What happened next was totally amazing to me, even now. I watched as she applied so much pressure on the forceps, I was waiting for her to put her foot on the table to help with leverage. I remember thinking that she was going to pull the baby's head off, and I wasn't afraid of the baby being dead, I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to get the body out of me! She grunted and groaned and finally slipped them off. She picked up a pair of scissors and as she sliced into my body exclaimed, "G-d, she's got a tight butt!"
The head was out and they suctioned the baby with the bulb and the Dr. B got in a fight with Jane over the wall suction not being hooked up. I was really upset and trying to be excited over the birth about to happen, I looked at him and said, "Last guess boy or girl?"
WHOSH! The baby was out and fighting! Dr. B screams, "Watch your fingers little one or you'll be missing some!" I am trying to see if we have a boy or a girl, because no one is saying, and I think I see a scrotum, so I say, "It's a boy!" Dr. B snaps back, "No you don't! It's a girl, I was too busy suctioning its nose and mouth to say."
Baby H is whisked over to the warmer, despite the fact that I never got to see her really or touch her. My husband leaves and goes to the baby, as does everyone else in the room. I am totally alone, except for Dr. B. Who is complaining to the Scrub Tech that she couldn't get a paper at 8 am on a Sunday morning. The baby nurse is talking about another baby that the had delivered earlier that week. Not exactly what I had expected. What about my baby?
My sister and brother-in-law come in, DH hands them the baby (she's 20 minutes old and I still haven't seen her). She weighs 7 lbs. 14 ozs, and is 20 inches long. Her apgars were 9 and 9. Not too bad for supposedly not having a heartbeat for 20 minutes.
Dr. B is telling me how wonderful epidurals are and how glad I should be that I finally came to my senses. That she would want her epidural as soon as she walked in the door. I told her that I still wished I hadn't had the epidural, that it hadn't been unmanageable until the pitocin. Looking back I really beat myself up over the epidural, because no one thought I could make it without and I felt disappointed in myself. I now realize that this particular epidural saved me from a section because it separated my mind and my body, despite the fact that epidurals usually increase the section rate. It was a total of 20 minutes from when the epidural took effect and when Hilary was born.
After pulling my placenta out manually and managing a few more snide remarks she left! And I was allowed to hold my baby. I start to try and nurse her, and in walks Dr. B. "You have ugly breasts and they certainly won't feed that baby." Then she left again, never to be seen again (that day).
Everyone went home, and DH went to sleep. Two tiny nurses had to pick up my anesthetized body and put me in a bed. My baby was far away in a nursery warming up under a warmer, despite the fact that research says she would have been warmer on my body with some blankets.
When the epidural wore off, I could barely walk, and my blood pressure was doing funny things. I had a third degree episiotomy and Hilary and I both had forceps bruises. I sat on a plastic ring for a week, and couldn't really walk well for almost two weeks. So, my recovery was different and long.
I turned Dr. B in to the hospital, my insurance, her practice, the AMA, the ACOG, Lamaze Institute, ICEA, and all the state and county places. I came to find out that she hated patients who wanted natural childbirth, and actually crawled over her desk at one couple. That she thought it was funny to hide sponges during cesareans, and treated other women like she had treated me. Her response to me at first was hostile, that she hadn't said or done these things. She made it sound like I was complaining because of pain during the birth, and reminded me of how well my epidural worked. I wrote her back and offered to watch my video taping of the birth with her and point out the specific instances I was complaining about. Her tone changed and I got a letter saying that she was tired and mine had been the 5th delivery that weekend and that she had had emergency surgery on her nurse the night before.
During her first pregnancy, later that year, she continued to smoke, and got her epidural as she walked in the door. The difference was she had my doctor, Dr. G. He has a lovely bedside manner and doesn't believe in episiotomies and forceps. So, she had a much nicer experience than I did.
I had to come to terms with everything that happened and what I knew.
