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Amanda's Birth Story By Kari |
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Birth Stories -
Hospital Birth Stories
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Thursday, 05 February 2009 09:00 |
I found out that I was pregnant in December of 1991. We were excited and somewhat apprehensive because we had only been married for a year and financially things weren't going well. So, I wound up on Medicaid. We figured that it wasn't great, but at least it was some kind of health insurance.
Everything was going well with the pregnancy. I had some morning sickness, but that eventually disappeared. Then I hit my fifth month. That's when my blood pressure started to go up. After about a month and a half of my blood pressure being up, I was put on total bed rest until the baby came. I was also told to report to one of the local hospitals every other day for a Non-Stress Test (NST), and to report every two weeks for my prenatal exam. Of course, by then, my husband and I were scared to death beacuse the RNP (Registered Nurse Practitioner) kept saying that there could be something wrong with the baby that was causing my blood pressure to go up. NOT something a first time mother wants to hear.
By the time that I reported for my first NST, my fingers had started to swell due to the heat and humidity (we lived in Florida at the time), and my blood pressure; so I had decided to take my wedding band off before it got to the point where I couldn't get it off. Well, when I went to my first NST the nurse took one look at my chart and saw that I was on Medicaid, and took one look at my hand and saw no wedding band and promptly informed me that she would be calling the social services department at the hospital because my BOYFRIEND and I were not married. She also informed me that he would not be in allowed in the delivery room with me because we were not married. My husband just sat there, dumbfounded by what she was saying, while I turned to her and promptly informed her that the reason I was not wearing a wedding band was because of the swelling in my fingers, that he is not my boyfriend, that he is my HUSBAND, and he WOULD be in the delivery room with me! All she could do was say she was sorry, and walk out of the room. I couldn't believe that she would make such an assumption before she even talked to me! I was so mad by then! It was at this point that we should have realized that our birth experience was not going to be a good one.
Well, after about 2 months NST's and missing my due date (which was supposed to be July 27th), I had one of my (by then) weekly appointments at the prenatal clinic. This was on a Friday. The RNP told me that since my blood pressure was still high, and my due date had come and gone, I would have to make an appointment to be induced if I hadn't delivered by Monday night. Well, of course, nothing happened over the weekend and by Monday I was getting really tired of people calling to ask why I hadn't had the baby yet. I was seriously going to cry if one more person asked me that!
So, on Monday afternoon, the RNP called and said that she had set up the appointment for me to be induced for Thursday morning at 7 a.m. Well, Wednesday rolled around, and still no baby, so my husband and I started to get everything ready to go to the hospital bright and early Thursday morning. Then that night, at about 8 p.m., I felt a small trickle of fluid but didn't think anything of it because I was expecting this big gush. Yeah, right so much for that idea! Well, about an hour later, I started noticing that I could get comfortable when I was sitting down. I figured that I must just be tired, so I went to bed.
Well, I got to bed around 9:30 but couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Finally, around 11 p.m., I started getting contractions. After about an hour of this, my husband and I decided to go to the hospital. We got there around 12:15 a.m. or so, and I was taken back to an examining room to be checked. Since I was not able to tell the doctor for sure whether or not my water had broken, he decided to do a test to see if it had, and the test came back negative. So, since I was not dilated and the test for amniotic fluid came back negative, he sent me home telling me that it would probably be sometime within the next 24-48 hours. He also told me that I was probably just experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions (that's funny, I never had them up until then).
Well, about two hours after we left the ER, my husband and I were back because my "Braxton-Hicks" contractions were now regular and five minutes apart. The same nurse that I had seen earlier that night came out and asked me if I was having contractions. I wanted to say "No! I just like coming here to see you!", but I didn't because I figured the fact that I was doubled over and clutching my husband's hand pretty much said it all.
After I was taken to an exam room, the same doctor that had examined me the first time came in to examine me and do a test for amniotic fluid. The test came back negative again. He was going to send me home (again!), but just as he walked back in the room, I had a contraction, after which I informed him that there was NO WAY I was going home! He then admitted me. That was OK, until the change of shift. Then the same nurse who had assumed I was not married came on. I could have screamed! Then, by about 7:30 or so, I WAS screaming, but it was because I was in pain. Then the nurse (right in front of me, mind you), told the doctor that I was not dealing with the pain well (tell you what, you get down here and have this baby!), so she asked him if I could have anything for the pain. Well, at least some thing went right because about a half hour later the anesthesiologist came in and said he was going to give an epidural. I could have kissed him!!
The epidural was in in about 10 minutes, and I was in HEAVEN! I could finally sleep for a little while. By the time the epidural wore off, I was at about 9 centimeters, so they wouldn't give me any more. That was OK though, because it was only about an hour or so before I started to push. They wheeled me into the delivery room, the hospital was so outdated that they still didn't have LDR's, around 11 a.m.. After about a half hour of pushing, and an episiotomy, my daughter was born at 11:47 a.m. Her name is Amanda Arlene, and she weighed 9lbs.5oz., and was 23 inches long when she was born. I tried rooming in for one night after she was born but it didn't work out. I was so tired that I couldn't see straight; and on top of that, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
So at about 2 a.m., after asking the nurse to help me change her diaper (I had no idea what I was doing, and was terrified that I would drop her or something)and the nurse getting rather upset with me, I sent my daughter back to the nursery for the night. The next morning, on their walking rounds, the nurse stopped right in front of my open door and told the oncoming nurse that she would have to watch me because I knew nothing about babies. I wanted to scream and cry at the same time! Apparently they thought that, since I was 20 years old and on welfare, I must have four or five other kids at home. Wrong! At that point, I decided that all I wanted to do was take my baby and go home. I did wind up going home the next day, then I went back into the hospital one week to the day after my daughter was born because I had a postpartum hemorrhage. Apparently the nurses were supposed to have checked to see if my uterus was contracting down, and someone was supposed to have checked the placenta to see if it was whole; no one did these things, so my body finally decided to pass the rest of the placenta a week after giving birth.
Fortunately, after the hemorrhage, everything turned out OK, and my daughter is a healthy active 7 year old. But I do want to say two things to the people in the medical profession. The first is, be careful about what you say and where you say it, you never know who might hear it. The other thing is just because a mother is young and on welfare, please don't judge her and make rude assumptions about her. You know very little about her, and keep in mind how you would feel if you were in her position; and, you never know, one day you might be. Oh and, incidentally, my husband has since graduated from college, and is a Registered Nurse in a hospital in Upstate New York, AND we are no longer on welfare.
To all the expecting Moms out there, good luck and God bless. You are about to enter a wonderful and exciting period in your life, and once the doctor or midwife puts that baby in your arms, you will realize that you would go through all the pain and worry all over again just to get to that moment. Good Luck!
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Hospital Births 
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