The birth of Jonas David, Part 2: Aftermath

Thanks again, everyone for staying with me-- those who are still reading, anyway....The last week has been harrowing at times, and just lovely beyond imagining at others.  It has been everything you are told and can't quite understand until you are in the midst of it.

Highs and lows previously unfathomable to me are suddenly daily events, from  kissing the top of the sweetest-smelling baby's head as he nuzzles into my chest at 6 a.m., to mingling my hot tears with his and both of us sob in abject misery over my failure to understand what has happened, and how they let me go home with this precious but inscrutable human that is totally dependent upon me to not fuck it up.

I wanted to blog the second part of his birth story before it fades into the gray fuzziness of the past.  After he was born amidst the frantic shouting and my primal screams (which I am certain were heard by everyone in the hospital that night-- and if it had been maternity tour time, I am sure I would have discouraged more than a few women from taking the natural route!) they said, "Look at your baby!" and laid him on my chest.  (It is honestly a bit of a blur-- one minute I had been pushing with all my might and then I felt his head emerge followed quickly by his hot, slippery body, and the next they were commanding me to look at my baby and Speedy was saying "It's a boy!" and then this little purple baby was upon me and Speedy was cutting the umbilical cord with a shockingly large splatter of blood.) Then the doula was upon me, fixing Jonas's mouth to first one nipple then the next while I was still naked and filleted on the birthing table.  Then someone took Jonas from me and did the vitamin K and whatnot, then handed him off to Speedy who was in a similar state of emotional suspension.  By the time I could focus, I realized there was some sort of flurry happening again--  they were telling me to push again to deliver the placenta, but as hard as I pushed I could not feel it. Finally they told me that it was not delivering and they called in another doctor to manage it.

A word here about bedside manners.  If you or anyone you love are in the healthcare professsion, please tell them that the smallest hint of humanity, something as simple as eye contact and a "hello"  goes a LONG FUCKING WAY.  I only say that with such emphasis because Dr. Placenta, who was introduced to me by my midwife, and whom I greeted with a "Hello, Dr. Placenta" never so much as glanced a degree north of my nethers to return my greeting or ackjnowledge my presence as the owner of the vagina he then proceeded to savage.

Dr. Placenta spent a long time tugging the placenta by the umbilical cord this way and that, and my midwife would occasionally tell me to push or to stop pushing-- seemingly in direct opposition of whatever felt right  from my perspective-- and surgery was discussed as if my ears were not merely a few anatomical parts away.  Ultimately, though, after about half an hour of pulling and prodding, they injected the umbilicus with a motherlode of pitocin and somehow hauled the placenta out of me.

Then it was my midwife's turn: She was quite pleased to announce that I had only first degree tearing, but somehow her stitching was incredibly painful (another note to physicians:  when numbing local area before stitching, please be sure to numb the area adjacent to it as well, since that is inevitably going to bear a significant amount of poking, jabbing, pulling and stretching as well.)  As she stitched, she kept up a running commentary with the doctor she was training, noting her own personal variations on standard procedures and their benefits:  "They usually use a continuous stitch for this, but I prefer the interrupted stitch.  See how nicely that comes together?"  Which is frankly not something you want to hear being said about your tattered lady parts, ever.

Finally, it was over and they let me clean up and whisked away all the blood and gore so that we could see my family.  Yes, my family.  I can't remember if I blogged about this, but my parents had intended on coming down Christmas eve, but the week before my father called me saying that he had broken his leg and they would not be able to come.  Then they changed their minds, since my father is about as stubborn as I  am, and was loathe to lose the opportunity to meet the first grandchild.  So they pulled into Brooklyn about two hours before the midwife pulled Jonas out of me.

The rest of that night and the following day were a blur of visitors and the inherent annoyances of being in a hospital-- blood pressure checks, IVs, random people walking into your room without knocking or introducing themselves... But overall, aside from a couple of things that I would edit (For example: don't let them take your baby for a bath.  They will keep it for hours to stabilize its temperature-- that time would be much better spent on mom's chest.) the hospital experience was not terrible.  So many people brought food that I never once even peeped inside the scary pink plastic food covers to see what atrocities they were bringing at regular intervals. 

This post is going to have to be broken into yet another piece, because I have to feed the dogs while Jonas naps between feedings.

For the future:  I will post about the tremendous issues we have had feeding this boy.  In short:  my milk didn't come in as early or as well as expected-- probably due to the retained placenta-- and for a few terrifying days the boy probably spent more energy trying to suckle than he received from my paltry supply.  Add that to his poor suckling form in general, and you've got a very unhappy, jaundiced, hungry boy and two desperate and scared mamas who not-so-secretly believe that they might not be qualified to keep the child alive, despite the age, experience and education between them.  Things are getting better now and the boy is getting enough to eat (and still loves the boob, thank god!) but we have a long way to go and the path is basically me tethered to a breast pump from here until eternity, so please excuse my lapses while we work out exactly how to keep on with this and do our regular life stuff.  More on this later!