Throughout my labor, I submitted to another situation I was uncomfortable with, but was made to feel (bullied? I'm not sure.) it was 'necessary': very, very painful internal exams. At one point, one of the doctors checked me and said that Jeremiah's arm was up over his head. There went that popular little phrase again: "You might need a c-section. We can't do this, because the baby would lose his arm during delivery." Yikes. So, we called our prayer chain coordinator to pray, we prayed, and I spoke to Jeremiah. I told him, "Jeremiah, please move your arm down honey. Take it off of your head so Mama doesn't get hurt sweetheart." Guess what?! Praise God! Jeremiah listened to me and moved his hand onto his forehead. The Dr. who came in to give his second opinion said, "I can do this (mimicking J's hand). I can't do this (mimicking his arm), but this (hand again) I can do." Woohoo!!! God was continuing to answer our desperate prayers favorably.
Remember - that infamous, "blessed" epidural that wasn't working? Add to that roughly 4-6 internal exams throughout 12-ish hours of labor. Each time I just got more and more stressed out. The nurses kept saying they 'had to make sure' Jeremiah was in a favorable position for vaginal delivery. They also needed to see if he was moving down, because up to that point he'd been pretty stationary for quite some time. Again, if he didn't move down, I would wind up with (here we go again, you guessed it...) a c-section.
At one point, I finally just got fed up. Having taken Bradley classes, I knew that most of the time internal exams do little good and could actually be dangerous - and I knew my rights. I could reject any procedure I was uncomfortable with for any reason. It finally hit me just how unnecessary those internal exams can be (though I admit, it's possible God worked through them to save Jeremiah's arm), and I was done.
The next time the nurse came to check me, I told her absolutely no more internal exams. At this point, my nurse even complained to me that she couldn't help it her hands were so small so she had to push harder, and therefore it was more painful. Nope, not kidding. It was my fault - I was the pregnant woman, and she was just doing her job (!). I can't exactly remember the conversation, but that was the gist of it. Yet, they wanted my blood pressure to stay low??? Despite my attempts to reason with her, she simply would not back down.
Does anyone else see something wrong here? Yet the nurse kept pushing this 'necessary evil' down my throat. I finally suggested a compromise. If she wanted to check me yet again, they would have to re-do the epidural and make sure it was actually working this time, because I just couldn't take the pain one more time. If they could make that happen, then fine - go ahead and check just one last time.
This is where it gets good.
It 'just so happened' that the anesthesiologist was right outside my room at this point. She came in, kicked out Bryan and Malory (only a nurse, the patient, and the anesthesiologist were allowed in the room, for "sanitary" purposes, ha ha ha, don't get me started...), had me sit up, and got to work doing a not so great job of re-doing that epidural.
This is the good part. You see, what I needed to get Jeremiah to move down was to be able to move. Laboring on my side in the bed all day, that just wasn't happening. However, when I sat up, the nurse couldn't keep the monitor on the baby, because he was finally able to get on the move, and move he did!
Up to this point, he had been stuck on my right side, and I was actually feeling the contractions very strongly in my right upper thigh.
I told the nurse that he was coming, but the anesthesiologist was still doing the epidural. Had I been in my right mind, I'd have told her to back off, but all I could think was, "Help me Jesus, this hurts!" and "My mouth is SO dry." (Well, they hardly let me drink anything during labor, go figure...). Then I started saying over and over, "Here he comes."
Finally after what seemed like ages but was probably just a couple of minutes, the nurse believed me. It probably helped that I told her, "I have to push. I have to push NOW." To which she responded that she had to call the Dr. and the NICU. "Well then," I said, "You better get your people in here now because this baby is coming."
The rest is a blur, but basically, I sat up in a 'classic' labor position and Jeremiah came flying out on his own all at once. I didn't even push voluntarily, which I'm told is pretty typical of small babies.
All of a sudden, I realized Bryan had just missed the birth of his son (!) : (. For a full 5 minutes, I kept telling people, "My husband is still out in the hall. Someone please go get him." Apparently there was such a flurry at this unexpected moment that even though everyone heard me, no one was assigned the job. They just kept saying, "Someone go and get her husband," but no one was actually doing it, as they were all busy. When someone finally did tell Bryan, he later reported that he didn't even believe it. Just 10 minutes before it had seemed I could be hours away from delivery, and yet - this news. He had to see it to believe it.
Jeremiah came out strong and kicking. He was 3 pounds 14 ounces, and 18 inches long. He was doing so well that he got a 9 on his APGAR score, which surprised everyone for this premature baby. Sadly, despite his well being, I was unable to hold him after delivery. I got about about 30 seconds to look at him, and then he was whisked away to the NICU.
Why, you ask, would they refuse to let me hold him? Well, another layer to this whole story is that I had contracted the flu just 2 days after getting to the hospital. Yep - on top of all this I had the flu too. I will say though, that w/ the Tamiflu they gave me, the worst part was still the magnesium, which pretty much made me feel like the flu on steroids.
I was hospitalized for 3 days after Jeremiah's birth and didn't get to see him till Christmas Eve. Those first 4 days were admittedly pretty awful. The best part is though, at least I got to be the first to hold him that day.
In the end, he spent 2 weeks in the NICU and passed all his markers for leaving the hospital with flying colors, and apparently in record time for a boy (so we've been told). We've been home for 7 weeks now and I really couldn't imagine things going any better, despite our rocky beginnings.
"And that's, the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say.
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