Happy Labor Day brought to you by the 21st anniversary edition of Hormones From Hell—soon to be published on eBooks.
This is a little story…a story about natural childbirth. Can you spell natural childbirth? I can—and it’s spelled:
A-G-O-N-Y
Okay, you can forget all that hype about natural childbirth being the most “beautiful” experience of your life. If this is true, girlfriend, then we haven’t got much to live for. Although, it could be argued that the pain of childbirth prepares you for the agony of being a parent.
Every woman has a childbirth story to tell. The trouble is most of us were delirious from the anesthesia, so we can’t remember what really happened. Listen to me, the High Priestess of Progesterone, because I’m going to give it to you straight–a step by step, contraction by contraction, pant-blow by pant-blow account from my own 10-centimer dilated point of view:
We were expecting our second child, and I was going to have no part of the old-fashioned unconscious delivery. No siree–just good old gut-wrenching pain for me to prove how worthy I was of Mother Martyrdom. Okay, I lied. I will admit to being a teeny bit reluctant to the idea of delivering with no anesthesia. So, one day I casually remarked to my O.B. while I was down on my knees:
“Could you give me a spinal–please, please, oh pretty please? … No? … Okay, then … how about twilight sleep? Propofol? Anesthetic coma?”
But he refused, citing the 49th Medical Ethics Amendment– something about not wanting to deny the patient’s “Constitutional Right to Pain and Suffering.” So I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to Lamaze classes. They were filled with glassy-eyed, tree-huggers wearing fixed smiles and chanting foreign expressions like “pain threshold, parental bonding, and latching.”
The nurse instructor demonstrated the art of “breathing” in every way known to Eastern Religion. There were cleansing breaths, relaxation breaths, and shallow breaths. However, no one mentioned the kind that accompanies the last stage of labor–bad breath. And let’s face it. There’s no Listerine on hand to gargle in the labor room. The breathing techniques are supposed to ease the various stages of “discomfort” during labor. But, the instructors are very careful to never utter the word p-a-i-n. That would be a grievous breach of the basic Lamaze philosophy: If these women get even an inkling about what’s really going to happen, the organization’s toast.
One day in my ninth month, I awoke to find myself treading water. We called the doctor, who promised he would immediately meet us in the emergency room. True to his Hippocratic Oath, he showed up two hours and six towels later. So, they hoisted me in a fishing net up onto the examining table for a look. When the doctor inserted the speculum, I heard a whoosh of tidal wave proportions after which he offered his clinical opinion: “We need a mop in here.”
I was wheeled up to the labor room and told they were going to induce labor. Who would have guessed that the medical definition of “induce” is ENEMA? No one mentioned that in Lamaze class. I was given an enema plus a suppository to stimulate labor. Stimulate? Detonate is more like it. The power of an explosive bowel on top of a nine month pregnant womb is enough to deliver quadruplets. Next, my O.B. ordered a “Pit Drip.” This “meaningful” experience consists of running an IV loaded with the lethal hormone Pitocin into the veins, producing uterine contractions of roughly the same pain intensity as a Pit Bull attack. Imagine any Big Loser contestant bouncing on your stomach for three hours non-stop. You got it.
So, tell me–whatever happened to those wonderful cleansing and relaxing breaths I’d been practicing for months? Fugghedaboudit! When labor comes on this hard and fast, there’s no time to put those into practice. And, then when I thought I’d pass out from the pain, the doctor decided this was the ideal time for another pelvic exam. OMG—he had to be kidding! The rubber glove assault during this crescendo of pain felt like someone was trying to park a Mack truck in my garage built for a Volkswagen. But, who was I to start screeching and spoil the most “beautiful experiences” of my life?
Next, the labor nurse astutely brought to my attention that 1 was in “transition–the toughest part of labor.” Gee, I was sure glad she pointed it out to me otherwise I might not have noticed that it felt like I was trying to pass a kidney stone the size of Gibraltar.
“Tough?” I screamed. “And up till now it’s just been dress rehearsal?”
“I know, dear. But let’s do our pant-blow breathing. ”
“YOU do the pant-blow breathing. I’m just gonna lie here and scream ‘til my uterus ruptures—along with my vocal chords.”
The labor room I shared along with three other women had all the ambience of a snake pit. There was more screaming going on than at a Justin Bieber concert. And most of it came from the doctor when he realized our lengthy labors were going to cause him to miss Monday Night Football.
To my amazement, the pain suddenly stopped–only to be followed by a more horrifying sensation called “pushing.” The pushing sensation is a primal experience. Then, when you’re half dead from exhaustion they tell you NOT to push anymore. This is like trying to hold back Shamu plus the 40,000 gallon tank of water he’s swimming in. So, as I was being wheeled into the delivery room, I crossed my legs and prayed for the best.
The next thing I remember was a voice from God saying: “Would you like some anesthesia now?”
The instant the mask hit my face, I sucked the tank dry. The world turned pink and started to spin. I awoke in the recovery room with a burly nurse pushing down on my belly every few minutes to insure that all the afterbirth was expelled. This part, big shock, was also not covered in Lamaze class.
“Listen, Hon” I snapped at the nurse. “Why don’t you just rip out my toenails one by one? It would hurt less.”
To this day, I still hold great compassion for a tube of toothpaste.
After being wheeled back to my room, the nurse set up a sun lamp in a position which gave me the most bizarre suntan of my life. Between that and the alternating ice packs, my lower extremities were subjected to a range of the most extreme climatic conditions a human being will ever endure. It’s no mystery to me why the dinosaurs became extinct.
The hard fact is that after delivering, the pain and discomfort do not abruptly end. You’ve got all the residual benefits to deal with … hemorrhoids, episiotomy stitches, and swelling. And worst is still ahead—having the first post-partum b.m. You’ll break out into a cold sweat just THINKING about what that’s going to feel like.
It’s important to know that we do have a choice, ladies. And having tried it both ways, I will objectively pose them to you. You can go the natural route without benefit of anesthesia and with every sense acutely heightened; fully experience every gut-wrenching nuance of pain and torture imaginable with the no-good-lousy-rotten scumbag of a man you hold responsible for your condition at your side, getting in your face with his stupid, irritating, asinine breathing instructions which he shouts out with his smelly, offensive, maggot-like breath for 30 or more non-stop pain wracking hours of labor, culminating in a tissue- tearing, organ -squeezing, bone-crushing delivery.
Or … you can selflessly give up this “beautiful experience,” by numbing your body to the intense pleasures of childbirth with an epidural. I rest my case.
Is there an anesthesiologist in the house?
