Part IV – Let the inteverntions begin!

I was in the hospital for about 3 hours before the anesthesiologist came to administer the epidural. It seemed like it took him forever to do what he needed to do. The nurse who stayed with me in my room was so sweet and supportive, and let me hug her while he did his thing. The anesthesiologist was not my favorite person of the night. He was desperately lacking in personality. Like, when he came in I jokingly said, "Are you my new best friend?" and he had no idea what I meant by that. I also tried to explain to him that when I had an epidural with LG’s birth, my blood pressure plummeted and I had to lay on one side and breath through an oxygen mask. He had never heard of such a thing before, and kind of wrote me off. What a surprise for him when my BP plummeted, just like I’d described! And then the oxygen and he pushed five bags of saline or so into me too. And, some other meds. I’m not sure what all went into my body, frankly, but the guy was really freaked out. Finally, I laid on my right side (I told them that it had worked last time), and eventually it started to pick up. Apparently, it got as low as 90/40. And then I slept. I slept for about 2 or 3 hours… I think. I don’t really know. And somewhere in here they gave me the pitocin. Unlike last time where I was started on the highest dose and brought down, they started me on the lowest dose, and increased by one unit every ½ hour. The thing with the epidural was, it took very well on my left side but not as strongly on my right. So in what seemed like a very short time, I started feeling the contractions again. At first it was no big deal, but eventually, it wore off and I could feel everything. The pitocin had really taken flight, and I was having contractions on top of contraction. I begged for someone to make it stop. I begged for more epidural. I felt like this labor was showing me no mercy. I wept. They turned off the pitocin to see how I would do. The contractions slowed down enough for me to catch my breath. I kept begging for the anesthesiologist to offer more relief. He apparently was in surgery though, with someone else’s c/s. When he finally did come in, I had to beg him. I mean beg. If I could have, I would have gotten on my knees. He finally agreed, and gave me the smallest dose possible. It pretty much only numbed out my left side; I still felt everything on my right though it was dulled and bearable. The good news was, I was dilating! I was at 6 or 7 cms. And at some point, quite suddenly, I felt like I had to throw up. (I had been dry heaving here and there in the hospital during stronger contractions, but this was full on puking again). I realized that I was in transition! And a little later I was checked again, and I was at 7 or 8. I dilated on my own! But it wasn’t much relief to me, because I was still laboring. I was still frustrated. One more interruption until the final installment…