The story- Part 3
(Harder and harder to write here, since my time is spent mostly with the baby.)
The next day was a Friday. I was picked up pretty early by the nurses. Ramadan went home to shower and get ready for another day of hardship. Mom came back. They couldn't seem to make my new IV go in. Kept messing it up. I was stuck in about five places before they decided to call in a professional IV person. It was taking too long to wait for him, so a daring nurse decided to go for it and try again. She got it in the last possible spot available. I had band-aids all over my hands and wrists. They started me on the labor inducing IV in the late morning. Ramadan and my mother were with me as we waited. I read trashy magazines and talked to them. Luc I guess was waiting downstairs, and Alyssa and Ken came later with my dad. The drug was cranked up to a higher and higher dosage, and they kept checking my dialation, but nothing seemed to be happening. I was in serious pain, though. Really bad contractions. They could see them on the monitor I was hooked up to.
By the afternoon, they turned my medication up to full power. That's when it started to get ugly. I was in so much pain I can't describe it. I was tensing up with every contraction, but I tried to just breathe and relax for them. Impossible. Dialation at about three centimeters and no more. I was screaming through the pain. Not abusive, but just screaming with pain. I wasn't mean to anybody, so at least I can say that. I wouldn't take an epidural, although they tried to get me to. I refused all medication and just took the pain. I got to the point where the contractions were one on top of another and I couldn't bear to open my eyes. My mom went down to tell people what was going on. She came back with my dad, who wanted to say hi. I was not even feeling like I was in my own body, so "hi" didn't really register. He hung around, I guess.
They tortured me further with a sensor on my cervix. I had endured dozens of cervical exam by this time, every one more painful than the last. So the sensor was murder. This stayed on for a while through the contractions. Ramadan was on one side of me, my mom was on the other, and I held their hands as I screamed. Ramadan was pretty cute, he kept talking to me in Arabic. People tell me that I was answering him in Arabic, apparently correctly. Wierd.
At some point, I vaguely remember them saying that they had decided to go for the C-section. The nurses then tried to convince me to take some pain medication. I refused at first, but they told me they didn't have a C-section room open for another hour and a half so I'd have to wait. I took the pain medication so I could sleep. I guess I slept an snored through the time.
I have a vague recollection of Ramadan dressing in paper scrubs and a cap. He looked rediculous. I have a vague recollection of them taking the sensor out. I don't recall them putting a catheter in. I vaguely remember them telling me it was time to go to the operating room. TO BE CONTINUED...