Women give labor mixed reviews. My mother always made it sound like she walked in to the hospital, painlessly pushed out a baby, then went home to cook dinner. I recently found out that in the seventies, when she did the majority of her baby birthin', women were allowed to be totally knocked out during childbirth. When I heard that, her description made a lot more sense to me. When I found out I was pregnant,I considered what level of pain management to use. I opted for an epidural because I'm not crazy. I have total respect for women who want to go it naturally, I'm just not one of them.
I was in labor for 26 hours. After 26 hours, the doctor decided that I wasn't going to dilate past 8 cm, so I had a c-section. these are people who went to college for 10 years. 26 hours seems like along time for them to figure out that this labor thing was hitting some snags. I built up a tolerance for my epidural in the first few hours after I got it. I felt bad for the anesthesiologist and worried for myself as he pumped vial after vial of pain medicine into my epidural tube. I could feel the cold liquid go down my back, and we would all look expectantly at my legs, as if they would change color if the medicine was working. It never did, and my legs remained flesh colored. By the time I was prepped for surgery, I could have walked to the OR, I was near tears and even the hippie/Douala's techniques weren't helping much. I was begging the nurse to hurry and get me to surgery or let me push. Then I heard Charlie asking, "Are cameras allowed in the OR?" I didn't say anything because I knew if I opened my mouth, I was going to curse and scream and demand a divorce, and there was no way I was raising two babies on my own.
Turned out, they do allow cameras in the OR, so we have a photo of a baby head sticking out of my abdomen. It's very gross and alien, and I'm not even sure what to do with a photo like that. it's not really appropriate for framing..
There were literally 20 people present for the birth of my children. It was surprisingly noisy. There were lots of side conversations and the doctor had the radio tuned to classic rock. I don't mind classic rock, but I don't love it. It seems like I should have been able to choose the music my babies first heard when they came into the world. I'm not sure what I would have picked, but it wouldn't have been Foreigner or Journey.
Don't Call it a Comeback
I have returned to the blog. I don't know if people will still want to read it, but I have missed it. I'm really surprised that I didn't blog more during my pregnancy. This blog is about motherhood- from my perspective. Hopefully it makes people laugh and I hope women who have been through it relate and women who haven't gain some idea about what it's like.
I have twins- a boy and a girl. They're 12 weeks old and the product of IVF. I was soooo excited to meet these babies, but I did not enjoy being pregnant at all. I feel really ungrateful saying so, but it was not an easy process. Early in the pregnancy, I had to take the intramuscular Progesterone shots for 8 weeks, and they made me exhausted and weepy and left lumps on my butt. Then, around 12 weeks, I had some complications and was on bed rest to see if I would miscarry.
When I hit my second trimester, I had 4-6 solid weeks of feeling great- like my old self, but slightly bigger. Then the size caught up with me and the rest was ridiculous.
I have always thought of myself as a woman's woman. I place a high value on girl friends and think it's important for women to support each other professionally and personally. I don't like when women say, "I don't get along that well with other women".
Having said that, when I first started having such a hard time with the pregnancy, I got a little pissed at the sisterhood. Before I got pregnant no one told me that it would suck so badly. As a matter of fact, I heard quite a few women say, "ooohhh! I looooovvvved being pregnant!". No one talked about how hard it is to actually be pregnant until I was pregnant- and it is f-ing HARD! Even then, when women asked how the pregnancy was going, and I replied, "I hate it and can't wait to have the babies", they would look to make sure no one was listening before responding quietly with comments like, "I didn't like being pregnant either. I felt claustrophobic/terrified/in constant pain/like a host to a parasite." Women do this. We are uncomfortable with certain subjects that make us seem like we give a shit about ourselves and our own feelings.
I know that there are women out there who have mild to no symptoms during pregnancy, and to these women carrying a child must seem like a beautiful dream. Maybe I just ran into those women before getting pregnant, but I think women are not OK with saying, even though the joy you feel when you're with your children is worth the trouble, it's hard to be pregnant.
There were issues that I never dreamed would come up. Frankly, the whole experience made me (not for the first time) question the sanity of that Duggar woman. She was pregnant and gave birth 19 times!!! I bet she can't walk from here to there without peeing her pants, and it makes me wonder how many hemorrhoid surgeries she's had. I had headaches that would not respond to Tylenol or the first two migraine prescriptions I was given. I fell asleep at work, driving to work, driving home, eating and watching TV. During my first trimester, all I did was eat, sleep and work. I suppose that was to make up for the fact that at the end of my second and all through my third trimester, I didn't sleep at all. I couldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time. It hurt to stand, sit, or lay down. I was puffy and my feet were really fat. I did not glow. I just wanted to feel like my old self. Foolishly, I thought that I could go back to being my old self once the babies were here.
I have twins- a boy and a girl. They're 12 weeks old and the product of IVF. I was soooo excited to meet these babies, but I did not enjoy being pregnant at all. I feel really ungrateful saying so, but it was not an easy process. Early in the pregnancy, I had to take the intramuscular Progesterone shots for 8 weeks, and they made me exhausted and weepy and left lumps on my butt. Then, around 12 weeks, I had some complications and was on bed rest to see if I would miscarry.
When I hit my second trimester, I had 4-6 solid weeks of feeling great- like my old self, but slightly bigger. Then the size caught up with me and the rest was ridiculous.
I have always thought of myself as a woman's woman. I place a high value on girl friends and think it's important for women to support each other professionally and personally. I don't like when women say, "I don't get along that well with other women".
Having said that, when I first started having such a hard time with the pregnancy, I got a little pissed at the sisterhood. Before I got pregnant no one told me that it would suck so badly. As a matter of fact, I heard quite a few women say, "ooohhh! I looooovvvved being pregnant!". No one talked about how hard it is to actually be pregnant until I was pregnant- and it is f-ing HARD! Even then, when women asked how the pregnancy was going, and I replied, "I hate it and can't wait to have the babies", they would look to make sure no one was listening before responding quietly with comments like, "I didn't like being pregnant either. I felt claustrophobic/terrified/in constant pain/like a host to a parasite." Women do this. We are uncomfortable with certain subjects that make us seem like we give a shit about ourselves and our own feelings.
I know that there are women out there who have mild to no symptoms during pregnancy, and to these women carrying a child must seem like a beautiful dream. Maybe I just ran into those women before getting pregnant, but I think women are not OK with saying, even though the joy you feel when you're with your children is worth the trouble, it's hard to be pregnant.
There were issues that I never dreamed would come up. Frankly, the whole experience made me (not for the first time) question the sanity of that Duggar woman. She was pregnant and gave birth 19 times!!! I bet she can't walk from here to there without peeing her pants, and it makes me wonder how many hemorrhoid surgeries she's had. I had headaches that would not respond to Tylenol or the first two migraine prescriptions I was given. I fell asleep at work, driving to work, driving home, eating and watching TV. During my first trimester, all I did was eat, sleep and work. I suppose that was to make up for the fact that at the end of my second and all through my third trimester, I didn't sleep at all. I couldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time. It hurt to stand, sit, or lay down. I was puffy and my feet were really fat. I did not glow. I just wanted to feel like my old self. Foolishly, I thought that I could go back to being my old self once the babies were here.
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