guys and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Also, the catheter they put in is so nice. You don't have to get up to go to the bathroom, or even think about peeing. The body just naturally takes care of it. I'm considering getting a permanent one put in. :) It would definitely save on toilet paper...
8. You will have a billion nurses and they will all tell you different things. Over the course of 3 days I think I had 11 nurses assigned to me. They all work shifts, you see, and even if you really like one you can't keep her. They all have different advice, and some of it is crap. They all have different bedside manners, and some of them are great. But some of them aren't. It's a shame, really, that you can't keep the ones you click with.
Well, that's all I can think of right now, I hope you enjoyed it. The truth comes out!! And now you know what they don't tell you about labor and delivery.
1. The first thing they don't tell you is that you will be spending the majority of your labor outside of the hospital. That's right. For most women there's something like 18 hours worth of contractions (like every 10 minutes) that you have to go through before they'll admit you. Around here they have a phenomenon called the "Wymount Drop" where the woman has one severe contraction in the parking lot of Wymount heading to her car, and the baby just comes right then and there. Sounds great to me! I started having real contractions Saturday evening, we went to the hospital at 2:30 pm on Sunday, and weren't admitted until 6 pm on Sunday. Then Seamus came at 1 pm on Monday. So, that's like 36 hours worth of contractions, 20 of which were out of the hospital.
2. Contractions: they hurt like a mother. The books say that they feel like severe menstrual cramps. That's a load of crap. They feel like someone is sticking a knife into you and then twisting it around for a minute or so. And those were the initial ones. I didn't have to feel the bad ones at the end after they pumped me full of drugs. I can only imagine what those would have felt like. I mean, come on, this part of your anatomy has to go from an opening smaller than your pinky finger to 10 centimeters. Imagine your anus doing that, and you might get the picture. 10 centimeters is a lot! And then you have to push the wet St. Bernard through the kitty door. Who thought this up?? I can think of lots of better ways to give birth. Like marsupials. Their babies hatch the size of a grain of rice and then crawl into a pouch for a few months of growth. A grain of rice sounds pretty good to me.
3. Leave your stuff in the car. It's funny and sad to see a pregnant lady and her husband carry all their stuff up to the delivery room, only to be turned away because she's not far enough along in labor yet. The secret is to leave it in the car, then you psych yourself out...thinking "Oh, we're just going in to get checked, we probably won't be staying". When your baby realizes this, it says "Oh, no you're not... I'm coming now whether you like it or not." Reverse psychology. Works every time. Then you can be like us and bring up your change of clothes, your pillow, your 10 inch TV, your XBOX... Yes, the nurses looked at us strangely when we pulled that one out.
4. Bring something to distract yourself. I thought labor was going to be a quick intense experience. Instead, it was a long, boring, intense experience. The books I brought were crap. I couldn't concentrate on reading with the whole knife-stabbing thing going on. TV and video games, however, were the perfect diversion. I'm not saying that I couldn't feel the contractions (believe me, they were felt) but one can vedge out in front of a Simpsons episode or blame losing at Mariokart on the contractions felt during the race. Plus, I was in that room for 23 hours, and that was just the labor. At 2:30 am, it's nice to have something to do when you can't sleep. Then you go into a recovery room for the next 48 hours; the XBOX comes in handy there, too.
5. More strangers will see you buck naked than any other time in your life. Also, you won't care one bit. I would have done the Dance of the Seven Veils for these people if I thought it would stop the pain and make the baby come quicker. Seriously, give me a pole and watch me go! Even afterward, I'd be nursing the baby and someone would knock and I'd say "Come in" without even thinking about it. Modesty has no place in the labor and delivery ward.
6. GET THE EPIDURAL. I cannot stress this enough. It doesn't hurt the baby and it's worth every penny you pay for it. You have to be at a certain point in delivery before they'll give it to you, but once you're there, GET IT. I had mine at about 4 am on Monday, and I actually slept through the last few hours of labor. The pain is completely gone, along with all feeling from the belly button on down. It feels wonderful. It's a continuous drip of medication into your spine (through a tiny, long flexible catheter they place there), but they also give you a button that you can push and release extra numbing effects if you have a really severe contraction. Fun, huh? It sure beat the narcotic they gave me before. That took some of the edge off and made the room spin, but the pain was still there. We could hear the girl in the room next to me screaming, so I guess she went Au Natural. Big mistake.
7. You will lose control of your bowels. Some women poop on the floor during delivery. Some just pass gass into the face of the doctor. I was guilty of the second. Why do you think they wear those masks. To protect you from their diseases?? No, to ward off the smell. It's embarassing, but it's happened a thousand times to these guys and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Also, the catheter they put in is so nice. You don't have to get up to go to the bathroom, or even think about peeing. The body just naturally takes care of it. I'm considering getting a permanent one put in. :) It would definitely save on toilet paper...
8. You will have a billion nurses and they will all tell you different things. Over the course of 3 days I think I had 11 nurses assigned to me. They all work shifts, you see, and even if you really like one you can't keep her. They all have different advice, and some of it is crap. They all have different bedside manners, and some of them are great. But some of them aren't. It's a shame, really, that you can't keep the ones you click with.
Well, that's all I can think of right now, I hope you enjoyed it. The truth comes out!! And now you know what they don't tell you about labor and delivery.
