Hard Labor

Four in the morning, and I’m standing in the shower with scorching water trained on my lower back; my skin is a scalded red and my face is contorted in pain of back labor as the tears run down, mixing with the shower spray, giving it a salty taste. This is the fourth shower I’ve taken in the past two hours, but even the once soothing feel of running water isn’t helping anymore.

Why won’t these damn doctors listen to me? Prolonging this labor is just putting the baby and me at risk, needless risk! Labor is not supposed to go on for... six days? It has been six days!

I climb out of the shower and towel off as fast as I can. I throw on the sweats I had been wearing before I got into the shower.

Standing in the doorway of our bedroom I call out, “Eric, we have to go to the hospital now!”

“Wha..? Did your water break?”

“No, but there is something wrong,” I whine, as much out of frustration as pain. “Labor is not supposed to last for six days!”

Poor Eric, he only got home from work three hours ago. He looks so tired. This week has taken a toll on him too.

“I don’t understand these doctors,” Eric tells me as he slides into his jeans. “The baby is already a week overdue. Why don’t they just induce the labor and get it over with?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

“I can’t afford to miss any more work driving back and forth to the hospital,” Eric continues, “They better not send us home again.”

“I won‘t let them. I’m not leaving this time; not until this kid is out of me.”

“I hope you’re right. I am tired of jumping through the doctor‘s hoops.”

I make it to the bed where I pick up the phone and dial my mother, “We’re going back to the hospital.... Yeah, we’ll drop Tucker off in a few minutes.... Thank you, Mom.” I hang up and slip my shoes on before I head into Tucker’s room.

As I sit down on his bed I feel the tightening of another contraction beginning. I try to relax, but my body tenses anyway.

Tucker starts to cry, “Eric...!” .

“Don’t forget your breathing,” Eric tells me.

I shoot him a deadly look, but I try to do the panting. Patches comes in and gives me an odd look, tilting her head to one side, she barks at me.

I try to walk down the hall, but the pain is so bad that I can’t really walk at all.

“Come on, Babe,” Eric says as he puts his arm around me.

“It hurts so bad,” I say, looking up at him through teary eyes. I have reached my breaking point. “I can’t take any more of this.”

“I know it hurts,” Eric tells me, “but everything will be okay in just a little while, and we will have a beautiful baby boy.”

I put my hand on my swollen abdomen and try to remember what all this pain is about.

Eric picks up the squealing toddler, “Come on, Tucker, you wanna go see your grandma?”

Every bump in the road is torture on the forty-five minute drive to Strong. Eric swerves to avoid a deer that crosses our path, and he hits the alarm clock; that’s what truck drivers call the ridges on the side of the road. It hurts so bad that I slug him before I even realize what I am doing, “Oh, my gosh,” I say, “I’m sorry, Honey, I didn’t mean to hit you.”

Eric laughs, “Yeah, it’s starting already. You gonna be cursing me out in the delivery room too?”

“No,” I tell him emphatically, “I refuse to let the first thing my baby hears as he enters the world be me screaming profanities at his father.”

“We’ll see about that,” Eric chuckles.

Eric is trying to make light of things to keep me from panicking. I know he is just as afraid as I am.

I look up and see a star on the eastern horizon, and I remember what the holistic woman had said: He has a very special aura; it’s the most brilliant one I have ever seen surrounding an embryo, it‘s as bright as the Morning Star. …you know when Venus is seen in the morning sky it is the brightest star by far.

“Look at that, Eric, the Morning Star is on the horizon.”

“What?”

“See the star? There on the horizon? The really bright one?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Venus, the Morning Star.”

“Like your CB handle?”

“Yeah,” I chuckle, “like my CB handle,” and an inner peace comes over me.

Eric pulls up next to the emergency entrance door where the ambulances unload patients, “I’ll be right back.”

Another contraction begins as Eric enters the emergency room doors.

The minutes pass so slowly, and I begin to wish I had just walked into the ER instead of waiting for a nurse to come and get me.

Finally Eric emerges with a nurse pushing a wheelchair. I open the door and step out of the car.

The nurse is smiling, “Hi, I’m April, she says as I get into the wheel chair. “Are we going to have a baby this morning, Mrs. Graham?”

“I am not leaving here until we do.”

She asks me all the normal questions on our way upstairs: How far apart are my contractions, how long have they been going on for, etc...

Once she hears the whole story she becomes very sympathetic, “It sounds like you have had an awful week.”

That’s the understatement of the year.

When we get to the delivery room, and I am situated on the bed, the first thing that April does is wrap the blood pressure cup around my arm. I watch her face grow concerned as she listens with her stethoscope. Eric notices it too. He squeezes my hand tighter as he stands beside my bed.

“Do you have any pain other than the contractions?” she asks without even looking at me.

“I have a splitting headache, probably because I haven‘t slept in six days. The contractions haven‘t allowed me any rest.”

She gives me a phony smile and steps out of the room.

“I didn’t like the look on her nurse’s face,” Eric says.

“My blood pressure is the last thing I am worried about,” I smile, comforted to at least be in the hospital.

Lying there I am seized by another contraction, “Ohhhh” I groan.

“Damn, Jodi, you’re gonna break my hand,” Eric says wincing from the vise grip I have on him.

It takes considerable effort for me to loosen my clenched fingers, “Where the hell nurse go?” I cry, as if her presence could make the pain more bearable.

“Yeah, I told you that you’d be cursing at me.”

I look at Eric as if to tell him that I am not really in the mood for jokes when April appears with Dr. Wright. Doesn't she ever go home?

“Hello again, Mrs. Graham, how are you feeling?”

“Well, I haven’t slept at all in the last six days because of these contractions…” overcome by another one I groan with pain as I finished the sentence, “you keep telling me I’m not having.”

She ignores my sarcasm, “I’m gonna take your blood pressure again.”

I see the same expression of alarm that I had seen on April’s face as she watches Dr. Wright wrap the cup around my arm.

“Your blood pressure is dangerously high,” Dr. Wright tells me. “We have to get this baby delivered immediately.”

When I hear that I am actually relieved. The baby is going to be delivered, and immediately suits me just fine.

“I’m going to check to see if you have dilated at all,” she tells me as she prepares to do so.

“You are about two, no, three centimeters. I’m gonna go ahead and break your water to see if we can speed up this delivery.”

I’m not going to argue with her; at last, her goal and mine are one and the same.

Soon I am hooked up to a machine that monitors my blood pressure and pulse, another one to monitor my oxygen level. Once sack of fluid around the baby is broken, Dr. Write informs me that I have dilated to five centimeters. I’m given a glucose IV to keep me hydrated. A clip is put on the baby’s head to monitor his heart beat, and another one on my cervix to monitor the force of my contractions.

“Oh my God!” April says as she watches my contraction mounting on the monitor, “Those are some monster contractions you are having! Over a hundred and thirty.”

She calls two more nurses into the room, “Look at how high her contractions are measuring,” she tells them.

They both look equally impressed, but I am more frightened than I already was. My contractions are like a circus attraction. What about my baby?

“You’ve been having contractions like this for two days?” April asks in disbelief.

“I’ve been having contractions like this for six days,” I explain, “but every time we’d come here they slowed down and I was sent home because I wasn‘t dilated.” I feel tremendous anger at the doctor’s apathy.

“Well, you’re dilating now,” April says with optimism.

“They must hurt like hell,” another nurse says. “Normal contractions peek at eighty or ninety. When we induce labor they often reach a hundred and twenty, but I have never seen them in the one-thirties.”

“Why are my contractions so strong?”

“I don’t know,” April replies. “Maybe because of the prolonged labor. Your body is trying harder to push the baby out, but I can’t say for sure.”

“What about the baby?” Eric asks “Can the contractions hurt him?”

“That’s why we are keeping track of the baby’s pulse, to make sure it’s not in distress,” April explains. “The baby’s heart beat is steady and strong.”

“Why has Dr. Wright let this labor go on for so long?” is his next question.

“I don’t know what her reasons are.”

Another contraction begins, and as it reaches its peek, I feel like my abdomen is a dish cloth being wrung out, “Can I get something for this pain?” I plead.

“I have to ask Dr. Wright.”

Dr. Wright comes in and goes over my choices with me. I don’t have to deliberate. I tell her I want an epidural, but I have to wait for the anesthesiologist.

While we wait, Eric rubs my back, trying to counter the pressure of the back labor. “Harder, Eric!” I cry.

“I’m pressing as hard as I can.”

Tears started running down my cheeks, “It hurts!”

“I know it hurts.”

Dr. Wright comes in, “Let’s see if you’ve dilated any more.”

“I feel dilated,” I tell her as I smile at Eric and squeeze his hand.

“Still only five centimeters,” Dr. Wright says.

I sigh in frustration, “How long before the anesthesiologist will be here?”

“He is in the OR. Had to go in with an emergency cesarean. He will be here as soon as he can.”

“Isn’t there another one?” Eric asks.

“They are all busy,” she tells him, then she looks at me, “Just try to relax.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I tell her as another contraction begins.

“Breathe, Babe,” Eric says, and I can hear the stress, worry and fatigue in his voice.

“Eric, why don’t you go get some air?”

“I think I could use it,” he agrees. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

I have never been so weary. I can start to drift off to sleep, but then a contraction starts building and I am awakened by the pain. To make matters worse, the contractions begin to piggyback; by the time one of them is subsiding, another one is already mounting. My knees are knocking and my teeth are chattering due to the pain. I feel like I am going to pass out. What the hell is taking Eric so long?

I hear a familiar laughter outside my room. I lean forward as far as I can and I see Eric talking with one of the nurses. His gestures are very relaxed and the sound of his laughter- I can’t remember when I last heard him laugh like that. That is the way he used to laugh when we first started dating, a very inviting laugh; flirtatious.

Suddenly seized with a pain worse than these contractions, my heart feels like it has sunk into my stomach, digestive acids, mashing it into a bruised pulp.

Eric strolls through the doorway moments later with a smile on his face, “I just ran into an friend from high school-..” He begins.

“Yeah, I heard the two of you out there,” I say in my coldest tone, tears started flowing again, “I heard you... laugh... laughing...”

“What...?” Eric begins and then took a deep breath, “Jodi, come on,” he says, nearly laughing at me, “I know you are all hormonal-.”

“Don’t go there!” I warn him crossing my arms. “Don’t you dare use hormones as a way to... invalidate my feelings,” my throat is tight and my voice had risen to a squeal.

Eric looks over at April and she smiles sympathetically at him. This silent exchange between them makes me even more angry, but before I can respond to it, another nurse steps through the door.

“Nancy says you should go to lunch now,” she says to Robin, “I’m covering for you.”

“Oh, okay,” April says. “She’s waiting on the anesthesiologist. Keep an eye on her pressure.” Then she pauses and smiles at me, “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

I nod and try to smile, starting to feel embarrassed about the exchange she just witnessed between Eric and me.

Eric sits slumped in his chair. He looks very distant and it‘s my fault. I need to tell him that I’m sorry.

“Hi, Mrs. Graham,” the new nurse says to me, “I’m Sandy.”

Just as April steps out the of the door, the anesthesiologist shows up with Dr Wright. She checks to make sure that I have not dilated too far to receive an epidural, “Still at five centimeters,” she informs me.

When I hear that, I am actually thankful because if I had reached seven centimeters I would not have been allowed to have an epidural, and I would have to deliver without any relief at all from this excruciating pain.

I have to sit up and lean forward so that the anesthesiologist can stick a needle into my back. It is hard to remain still for him while experiencing continuous contractions. Sandy is keeping me from falling off of the bed.

The first epidural doesn’t even work. After twenty minutes the anesthesiologist can see I am still in pain, “You should not still be experiencing that much pain,” he tells me. “Let’s try it again.”

I sit up in agony again as he sticks another needle into my back, “Okay, you can lie back down.” .

“How is the pain now?” he asks a few minutes later.

“Better.” I say, feeling enormous relief at the diminishing of the pain, “Thank you so much.”

“Can you feel that?” he asks me as he is pricking my leg with something.

“No.”

Dr. Wright walks in with an IV in her hand, “How are you feeling now?” she asks as she hooks it up.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Petocin.”

“I don’t need something to start my contractions. I’m already in labor. Why are you giving that to me?”

“The labor isn’t progressing. Petocin will help it along.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! My contractions are already stronger than Petocin induced... ” suddenly it feels like my heart is flying out of my chest. My head feels so light, like I’m floating.

"Pressure's dropping!” the nurse says in a panicked tone. "We've lost the heartbeat!"

“Give it a minute, see if it comes back up.” Dr. Wright says.

Give it a minute? I can’t believe what I am hearing. My baby’s heart is not beating! You have to do something!

"It's not coming up!" the nurse says with growing alarm. “I just got here and everything is going to hell.”

“The ceiling is spinning.” I say, trying to bring it into focus. It’s exactly what I have seen depicted on television, when they show the room spinning.

Next thing I know, I’m being wheeled into an operating room. I can hear Sandy repeatedly saying, "I'm never covering another lunch! I‘m never covering another lunch!" as a group of her collogues gather around to console her.

I am going to die. I don’t want to die. I will never get to see or hold my baby. If he doesn’t make it, I don’t want to make it either. I couldn’t deal with it- to have gone through all this and end up with nothing... His heart stopped! Oh my God, he could be suffering brain damage right now. He could be dying! I have to make sure he is okay, somehow... Please, Jehovah, whatever happens to me, don't let this baby die. … and Eric.. the last words I said to Eric were angry words. I wish I could take them back. I feel so weak. If I blink, will my eyes open again? My life could slip away in the blink of an eye, and the last words I said to Eric were in anger. Eric will never know how sorry I am...

"We're going to cut vertically to gain faster access to the uterus," Dr. Wright tells me.

"Whatever you have to do," I reply, "just don't let him die."

They put me to a table shaped like a cross, arms spread out like Jesus on his torture stake-how fitting; except I feel like I might fall off the table until they have me strapped down.

I am sick to my stomach. The anesthesiologist gently strokes my hair which is comforting.

"Where's my husband?"

"He's putting scrubs on," a nurse says.

The nauseous feeling is getting worse. "I feel like I'm gonna throw up," I tell the anesthesiologist.

"I'll hold this basin here for you," he says to me. He shows me a pink plastic basin that he hold next to my face.

"Is my baby okay?"

"They've got you opened up. They haven't got the baby out yet."

"They have to hurry," I say. My voice is not capable of communicating the urgency I feel.

"Everything will be fine. They're pulling him out now."

He’s just saying that to make me feel better. I will not believe he is okay until I hear him crying out strong.

Eric walks through the doors of the operating room, clad in green surgical scrubs. He looks disoriented, then he turns pale.

The nauseous feeling overtakes me. My stomach erupts in volcanic heaves. I turn my head toward the basin that the anesthesiologist is still holding next to my face. Stringy sputum runs down my cheek. The anesthesiologist wipes it off quickly-thankfully.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"It's fine. You're just having a reaction to the morphine."

Eric takes my hand for a moment, his face looks grim, then he lets go of my hand and walks away, over to where the doctors and nurses are gathered. There is nervous activity going on and I am afraid to think why. I still don’t hear my baby crying. "Eric, the baby, how's the baby?" I cry out, terrified of the answer.

At that moment I hear a strong newborn scream.

"He's beautiful, Babe," he replied, his voice was quivering. "He's just beautiful."

Thank you, Lord," I whisper as my eyes fall shut. I can’t even force them to open.

I fall asleep while they stitch me up.

When they are wheeling me into recovery, they give me the baby, “Look at all the hair he has!” I exclaim. “He needs a hair cut already! How much does he weigh?”

“Seven pounds, fourteen ounces, and he’s twenty-one inches long.”

“He has his father’s nose,” one of the nurses says.

“Yep, he sure does,” I say and roll my eyes a little. “Another son with the Graham Nose.”

“That nose comes from the Bell side of the family,” Eric reminds me.

Exhaustion sets in on me like a heavy fog, “Eric, please take him, I’m so tired, I’m afraid that Ill drop him.”

“What are you going to name him?” One of the nurses asks me.

“Skylar Justin Graham.”

Chapter 33

Once I am upstairs I have a whole parade of people coming to see me.

“Mrs. Graham, I’m Laura, I’m in the nursery with Skylar. I hear you had a pretty traumatic delivery.”

I have to fight to rouse myself enough to respond, “That’s putting it mildly,” I say behind sleepy eyes.

“Are you planning on breastfeeding?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can bring him to you now, if you’re up to it, or if you want, I can just give him a little glucose water now, and bring him to you after you’ve had some time to rest.”

“I wanna try to nurse him now.”

“Okay then, I‘ll go get him.”

“Thanks.”

Before Laura gets back, a nurse comes in, “Hi, Mrs. Graham, I’m Judy. I need to check your temp and blood pressure,” she says while wrapping a blood pressure cup around my arm. “Open up,” she says as she puts the thermometer in my mouth. “Sandy was telling me what a scary delivery you had. Hmmm, your temperature is a little high. I’m going to need to call your doctor about that.”

“Can you also see about getting me some percocet, please? I’m feeling a lot of pain.”

“Sure.”

Laura brings Skylar so I can nurse him. She picks him up out of the bassinette and hands him to me, “He’s so much smaller than my first son.”

“How big was your first son?”

“Ten/five. There were several babies born that week over ten pounds. The nurses called them the football team.”

Laura giggles, “That’s cute.”

Skylar latches on right away and nurses without any problems. I softly stroke his head and smile at him. When Laura comes back to take Skylar back to the nursery I am feeling very weak.

“How did he do?”

“Good.”

“Did he nurse on both sides?”

“Yes.”

“How many minutes on each?”

“Uhhh,” I really have no idea. Time doesn’t mean anything to me at the moment, “Five or ten minutes.”

“Good,” she says as she puts him back into the plastic bassinette.

“I feel really weak,” I tell her, “I pressed my button for the nurse, but she still hasn’t come.”

“I heard they are having a busy night.”

“If you see my nurse, would you please tell her I need her?”

I turn on the television and try to relax, but I’m in a lot of pain. I press the call button again.

Finally she comes in, “Hi.” she says, putting a thermometer in my mouth and then hooking me up to a machine to check my blood pressure. “Sorry it took me so long to get here. It seems like everyone is sick tonight. Dr. Wright just called in your prescriptions. How are you feeling?” she asks as she pulls the thermometer out.

“Really weak.”

“Your temperature is still high. Dr. Wright said to give you some Tylenol to bring it down, and here are your Percocets.” She hands me a little paper cup with the pills and then pours me a cup of ice water to take them with.

With the pain subsiding, I manage to get a little sleep, but I’m awakened by Dr. Wright, “I hear you’ve been running a fever,” she says casually as she checks my incision from the cesarean.

I am too tired to even acknowledge her.

“I think the reason you have been spiking a fever is because your incision needs to drain. I’m going to go ahead and open it up so that it can drain.”

That snaps me right awake, “When Tucker was born, the doctor installed a surgical drain.”

“Dr. Dugood and I took did a very good job stitching you up. We didn’t think you would need one.”

Her response angers me, but I am not feeling up to fighting with her over what she should have done,

“How long before you can close the incision again?”

“It can’t be stitched up again. It will have to close from the inside out now.”

She goes on to explain what this means, but I am so tired that I can’t really follow her. I am still back at the point that I am going to have an open wound in my abdomen. I can’t believe this!

In the morning I’m nursing Skylar when Mom walks through the door with Tucker.

“Haaaaa!” I hear Tucker breathe when he sees the baby.

“Do you want to see your brother, Tucker?”

He nods his head eagerly, and Mom lifts him onto the bed beside me.

“Hey, baby,” Tucker says and strokes his head.

“His name is Skylar.”

Tucker gives me a big grin and keeps petting the baby’s head.

“How are you feeling?” Mom asks.

“Tired. Very tired.”

Skylar breaks off from nursing, and I hold him up to burp.

“Can I?” Mom asks, holding her arms out to take the baby.

I hand him to her, she adjusts his blanket.

“What a beautiful baby, Jodi.”

“I think he is.”

“Oh, before I forget, Tucker has a surprise for you.”

“He does?”

“Go on Tucker, just like we practiced…”

Tucker takes a deep breath and gets an embarrassed look on his face. He looks down at the blanket on the bed instead of at me, “A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I -J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z.”

“Yay,” I clap and give him a big hug, “that was perfect!”

“We worked really hard on that,” Mom tells me.

“I can tell. I am so proud of you, Tucker-bug.”

He doesn’t really hear me. He is too busy looking at his little brother.

Once Mom and Tucker leave, a bald man with a big smile peeks his head in the room, “Hi, I‘m John, the photographer. Would you like your baby photographed?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Okay,” he says handing me a clip board, “all you have to do is fill this out for me, and I‘ll go over the various packages with you.”

When I try to write my address, but I can’t remember it. John looks uncomfortable. He must think I am such a moron! I feel so stupid. What is wrong with me? Finally I write something that seems right.

John takes the clipboard from me and asks me to hold Skylar so he can get the picture.

When I stand up, I tingle all over, as if my whole body has gone numb.

Skylar starts to cry, and I try to hold him so that the photographer can get a good take, but his eyes are all red from crying.

Once the pictures are shot, I climb back in bed, feeling as though my heart is going to explode in my chest. What is wrong with me? .

A nurse comes in, and without a word, puts a thermometer in my mouth before wrapping a blood pressure cup around my arm. I look around and everything looks like a mirage, like the horizon on a hot afternoon.

“Sally,” I hear the nurse call, “I need you.”

Another nurse comes in the room, “Take the baby back to the nursery for me, and tell Amy to get me some ice. Her temperature is 105.”

I look at the machine that takes my blood pressure and see that my pulse is 155. Before I can comprehend what is happening, there are half a dozen nurses around me, packing me in ice.

Eric walks in and I see the fear all over his face as one of the nurses tells him he’s going to have to wait outside.

The room is spinning again. All around the outside of my mouth, painful blisters start to erupt. A nurse is trying to put a needle in my wrist, “I can’t get a line,” she says.

“Let me try. ….The vein just exploded.”

“There’s a good one over here.”

The nurse moves around to my other side and tries to insert a needle in my arm.

“Damn, it exploded too. I’m sorry,” she looks at me. “If I can’t get it this time, I’m going to have Gina try it.”

I nod my head and watch her stick another needle in my arm.

“Damn! Gina, you try it. Her veins keep exploding on me.”

Gina doesn’t do any better. It takes 13 times before they get a vein that doesn’t explode. All over my arms black and blue marks are painfully swelling where needles have violated. Eric is allowed to come in. He looks scared to death, “Hey, Babe, I thought I lost you.”

“I was afraid you were going to lose me too.”

He kisses me on the cheek, “Are those fever blisters around your mouth?”

“I guess so,” I say, lifting my hand to feel them, “and they hurt like hell.”

One of the nurses informs me that I have a bacterial infection, and that was what caused me to have the fever after Skylar was born. Dr. Wright opened up my incision for nothing. And now a nurse has to change the dressing and repack it three times a day. I don’t know how I am going to manage to do that when I go home. When Dr. Wright comes in to check on me, I am very angry with her.

“How are you feeling today, Mrs. Graham?”

“Well, given the fact that you opened up my incision for no good reason, I am not very happy. After my first cesarean, Dr. Lane immediately had me on antibiotics, just as a precaution. I told you that I had been fighting off bronchitis, and that my immune system was low, and you didn’t bother to take that precaution-not to mention all the hell I went through during the six days I was in labor.”

“Well, Dr. Lane is back today,” Dr. Wright tells me, “if you are unhappy with the care I’ve given you, I will gladly turn you back over to her.”

*******************************

“I was afraid that I would have to stop nursing Skylar,” I tell Rainee as she sits on the end of the hospital bed, Skylar happily nursing at my breast, “but the doctors assured me that I could continue nursing him while I take the antibiotics.”

“Well, that’s good. I know how important nursing is to you.”

“I can’t wait to get home. I want out of this hospital so bad.”

“So how are you going to manage to take care of the incision by yourself once you‘re home?”

“Lisa is arranging for the county nurse to come out twice a day and do it, as well as administering the injections of antibiotics I still need to have.”

“So what kind of bacterial infection is it?

“There is something weird because they won’t tell me. They said that it will take three days to culture it.”

“Well as long as you and Skylar are okay,” Rainee says as she brushes the hair back on his head with her hand, “that is all that really matters.”