Birth Story Part II: Blood, Mucous, and Poop – oh my!

In case you missed Birth Story Part I, you can catch up on the juicy (seriously) details here.

Alright, so where did we leave off?  Ahh, yes. I had just spent 4 hours chillaxin’ post-epidural.  Did I mentioned that I lurve me some epidural?  When I got my epidural, I was 3cm dilated.  About 4 hours after the epidural, I started to feel some pressure/pain in my lady bits and by boconcus (my great-grandmother’s name for butt).  We pushed the magic button on my bed and my sweet nurse came in to check me out – I had progressed to 7cm.  Yahoo!  She also noticed that our sweet baby girl’s heart rate had dropped and she wasn’t turned quite right (not to a super scary emergency level, just enough to do a little something to help). 

Babies should be born head first, face to the floor, but our baby was head first, face to the side.  In order to get her to turn 90 degrees, they needed me to lie on my side.  Sounds easy, right?  Not so easy when the ENTIRE BOTTOM HALF OF YOUR BODY IS NUMB.  In order to flip me to my side, I had to hold the side of the bed while one nurse worked on moving my legs and another nurse moved the pee pad underneath me to help my butt/hips turn.  I felt like a morbidly obese person on TLC trying to get out of a recliner or something.

Just a few minutes before turning on my side, Scott said, “I’ve never been this close to someone else’s pee and been okay with it.”  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I looked over and he was sitting by my catheter bag.  Apparently when the bottom half of your body is numb from an epidural, you cannot feel or control yourself peeing.  Totally didn’t think of that.  Oh, P.S. If you’re going to get a catheter, make sure to get it with an epidural.  Then it’s no biggie!  It was this moment that things got really interesting and my relationship with Scott grew deeper and dirtier.  Okay, so I’m lying on my side and Scott is sitting right by my face and holding my hand.  Besides not being able to control your bladder, you cannot control your sphincter (yea…I said sphincter).  It was at this point that I started farting uncontrollably…about 6 inches from my husband’s face.  Want to feel how awkward this is?  I challenge you to the next time you have to pass gas, stand up to someone face to face in an uncomfortably close range and let ‘er rip. 

It gets worse.

As I’m staring into the beautiful blue eyes of my loving husband and letting out some no-so-lady-like toots, I begin to shart (aka when one farts and a little shit comes out or “gas mixed with mass”).  So essentially, I’m looking at the love of my life and pooping the bed at the same time.  I felt so helpless.  Here’s how the rest of this situation played out.  I’ll write it like a play in case anyone would like to act it out later.

Michelle: Umm…Scott?  I’m pretty sure I just pooped in the bed.

Scott: [Wide eyes] Oh really? [Scott’s face here says “Please don’t ask me to wipe you.”]

Michelle: Yeah, I’m pretty sure.  Can you call in the nurse?

Scott pushes the magic nurse button on my bed.

Nurse (over speaker): Yes, can I help you?

Scott: Umm, my wife needs some help.

Nurse (over speaker): Okay, I’ll send your nurse in.

Enter nurse

Michelle: Hi. How would you feel if I told you that I think I just pooped?

Nurse: That could be a definite possibility. [Nurse walks to my butt & lifts up my sheet.] Yeah, it looks like a little poop, a little blood, a little mucous.

Michelle’s inner dialogue: Oh my gosh! My butt pooped, bled, and SNEEZED?!

Now at this point, I was expecting a nice little clean up from my sweet nurse.  Nope.  She literally took one tissue, did the tiniest little wipe, and then went about her business as I sat in my business. I guess knowing that it wasn’t worth her time to clean any of that up was just a sign of the mess that was to come.

And then came the pushing.

Okay, even when I imagined having an epidural and then pushing a baby out of my lady bits, I thought it was going to be a 100 on the pain scale. It turns out the epidural and adrenaline made it probably a 30 for me.  Yes, it was hard work, but it was SO exciting and between contractions and pushing, I was able to smile and laugh and joke with my husband and doctor.  It was actually a really great experience.  When I envisioned pushing a baby out, I figured a team of all these people and weird tools and hospital-y things would start to happen.  What actually happened was my sweet nurse took a look under my gown and said, “It’s time for you to push.”  She then had to describe HOW I should push.  It’s funny that they don’t cover this topic in the childbirth class, but it’s all pretty natural, so it just sort of happens.  Anyway, what I’m saying is I started pushing the baby out when the only people in the room were me, Scott, & the nurse (and part of Effy’s head). Wait…where’s my doctor?  Shouldn’t somebody be down there to catch her?  Turns out pushing when it’s just your husband and a nurse in the room is relatively peaceful, so I was cool with it.  After my very first push, the nurse said that she could already see the baby’s head, which was very impressive for a first birth.  I then said, “Are you calling me loose?”  Luckily, our nurse was awesome and laughed at my bad joke instead of just feeling awkward.  My doctor came in and made me happy because she’s the kindest lady ever. I do remember the doctor asking if I wanted to reach down and feel the baby’s head. Nah, I’m good.

Scott went into this experience not sure if he was going to watch Effy come out or if he was going to stay back behind my legs.  Once it all started, he had no problem watching it all happen and said it was really exciting to watch and not nearly as weird or gross as anticipated.  He was an outstanding coach and partner during this whole process and really advocated for what we both wanted for the baby and what I needed to stay comfortable.  I LOVE HIM.

After a little over an hour of pushing, she arrived! 

Effy Genevieve, born 9.30.11 at 4:34pm. 7lbs, 0.2oz, 20” long.