Henry was born at 9:45 pm on May 4th, 2008. He weighed 6 pounds 5 ounces and was very healthy…well except for being completely beat up! Poor baby. I went into the hospital at 2 pm and was admitted at 4 oclock after walking around the halls for an hour so I could dialate to 4cm. We got into the delivery room around 4:30 and my contractions started getting really strong. I lost sense of time but I’m pretty sure they got really bad around 6 pm when the nurse told me I was only about 5 cm dialated. I just remember thinking “Oh my God, I don’t think I can do this.” But somehow, I was able to put that in the back of my mind and focus on breathing and squeezing the hell out of Tommy’s hand. It was probably around 7 pm where I got to 7 cm and I LOST it. It was so painful that I couldn’t help but scream in absolute pain. For the next 2 hours I was screaming like I was being tortured and felt like my body was being ripped apart. Finally at 9 oclock it was time to push. My body took over and I couldn’t help but just push as hard as I could. Henry came out 45 min later and I finally got to hold him. He was a little beat up after running into my pubic bone and getting stuck there for about 15 minutes.
I was completely exhausted, still in pain and about to shake off the bed from all the endorphins running through my body. The doctor (who was NOT my regular doctor and was a COMLETE ASSHOLE by the way- but I won’t tell you here or this will be a novel) told me that Henry had ripped me in three places about an inch down. He said he couldn’t sew me up because it was a major wound and so I would have to go to the OR to be stitched up. I said “bye” to Henry and Tommy and was wheeled away to the OR. Around 11 or so I came out of it and asked where my baby was? They wheeled me into the recovery room where I got to hold Henry a little bit before he was taken with Tommy to go get a bath in the nursery. I remember sitting there thinking “Ok, I’m proud of myself for sticking to my plan and not getting any drugs, but I am REALLY messed up right now.” That morning around 3am, two nurses came in and said, “Ok it’s time to change you.” I thought “What? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do with the baby?” Well it turns out that I was wearing these diaper things and because of my surgery and all the bleeding, I would need to change them out. How wonderful is that!? Can you say humiliating!? The one thing I remember the most is that when I got off the bed and stepped onto the ground, I felt like my guts were going to explode out of my crotch. I couldn’t stand up straight and I could barely walk. So the two nurses escorted me to the bathroom while one carried my IV and the other carried my pee bag. After we got there the nurse looked me over and said, “Wow, you are really swollen.” Just what I wanted to hear. I tried to make sure Tommy couldn’t see me in the bathroom because I was so embarrassed. I just felt really vulnerable. Then they helped me back into bed where I kept thinking,”What the hell happened down there!!??” The rest of the stay in the hospital was pretty routine. Tommy and I barely got any sleep and so we were on autopilot trying to make it through.
The night we came home was awful. I had finally fallen asleep only to be woken up and told that I had to leave. I was helped into a wheel chair where the girl pushing ran into the door AND the wall a few times – NOT EVEN JOKING, WHAT THE HELL. Then we got in the car and drove home. On the drive home, I fell to pieces. I was just bawling all over the place telling Tommy that I couldn’t feel ANYTHING down there and that Henry had destroyed me. I also felt like I had left all my dignity at the hospital after my whole incident down there and having to be “changed” and then having a horrible time trying to breast feed with people man-handling me all over the place. I think the whole situation plus the fact that I was deprived of sleep just finally caught up to me. Tommy was wonderful and tried to put me at ease when we got home. He put me to bed and stayed up all night with Henry. I know that childbirth is supposed to be an amazing experience – I wish mine could have been but it was actually one of the worst experiences of my life. I am of course overjoyed that Henry is finally with us and completely healthy, but I am an absolute mess. Hopefully I’ll feel better in a few days.
