Blogging day 11 or a Helplessness Tale

Welcome to MY Day Eleven of Blogging University:

Today’s assignment: publish a post based on your own, personalized take on a blogging prompt.

So, I went to Daily Post and picked this one:

Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Do you know when you’re down you just have an irresistible wish to listen to sad depressing songs? Well that’s me today. I’m feeling down. So, wth, let’s write a post about Helplessness.

BEWARE: Long post ahead with details from birth that you might not want to read!

The last time I felt this way was on what was supposed to be one of the best days of my life. My daughter’s birth.

As I’ve mentioned before, being pregnant is not my thing. AT ALL. Except from the part that my child was growing inside of me, everything else sucked. BIG TIME.

Due to this, I was more or less prepared for a horrible experience at labour. I made an effort to not look it up on how things were going to happen. I hate the gory aspects of that. I tried to repeat to myself several times a day, that women are birthing children since forever, so I should be able to do it.

The time came when my water broke and I went to the hospital. There I got an epidural to help with the pain. Some hours later, and after pushing 3 times, my beautiful daughter was born.

Now for what really happened. My doctor sees himself as a natural kind of guy, which means that the birth of the child will only happen when the child is ready to come out. So if it takes 50 weeks or 100 weeks, it’s fine. The baby will tell us when it’s time.

So, I was dragging myself at almost 42 weeks, waiting for my child to be ready. One night, we just decided it was time. I was so fed up that we went to the hospital at 1 in the morning. I don’t really remember what I said to be admitted, but actually, when everyone there saw my huge belly and asked me how far along I was, they all agreed to admit me immediately.

We spent the night there, afraid that in the morning, my doctor would come and tell us to go home, because it was not time yet.

Fortunately he came and asked if we wanted to induce the labour. FOR GOD’S SAKE OF COURSE! Bring me the drugs!

The labour started being induced at around 9 in the morning. People out there that prefer to have their labours induced please don’t be ridiculous! IT hurts A LOT. And guess what, it might not work at first. Or at the third time, such as in my case. It hurts like hell and then you start having big contractions suddenly. There isn’t a crescendo of pain. No no no. It’s nothing….. nothing…. BAM!

I requested for an epidural immediately. Bless those people. They came and they tried their best to stick the needle in me. It’s crazy how they still can do it, when we can’t stop moving around because of the pains. I didn’t even feel it. I just wanted for them to do it so I could have some relief.

I started to relax….and then suddenly, something started beeping. The anesthesiologist and the nurse looked anxiously at the monitor that I was connected to and started speaking with each other, without explaining us anything. Then, one of them just made me lie down and told my boyfriend that the heart rhythm of our baby had just dropped, so she needed to come out STAT.

Totally scared and not exactly understanding what was going on, my gurney was pushed quickly through the corridors, passing through several doors being opened quickly. I kept staring at the roof trying to stay calm. My boyfriend stayed behind to dress himself for the Operating room.

Then we stopped in one corridor, and my doctor appeared. He checked again my daughter’s heart rhythm and it appeared that all had come back to normal. My boyfriend just arrived, looking scared shit.

My doctor took us to an empty room where we relaxed. All of the sudden, I started drooling. I wasn’t able to control my throat. Couldn’t speak and couldn’t keep the drool inside my mouth. I started to panic. The doctor calmed me down and explained that the epidural had gone up because they had to lie me down so quickly. I relaxed and rested for a while. I was in no pain whatsoever and as long as they kept cleaning my face so I wouldn’t drown, everything was fine by me.

After some time we moved to the labour room, but nothing really was happening. I sat down on that hideous labour chair and had a yogurt that my doctor brought me. It seemed that it was going to take a while. The three of us chatted for almost an hour. I had to take another epidural because it was taking so long that the effect had worn out.

This all had started at 9 in the morning. It was almost 7 in the evening and all was the same. At least as far as I was aware. I don’t quite recall why the doctor decided it was time to start, but probably it was because I was ready. My waters didn’t break naturally. He had to do it. Which hurts. A LOT, since the second epidural was weaker and had already lost the effect.

Then it all began and there was no more time for another epidural.

It was like we see it the movies. PUSH PUSH PUSH!

I actually kept pushing for 3 hours. I did every position that we see on old books. I cried, I begged for a C-section, I repeated over and over for my boyfriend to save me. When the doctor saw that It would be a difficult birth, he told everyone to leave the room and we stayed the three alone in the room.

It was the hardest thing I had to do. It hurt like crazy, it was the longest actual birth I had ever heard of, my boyfriend had to grab my legs for me not to close them in despair, and in the end, my daughter had to be reanimated. It took what it seemed like forever for her to return to the room and be put in my arms.

Then I stayed there for about an hour being stitched up, holding her and looking at this strange creature that was in my arms. I was feeling every stitch and I was hurting a lot. I was terrible afraid that because of this, I would drop her. So for one hour, I remained terrified from what had happened and from holding her.

When the doctor finished, it was about midnight and I was moved to the recovery room. There a nurse went to check if everything was ok. She pushed my belly so hard that I was reminded once again of the horror of all of it. Then I was supposed to start feeding my daughter. I was extremely tired, hurting in all places, my boyfriend couldn’t be with me in the recovery room so I was feeling all alone and I had to give my breasts to this hungry child.

Fortunately, in the first times that I gave breast it all went ok. The problems started afterwards, after some comments that made me less confident in myself and my abilities as a mother. But that’s for another day.

After some time in recovery, I went back to the room where my boyfriend was anxiously awaiting for us.

He then took care of us. I assumed that after some sleep I would be feeling better. What really happened was that when I woke up I couldn’t really get up. I couldn’t move to get my daughter. I couldn’t give her her first bath. I could only feed her if she was put right next to me.

I thought that the problem was me. I was weak. Several women give birth and are able to walk right after and here I was, still complaining that I couldn’t move. I felt like a terrible mother from day one. I wasn’t able to birth correctly and now I wasn’t able to take care of her.

Someone came and asked if I wanted to take a shower. I accepted but requested help. She helped me get out of bed and dragged me to the shower. She actually had to clean me since I couldn’t and boy she wasn’t happy about this. She made me feel worse by saying that I should already be able to move better and that I had a child to take care of now.

I returned to my bed and stayed there feeling like crap. After some time I had to go to the toilette. My boyfriend helped me get there and then I was decided to do the rest alone. I did my thing and then I got up to pull my pants up. And then I felt like something had just fallen from inside me. I was so scared that I didn’t even look. I yelled for my boyfriend and remained on the exact same position, terrified.

He came and calmed me down. It wasn’t another baby nor an organ that had just fallen down. It was a bulk of gauze pads, that were used to stop the bleeding for my doctor to stitch me up after the birth.

My boyfriend angrily requested for my doctor to come there urgently. Unfortunately he wasn’t available on that day. Another one came. Apologized and said that he needed to confirm if there were more and if it had developed to an infection. When he tried reaching for me I started to panic and just kicked in the air. I was so traumatized I didn’t want anyone to touch me there. I just wanted to be left alone.

Then came a nurse, that stopped helping the doctor and came around by me. She started speaking softly to me and patting my head as they do with small kids. Then she said that everything would be alright and that they were not going to hurt me. She was the one who started to touch me first and then I allowed the doctor. She was everything that I needed and more. She was great. I’m really grateful and wished that I was in better shape then to remember her name to thank her properly. Some things are still a blur.

I was fine. Nothing else was left behind. And I started to feel better. An hour later I was already able to walk and from there onwards I quickly improved. I felt so relieved that I didn’t really care about anything else.

On the day that we were leaving, the nurses that were present in my labour and were requested to leave the room, came to speak with us. They said that everything that happened was really not normal, my doctor was not right in pushing for a natural birth and that I had been very strong and courageous. After feeling like crap, I was relieved that I wasn’t the weak person I thought I was.

My boyfriend wanted to pursue a complaint regarding what happened on the labour and the gauze pads that had been left in me. I really didn’t. I was happy enough. My daughter was fine and I was fine. Hey I could even walk! Everything was going to be fine. And it really was. Few days after I was back to normal. Nothing hurt anymore and all things resumed their natural course. I was not traumatized in the sense that no one could touch me, but I sure as hell don’t want to have another natural birth.

I was lucky actually. My labour was horrible but I was ok and my daughter was perfectly ok afterwards. The gauze pads were forgotten in me but they left my body by themselves and I didn’t get an infection. I could actually understand why he had left them there. He must have been terrible tired as well, and there was blood everywhere. He is a human being after all.

Even though I don’t actually agree with his natural way of thinking, I really liked him and he was with me all the time.

I still felt helpless though. But my boyfriend probably felt like that even more. I was begging and crying for him to help me. And in the end he was the one that also had to hurt me by grabbing my legs. It must have been awful.