Push Through Your Ass!
5:30 AM: I wake up. This is day 280 of the longest pregnancy ever. I sit on the toilet for the fourth time of the overnight sleeping process. Every time my rear-end touches a surface to relax on, it feels like I’m sitting on her precious little head. I’ve been dilated at four centimeters and having stupid mild contractions every ten minutes for two-weeks! Nothing wants to get started. I want this baby out! The warmth of the early morning pee feels good – a little smile goes over my face. Then I stop urinating but I really don’t. Holy crap! Why can’t I stop peeing? On no! Tiny Genius must have kicked my bladder or my kidneys so hard and perhaps caused serious internal damage. This baby girl hates me already!
5:35 AM: “Sweets! Sweets!” I yell from the bedroom bathroom. The response to my frantic calls of death is increased decibels of snoring. Sweets is snoring, the dog is snoring, even the cat is snoring. I’m going to die all alone on the toilet – right here, right now. Finally the liquid flow stops. Then it dawned on me… my water broke! Operation “Salt ‘n’ Pepa” begins – Awe Push It, Push It Really Good. First, I must shower, wash my hair, and shave the jungle. Thank goodness the bathroom mirror is placed just right that I can use it from the shower to guide myself through the deep bush of my love jungle as I weed whack around my Whoo-Hoo. Now I blow dry my hair so it’s beautiful and full of body. Next, the applying of make-up specially bought so I don’t look like a washed-out, pale as a ghost new mom in the immediate, after the birth pictures. You lose a lot of blood when you give birth. Now I put on my fabulous black sun dress with my bejeweled flip-flops that shows off my sparkly, purple shined toes. I’m ready to give birth! Now where are those painful contractions? Where’s Sweets? Snore…snore…snore.
6:00 AM: “Sweets…it’s time to wake up. Tiny Genius wants today to be her birthday.” So begins the most bizarre hours of my life. Sweets slowly wakes up and decides he needs to shower, shave, and walk the dogs before we leave.
8:00 AM: We finally leave for the hospital. Still, I am not having any seriously strong contractions. Yet, Sweets turns into Richard Petty and instantly our new Chrysler 200 becomes the fastest stockcar on county roadways. Why do men think they need to drive so fast to the hospital when the wife goes into labor? I believe it’s the influence of television and movies. Our neighbor, Mr. Wanna Be Retired, told me he felt cheated that he never got the chance to race his woman to the hospital for the birth of his son. Must be some kind of substitute for men to feel like they contributed to the labor process by driving his woman to the hospital in this dangerously rushed like state.
8:15 AM: Arrive at the hospital in fifteen minutes when it should have been a thirty minute drive. “Fifteen minutes! That has to be a record. Don’t you think I broke the record?” I reply, “Yes, dear. You are the fastest father-to-be ever.” We are escorted to the “labor” room. After the baby is born, we will be moved to a “mother and baby” room.
9:00 AM: Dr. Coldhands arrives and decides this labor needs to move faster. Pitocin drip starts and we settle in. “Stacy, do you want an epidural?” Women have been giving birth for years without pain killers. “No, I think I’ll be okay. I didn’t need one with my first born. Thanks.”
9:20 AM: “GET THE NURSE AND GET THE EPIDURAL DUDE!” Contracts went from nothing to two minutes apart and two minutes long. By far, the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. Like a just sharpen Wusthoff slicing knife going into my tailbone. What the fuck is going on?!
9:30 AM: Epidural is administered and I’m in heaven. I can feel contractions but no pain. Time for a movie and we have three choices: Parenthood, Look Who’s Talking, and Batman Begins. How Batman Begins made the list, I don’t know but I’m glad it did.
11:30 AM: Movie is over. “I think I need to push.” If I knew how easy it was to give birth with an epidural, I would have done this the first time around. Nurse Nellie comes in the room and calls the doctor to start the pushing process. Right before I spread my legs to open wide, a maintenance man enters the room. I think to myself, “It must be morphine that they are giving me. This man really doesn’t exist in this room. And why are they giving me morphine? I know they aren’t.” The last time I had morphine after a surgery, I imagined three little kittens under the sink in the hospital room bathroom. They were so cute, but the nurse assured me the kittens weren’t there. Dr. Coldhands asks, “Is there a reason you need to be in the room right now?” Mr. Clean says in a Bill Murray Groundhog Day accent, “Um, yeah, the light here needs to fixed.” I decide to speak my mind, “Well, um, yeah, do you want to see my baby head’s crowning? What the hell is wrong with you?! Get your oversized, ugly, stupid ass out of my room!”
11:45 AM: “Your baby is face up and I need to turn her. I’m going to stretch you a little so I can get in there.” What?! Now, I know you’re not really with it when you’re pushing a baby out but I swear he stretched my poor broken Whoo-Hoo as if I was Elastic Woman. I didn’t care about the baby for a moment, just about my Whoo-Hoo. Will she ever be the same? Can he put an extra stitch or two in there to tighten her up again? Will I ever enjoy sweet love again? “Stacy, you need to push through your ass,” declares Nurse Nellie. Did she really say that? Sweets confirms with a joking smile, “Come on Sweetie, push through your ass.” It’s official, I’m in the freaking Twilight Zone.
12:05 PM: “Do you want to deliver your baby? Just take your hands and grab under the shoulders and pull her out.” This whole concept really grosses me out. All that white cheese looking gunk will be all over my hands. I do it anyway so no one thinks I’m some mean mother who doesn’t want to touch her baby. I grab her and pull her up on my stomach. She’s screaming at me and all I want is someone to clean her. What’s wrong with me? The nurse and doctor keep saying how beautiful she is. I keep thinking she needs a bath. Then I feel the strong urge to start the breastfeeding process. Mother Nature is taking over just like she should. Hum… I wonder how much bigger my boobs will be when the milk comes in.
To be continued…