Meeting our girl: Part IV

I continued to feel contractions only in my right side. They tried to prop me up so that medication wouldn’t only affect one side, but they also didn’t want to lay me on my back so that your heart rate wouldn’t drop again.

“Maybe we can put you on your right side? How has baby done with that?”

“Fine, I think,” I said.

However, within a minute or so of rolling over, your heart rate dropped and I had to turn back over. The put the oxygen mask on again, and the doctor came in.

“Let’s talk about a C-section,” she said. “I can’t give you Pitocin because baby is being naughty, and I see very little probability of a vaginal birth without fetal distress. We can give it a couple of hours to see if progress is made, but at that point it may be an emergency C-section.”

I looked at Nate, and he looked at me.

“I’ll give you some time to talk about it, and I’ll be back in,” the doctor said and left the room.

“What do you think?” I asked Nate.

“I think it seems silly to wait until an emergency C-section,” he said.

“I agree. If I haven’t done anything yet, I don’t think a couple of hours is going to change anything. We don’t want it to be an emergency,” I said.

The nurse came in, and we told her we wanted to go ahead and schedule the surgery, and it was set up for 9:45 a.m.

Nate changed into a white sterile suit, blue booties, a blue surgeon’s cap and put on his N95 mask. They put a floral surgical cap on me, and then a flood of people started to enter the room.

The anesthesiologist gave me more medication through the epidural --- which actually turned out great that I already had it in so I didn’t have to be put to sleep. More nurses came in to transfer me to a different bed that would take me down to surgery, and I was wheeled away, into the silver elevator and down to the first floor.

I began shaking involuntarily as I was wheeled through pairs of doors and into the white operating room where a mass of people began introducing themselves to me. They asked if I could move onto the operating table, but my legs were completely numb at this point, so I was no help.

I felt like an infant as they rolled me from side to side, onto a wooden slab to slide me then onto the operating table, and rolled me back and forth to then slide me back off of the slab. Blue cloths were draped around my stomach and a blue curtain hung up in front of me as Nate walked around the side and took his place on my left, holding my hand. Even with his mask on, I could see by his squinty, bright eyes that he was smiling.

“This is the doctor that is going to be doing the surgery, and I’ll be assisting,” my doctor told me, peeking over the blue barrier between us. “When it comes to it, you’re going to feel a lot of pulling and tugging. When we pull her out, I’ll basically be on top of you, pushing on you.”

Then they began tests to make sure that I was numb. When we discussed C-sections, I asked about that. I’ve had enough dental procedures to know that Novocain doesn’t really work on me, and I’ve felt everything that has been done. Anesthesia makes me nervous because I am afraid that I’ll feel pain.

However, they began to poke, prod and pull skin.

“Can you feel this?”

“I can feel pressure.”

“No pain?”

“No. Wait, there,” the last touch, I could feel a sharp pinch, and I heard one doctor say to the other. “That’s above the navel line.”

And then surgery began.