Knowing that Jake was breech, we decided on a planned C-section at 38 weeks gestation. I was given the choice of any day from March 13th – 17th. Well, that’s a no-brainer, huh? I’ll be the mom that never forgets her son's birthday and take St. Patrick’s Day, thank-you! Though I was nervous the night before, I had no trouble sleeping anywhere, any time in my third trimester. We woke up the next morning and went in to Irwin Army Hospital, Ft. Riley, KS at 6:00 AM.
I got into the little gown with my butt hanging out and stuck out my arm to have the IV put in. Because they can never get a vein in my hand, they stuck me 5 or 6 times in the arm before getting a good one. Because I’m legally blind, we had made special arrangements for me to wear my coke-bottle lens glasses throughout the procedure so I could see my baby and test to see if the OR lights were capable of starting a fire through the two magnifying glasses on my face.
Around 7:30 AM, my butterflies and I were wheeled into the OR for the spinal. I had taken childbirth classes at a local hospital, and the breathing techniques (controlled hyperventilation/panic) came in quite handy! I’m terrified of needles, so I was careful not to look at the one they were about to stick in my spine. (If I’d seen it, they might not have needed any anesthetic as I would have passed out.) I sat on the gurney and leaned forward against a nurse as the anesthesiologist gave me a shot of Novocain and then inserted the needle and tube for the spinal. Slow inhale 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8… exhale… … 3… 4… (fight panic attack) 5… 6… (don’t wiggle) 7… (Yeah, right!) 8…
I warned the staff prior to the procedure that I have a history of resistance to anesthetics of every kind. I don’t think they believed me. I was lying on my back and I could feel my legs going numb. What a strange, tingly feeling! I was pretty well numbed (I thought) and couldn’t move my legs so they strapped me down spread eagle, stripe-ass naked on a wide gurney. They put a screen up in front of my face and my husband stood to my left. The surgeon prepared to make the first incision and…
“Um… I can feel your hand on me – is that normal?” I asked nervously.
The doctor responded, “You may feel some pressure or believe you’re feeling something, but our minds play tricks on us when we’ve been anesthetized.”
“Ok” I said, “but it feels like your fingers are just below my belly button, and your thumb is near my pubic hair-line.”
Silence…
“And now you’re making little circles with your finger…” I told him.
“Can we give her more?” The doctor asked the anesthesiologist.
The anesthesiologist replied, “It’s a Spinal, not an Epidural. Maybe it just needs another minute.”
“And how about now?” The doctor asked me a minute later.
“Feels like the palm of …” I started.
“We’re going to have to knock her out…”
“…Jesus… um, yeah… the palm of Jesus… has just taken all the feeling away” I gasped.
“Are you sure…” the doctor asked in a dubious voice.
“Can’t feel a thing!” I grinned innocently. Gulp!
Luckily the spinal worked well enough to cut out the sharp pain, though I could still feel every move they made. I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to meet my baby for the first time in the next few minutes! I think the nurse to my right who was monitoring my pulse was on to me, but simply whispered “Just let me know if it gets too bad.”
I was so excited that it wasn’t bad at all. I just used the breathing techniques I had learned, and I was fine.
After a few minutes, the doctor yelled, “We’ve got a science experiment in here! Get the camera and invite the gang to look at this one!”
“What’s…?”
“Don’t worry about it.” The doctor snapped in my direction.
(Yeah, right! The gang? Here I am strapped down like a beached whale, Nekid, with most of my innards lying on the outside of my body and you want to bring the Gang in? And what science experiment…?)
The doctor continued, “Now I’m going to make the incision… and break your water… towels! We’ve got a turtle-neck! Umbilical is wrapped three times around the neck!”
(Um, yeah – Panic Attack!)
And then I heard the most beautiful sound of my son crying and gasping for air. My euphoria was broken short by the doctor’s shout of “We’ve got a PREEMIE here! Get the cart STAT!”
“What…” (Am I on an emotional roller-coaster or something? I think I just wet myself… oh yeah, my catheterized bladder is in a spoon-clamp-thingy and sitting on my right hip.)
Suddenly the room was full of people rushing around with strange-looking equipment and yelling stuff to each other. Of course I was trying at this point to sit up to see where my baby was and find out what was going on. The OR team had to hold me down to prevent the rest of my innards from rolling out onto the table.
The pediatrician called out, “First APGAR is a 9... Second APGAR is a 10! It’s just a runt.”
“A runt???” (Did I have a baby or puppies?)
The nurse by my side whispered, “You just have a very little baby. We’re going to run some tests, but he seems to be fine. That pediatrician NEVER gives 10’s! That’s a really good sign.”
Finally, my 4lb 12oz squalling baby was brought over and placed on my chest. His crying stopped completely, and his little brown eyes opened up and looked directly into mine! I started crying, whispered “hi” to him and told him how much I loved him. My right hand had been released and I was able to hold him for just a minute.
He was taken from me to let his daddy hold him, and then whisked him off for tests. The doctor had started working to put me back together, and at this point I looked at the nurse and said, “Um, excuse me, but could you tell the doctor that that clamp on the left side is pinching a bit, and his hands are kind of cold?”
That was the last thing I remember before waking up about 2 hours later in recovery. Evidently they gave me enough of something to knock out a small elephant. I rather looked and felt like a small elephant too, but I slept well knowing my tiny little baby was just fine.
I later found out that the “science experiment” within me was a uterine anomaly where only half my uterus had developed. Cute, huh? The deformity is called a Unicornuate Uterus and it may explain in part my trouble conceiving that time and in the years to come. God forbid I could just be normal for once. Honestly, I knew even before they told me that my beautiful son was nothing less than the most wonderful miracle in my world.
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