Now We Are Six

I am just able to sit up properly in a chair for an extended period of time. I've had a couple people text me and say they couldn't wait to read me recounting the c-section and delivery.

I suppose it's attention hoaring to even go ahead and do it when there is this huge part of me that would rather put it aside and focus on the end result. It was painful, it was harrowing, it was the nightmare I expected and then some. It was undignified and terrifying and unpleasant on many levels.


But it's also kinda what I do, recounting the things that happen so.......I'm gonna do this in multiple parts. This way you can enjoy my pain and suffering in pieces, just like I did.

Monday morning we drove off to the hospital and I'll admit it. I wasn't joyous. I was some delicate combination of bitter and terrified. I can't tell you the extent to which I was furious at fate for forcing me to have this damned surgery. I totally appreciate that it was a WAY BETTER alternative than one of us ending up dead but still - I wasn't jolly or pleased. I couldn't smile.

I could barely talk or answer their fucking questions. I truthfully wanted to scream YOU MUTHERFUCKERS HAVE ASKED ME THIS BULLSHIT 20 FUCKING TIMES ALREADY YOU KNOW THE ANSWER NOW LETS JUST DO THIS.



But I didn't, I just clenched my teeth and tried to breathe.



We were greeted right before surgery by DOCTOR SHOUTING ANESTHESIOLOGIST. He apparently had to SHOUT HIS GREETINGS AND HIS ASSURANCE THAT ALL WOULD BE WELL.


I informed him that I had been promised Versed after the cord was cut, and he seemed a little taken back by that but said he'd order it up.


I had already told my OB multiple times, the anesthesiologist who did my pre-op and anyone else who would listen that I was about to fucking STROKE OUT over the entire event. I felt I had made it clear that anxiety and stress were not the appropriate terms for my fears over this event.


First off, they walked me into the operating room which looked surreal and like a horror show, and set me on the table for my epidural. It was during this time that DOCTOR SHOUTING ANESTHESIOLOGIST began to torture me with a hot metal wire that he drug up and down my spine. Now it wasn't hot probably, nor metal even. But that is how it felt, he couldn't get it placed and AFTER I GOT DONE SCREAMING SO LOUD MY HUSBAND DOWN THE HALL HEARD ME, he got it right. And then I started sobbing. I couldn't stop.

They kept asking me "What is wrong what is wrong?" and I couldn't even say words. I just cried as they laid me down and started strapping me down into position, shaking my body and attaching this and that, telling me what they were doing and I was still crying. I didn't even care.

My doctor came in and tried to turn the baby one more time,but she was too big to move. Onward to C - Section.

When they hung up the sheet I heard them call my husband in and right about then I had to puke. I could barely speak but the nurse anesthetist heard me and got me a lovely pink pail to puke in. Of course, when you can't control your diaphragm properly you can't actually puke. So there I am, spitting and having these awful retching movements uncontrollably but nothing is coming out. It was about that point that she put a cold cloth on my head and my husband snapped this pic.

I wish that I could've snapped a pic back. The nurse anesthetist was Indian or something - and quite beautiful. It should've been soothing, to look up at such a beautiful face but it wasn't - I could see the concern and worry across her eyes as she watched me losing control of my sanity.

Unknown to me that they were in full swing - that I was cut open and the show had started.....I felt some movement but thought that the nurses were still moving me around- I couldn't see anything beyond the curtain hanging in my face.

My mask started to make me hot, and the nurse was nice and would take it off intermittently.

But then I heard a saw.

Now, you and I both know that I didn't hear a saw. They even told me, it was a suction device. But - it SOUNDED like a saw. And I wasn't aware that I was all flayed open horribly.

Yeah that's really me getting worked on.

I might've calmed down about the saw, which I did rave about for a bit.....I was not convinced something horrible was happening except that next a giant fat man sat on my chest.

Yes that's right. A terrible weight came down on my chest and despite being SHOWN my pulse ox was fine - I couldn't stop my panic. I couldn't breathe. Someone had to be leaning on me. I just knew it. Right behind this fat man sitting on me - came this sensation of fire. Something was burning.

And I had to go.

That's right. I started telling them I was done, I had to go. I HAD TO GO NOW. And yeah, I was exactly that crazy. I vaguely remember saying "I can't do this I have to go I have to GO I have TO GO NOW" and hearing them calling for the Versed and my husband talking to the nurse anesthetist about that me being so scared - and asking if it was anxiety and verifying that I wasn't really feeling anything.

I could hear the baby screaming in the background - but it barely registered honestly. She was really loud, I heard them talking about her being big - VERY big. But it was just background noise as the crazy was gripping me hard.

What I can remember at this point is that he was telling me to close my eyes, which was pissing me off as I wasn't going to close my eyes when I WAS GOING TO LEAVE and also telling me that he was going to go (he had to pick our other kids up). It was getting on my nerves so I TOLD HIM TO JUST LEAVE THEN. But he was still there - and the baby was crying.......I remember that. My doctor started telling me jokes. Which was pissing me off.

I just remember this overwhelming feeling of panic, and fear as they were lowering my head and a comment made about "putting me back together."

And then I woke up in recovery.