The Four Hour Work Week Project – Allison Reynolds

I was wheeled into a room to have a spinal block anesthesia inserted so I could be awake to see the birth of my daughter by c-section.  This was going to be a better birth for me that my son’s. For him I was in labor for 60 hours and finally had a ceasarean when he became distressed. So there I was on the trolley..waiting.

My at-the-time-husband had gone on ahead into the operating room and was waiting for me. All gowns and smiles, this was going to be a piece of cake for him, though there would be no hot and cold running nurses and baked dinners while he watched me labor, not like last time.  I never wanted to know what the sex of our babies were before they were born, my motto was “there are precious few surprises on the day”.  In both deliveries I was dead wrong about the lack of  surprises.

“Roll over facing away from me and draw your knees up” the anesthesiologist ordered. I did as instructed. While he washed my back with iodine he explained he was going to just give an injection into the spine as this was to be a “wide awake” ceasarean and not an epidural, which was almost the same thing but they left a tube connected to a catheter so the paralytic could be topped up if needed. Being my usual compliant self I nodded understanding and said “yes” and “ok” a lot.

First was the pinprick of the numbing local anaesthetic to dull the pain of the needle to go into my spine. “OK you may feel a little discomfort and pressure” and I steeled myself for the pain that you know is coming whenever a doctor says “little discomfort”. There was pain, but immediately there was something else.

In the blink of an eye I couldn’t breath.  One second I was fine but in pain, the next I was trying to gasp like a fish. A nurse rushed over and looked at my blood pressure, she shouts “she’s flat!!!” . The anesthesiologist grabs a catheter and shoves it in the back of one hand and hooks a bag of saline to it, and repeats with the other arm. The nurse is shouting numbers.

My brain totally disconnected from what was happening. It wasn’t an out of body experience, it was detachment from the events. I was still seeing with my eyes and hearing with my ears, but the struggle was no longer stressful.  One single thought came into my head “I am going to die”.  I didn’t struggle, I didn’t think of what was involved in dying, or what would come after for those left behind, I just gave up…immediately. I am still haunted by that lack of …fight.

Next thing I was head down on a tilted table, the doctor had a bag of saline under each armpit and was squeezing hard to get the fluids in. The room came rushing back and suddenly I was normal again.

“Ready to have a baby?” the doctor asked. Just like that, like nothing had just happened.

They wheeled me into the operating room and no-one noticed or said anything. It was our secret.

I was slid onto the operating table and my arms strapped out on boards like I was being crucified. “That’s to stop you trying to put your hands inside yourself” and voice laughed “Yeah we don’t need any ‘extra’ help”. They arranged all of the sheets and and a screen to hide the carnage my abdomen was about to go through.  The doctor asked whether I had any questions..

“Umm, are my legs laying flat?” .  My brain hadn’t disconnected from the fact that they were flat after being drawn up when i was paralysed. I totally understand phantom limbs because the whole time they doctors were rummaging around inside of my I was convinced I was laying in a very unladylike position.

They told me it was time to start and that I would be kept in the loop with what was happening, and that it would all be over very quickly.

“Can I watch?”

They explained to me they would give me a peek, but that it wasn’t a good idea to watch. “It can affect some people badly”.  So I had a quick look at my insides and would have loved to watch the whole thing but the curtain was raised again.  Within a few minutes the doctor announced “You will feel some pressure now, we need to squeeze the baby out of the incision”. In my mind I appended “like a huge pimple”.

As soon as they pulled her free from my body I started crying. “It’s a girl!”  they brought her up to my face and she dripped some blood and guts on me but I didn’t care. She was beautiful, wrinkled and mottled like a German sausage, perfect.

Happy Birthday Kelsie, Mummy loves you!

Perfect ping-pong ball head