April is the month of my son’s birth. But don’t worry, I won’t bore you with a dreaded “childbirth story.”
Everyone thinks their account is unique, but all the stories are basically the same: The Pre-Labor Part, The Decision to Go to the Hospital Part, The Agonizing Pain Part, The Rationale for Using/Not Using Pain Meds Part, and The Actual Birth in Excruciating Detail Part.
After listening to a few of these chronicles, I’d rather endure an episiotomy than hear another one.
Back in the day, I am sure I annoyed a few friends with the bothersome tales of the births of my three children, but I’ve learned my lesson. Nowadays, I only tell the parts of my childbirth stories that are totally self-deprecating, extremely disgusting, or absolutely hilarious.
Like during my first pregnancy when I religiously read my “What to Expect” book and meticulously recorded my weight, circumference, bowel movements, mood swings and gas bubbles in my spiral-bound pregnancy journal.
Somewhere around the 35th week, I read that my obstetrician would likely perform a “nipple check” to be sure that I would be able to breastfeed my newborn. I waddled off to my monthly appointment, knowing exactly what to expect while I was expecting.
At my scheduled visit with Doc Walker, an old-fashioned obstetrician who had seen it all before, he did the normal tests to be sure the fetus was growing properly. He asked me to sit up, and as I started to reach around to undo my bra for the nipple check, he patted me on the knee, and started to leave the room.
“But wait!” I shouted, “Aren’t you going to check my nipples?!”
With a smirk, he turned and said, “Have you been reading that book again?”
Completely embarrassed, I nodded. “Alright then, let’s see em.”
My embarrassment quickly turned to total humiliation as I realized what an idiot I was for bringing up my nipples at all. Mortified, I submitted to the unnecessary exam that I had demanded and slithered out of the room.
In the next few weeks we attended childbirth classes to find out how to hee-hee-hoo and breathe our way through the perfect birth. One night, the topic of circumcision came up. The crunchy California nurses were biased and described a heinous procedure involving excruciating unnecessary pain.
At my next appointment, I confided in Doc Walker that I felt guilty for wanting to get our baby circumcised. With his characteristic smirk, Doc Walker calmly opined, “For long hours, a baby is squeezed so hard that it comes out with it’s head shaped like a cone. The pain of a circumcision is peanuts compared to that.” Was that supposed to make me feel better about circumcision?
A couple weeks later, I was in the throes of labor at a country-club like hospital in Pebble Beach, California. My husband and I had attended all the birthing classes together, and he was ready to assist me in implementing the Lamaze methodology to its fullest. But by the seventh hour, he was getting tired. And besides, I was delirious.
An orderly brought a dinner tray into our room, but as I was forbidden to eat anything but ice chips in the event that emergency surgery was needed. My husband graciously “jumped on the grenade” and ate the meal himself. And besides, I was delirious.
As he was finishing his last bite of carrot cake, a slender young nurse walked in to take her shift on the ward. Although our forgotten camcorder had been set up in the corner to catch the labor on tape, it regrettably recorded my husband getting up from his meal to engage in flirtatious chit chat with the nurse while I labored in the adjacent hospital bed. And besides, I was delirious.
At the left of the screen one sees my husband and the nurse.
“So, where do single folks like you hang out around here?” he says. The nurse smiles as she checks some medical equipment, and begins to tell him about the bar scene.
At the right of the screen, one sees me, laying on my side, eyes closed, apparently sleeping. One can hear the “bum-bum” of the heartbeat monitor, and as the beats get faster, my eyes open. My hand reaches for the bedrail. I huff and puff my way through waves of painful contractions as I maintain a death grip on the rail.
At the left of the screen, one sees the attractive nurse obliviously throw her head back in laughter at something witty my husband has said.
Despite the unexpected obsession with my pregnancy journal, the humiliating nipple check, worries over circumcision, my labor delirium and my husband’s flirtations; I delivered a beautiful baby boy, which was exactly what we had been expecting all along.
That is almost exactly what happened when my son was born – when the nurse – Misty was her name, and I’ve hated that name ever since – flirted outrageously with my husband and the husband of my fellow Lamaze classmate, while we huffed and puffed in adjacent beds at the Guam Naval Medical Center. Misty figured they could all go out for a beer and be back by the time my classmate and I delivered. We Were Not Amused. It is very hard to hee hee hoo and push and be angry at the same time, but we managed to do all of the above. She was, to her credit, cute and blond and (this is the cruelest cut) skinny. That maternity ward had never known such heeing and hooing, as we did our breathing exercises with a vengeance, and Misty, bless her heart, became our joint focal point.
Great blog post – as always, I look forward to the next one!
HA! I love THAT kind of childbirth story! Who hires skinny, single, attractive nurses to work the maternity wards anyway? It is like husband entrapment!
Congrats.. 😀
What a story! I hope you bring that video to hubby’s attention whenever he gets up in your face.
He’ll never live that one down.
You haven’t heard my great labor and delivery stories…. I think i will tell you all about it sitting on the beach with one of Francis’ mixed drinks in our hands.
Deal!