My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad birth story!

Visceral Mercenary • May you find your worth in the waking world.

September 14th, I had a prenatal appointment at 2:15 p.m. I was 38 weeks and 5 days and had been losing mucus plug for a week. My doctor told me he actually had expected me to go into labor previous to that appointment and didn't think I'd made it to the next week. I had a cervix check, which revealed I was still 1 cm dilated and just starting to thin. He stretched it, almost to a 2 and sent me on my way.

I was feeling like my baby would come soon, so when I got home, I cooked a pretty extravagant dinner for my husband and toddler. While cooking, I began to feel crampy and had back pain. I didn't really think too much of it, as cramping and back pain are so common during the last few weeks.

My husband works the graveyard shift and headed off to work at 6 p.m. He had finally had the night off before and I'd not slept at all because I needed that time with him. My toddler hadn't napped that day, so we headed off to bed at 7 p.m.

I was awakened by moderately painful contractions at 10:45 p.m. I spent the next hour trying to go back to sleep, but to no avail. I began to time them, took a bath to try to alleviate them, ate dinner, and drank a bunch of water. Nothing stopped them and they stayed about 6 minutes apart.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide when to call my husband's work and ask security to send him home. My trepidation to head to the hospital comes from the fact that the l&d in my home town hospital was shut down and we would have to drive 30 minutes to the next town to deliver. I also didn't want to wake my parents in the middle of the night for a false alarm. They don't even have a carseat for my son because I never leave him anywhere, so we would have to deal with the hassle of removing mine from my car and putting it back if it was a false alarm.

I was keeping my husband updated through text message. I finally was so tired that I managed to fall asleep at 4 a.m. My poor husband did not see that text and raced home an hour later, thinking I could possibly be having the baby in my living room floor.

Contractions were still about 6 minutes apart when he woke me up coming in at 5 a.m. We played video games together for a little bit before my toddler got up at 5:30. I made them breakfast, all the while, my husband is telling me that I probably need to go ahead and head to the hospital. But again, hospital is 30 minutes away and I don't want to wake my parents, I don't want to deal with the hassle of moving my son's carseat over and back if it just ends up being a false alarm.

He finally convinced me and we dropped my son off at my parents and arrived at the hospital at 9:30 a.m. on September 15th. I'm now 38 weeks and 6 days. My first son came at 39 weeks even. They hook me up and to my surprise, my contractions are actually 3 minutes apart, not 6. I'm dilated to a 4 and they admit me.

They spend about 45 minutes trying to get an IV in me, but keep hitting valves. I'm poked a total of 5 times and they blow 2 veins. But finally, I'm hooked up and receiving fluids for being dehydrated. My husband obviously doesn't like to see me in pain and is getting increasingly annoyed with them at this point.

They mention the doctor coming in and it is NOT my doctor. I ask when my doctor will be there. They say that he won't because he doesn't deliver in their hospital. I was fucking floored because he never told me that over these nine months. I'd chosen this doctor because he delivered me when I was born and I thought it would be a great thing to share with my baby. If I'd known he didn't deliver, I'd have found a doctor that did!

So rough start and a stranger is delivering my baby! My mom arrives shortly after they finally get the IV in. Contractions become extremely painful around 11 a.m. I decide to get an epidural. I had wanted to try to go without, but I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours in the past 3 days, I'm mentally drained from finding out a stranger is delivering my baby, I've been stabbed 5 times and had two veins blown. The stars were clearly pointing to this birth being plagued with bad luck, so I'm just bracing myself.

They say I have to wait on the epidural until they get my lab results back. I wait and fight through the pain. I meet the doctor. He's offputting. I meet the anesthesiologist. He seems all right, other than asking me nonstop medical history while my unbearable contractions are 2 minutes apart and lasting a minute and a half.

The results come back about 1 p.m. The anesthesiologist comes in and has me sit up. I'm fighting through unbearably painful contractions with about 15 seconds in between the end of one and the start of the other.

I'm having an extremely difficult time forcing myself to be still, the contractions are 95% worse sitting up, he sticks me THREE times and takes 45 minutes before he finally gets it in. The whole time, I'm struggling to be still, keep my head down, and back arched out. I end up sobbing through the last 10 minutes not just because of the pain, but because of the staff. The nurses can't set an IV, the anesthesiologist can't set an epidural.

Maybe if he'd have stopped flirting with the nurse the whole time, he'd have gotten it right the first time! His pager went off right at the start and he literally had the nurse digging through his pockets while they're giggling and shit.

My husband and mom were told to stay seated across the room during this to keep the area sterile and because people have passed out watching someone get an epidural. I can't even imagine how they are feeling watching this and having to stay back.

The guy says the epidural will take 25 minutes to kick in. My husband and mom are very stressed, as they were forced to stay back across the room the whole time I was being tortured. I tried to stay strong during it all because I didn't want to upset them. Obviously my husband doesn't like seeing me in pain and my mom is still traumatized by my first birth, which was pretty awful.

I ask the nurse if she can see how far along I am. She says she will check in about 45 minutes because "you probably haven't progressed much yet." So she leaves.

I hear my mom and husband talking about how badly they want to smoke after seeing me go through that. I just tell them to go. I feel like I need a minute completely to myself anyway and had contractions this far apart with my first son for nearly 12 hours, so I don't really think it's close to time yet. The completely empty room feels like a nice space to lay back and breathe through these contractions.

They are gone about 5 minutes when I feel my water break. I begin to immediately feel extreme pain and pressure in my vagina and my butt. I know straight up that I need to push. I hit the nurse call button and text my mom and husband.

They arrive right as the nurses are coming in. I tell them that I NEED to push. They tell me that I can't. We have to wait for the doctor.

I understand that, but every instinct is telling me to push. My body is trying to push without my permission. It's extremely painful. The epidural has not kicked in. I'm asking "How do I stop myself from pushing? I don't feel like I can control it."

Their answer? "Just don't." Thanks a fucking lot. Isn't it part of your job to tell me HOW to do what you are telling me to do?

The doctor finally arrives. He doesn't say one word to me. I swear to God I've never seen someone move so slowly. Sloths move quicker. He is lumbering along like a damn zombie, slowly putting on his attire. I swear for a minute that I am in a fucking nightmare or the Twilight Zone. Can a hospital staff be so uncaring and impersonal? I LOVED the staff when I gave birth to my first! I had a horrible birth then but they were amazing!

He checks me, nurse says it is go time. They have me hold my legs. When I delivered my first, my husband was allowed to hold them for me (I'm stiff as a dead rat. I needed the help.) They don't allow him to. He puts his hand on my knee and the nurse shoves him away and does not allow him to touch me at all.

I'm pushing. I keep asking, "Can you see the head? Is the baby okay? What is going on? Am I making any progress."

No one is answering me. The dumbass doctor who apparently doesn't know how to formulate words still has not spoken. The nurses are now ignoring me as well. I need them to tell me if anything is happening because I had a double pelvic organ prolapse after my first birth and I'm worried that it's going to interfere.

I'm feeling every little bit of pain and how I am kind of pissed that I got stabbed in the back for 45 minutes for no reason at all.

I need my husband close by, but they won't let him and won't tell us why. Finally my mom walks around and tells us she sees the head since every staff member is straight up ignoring me. Now I know I am doing something, so I push harder.

After about 20 minutes, my little boy comes into this world at 2:05 p.m. I felt every push (thanks a lot, epidural!) But honestly, the pushing was not even that painful other than the few seconds of the ring of fire. Forcing myself to NOT push? That was painful.

They cut the fucking cord, never once asking my husband if he wanted to. And of course he wanted to! What father doesn't? He cut my first son's and it was very special to him.

Placenta comes out (felt great, thanks again, useless epidural!). The doctor leaves. He said not one word to me the entire time he is in the room. No one tells us why they treated my husband the way they did. They did not let him comfort me or be a part of the birthing experience in any way. He feels very slighted, understandably.

Thankfully I did not tear, which was shocking to me. During my first son's birth in December of 2016, I pushed for 3 hours and had a perineal tear and a urethral tear. I expected to tear that scar tissue.

Oh and if you thought this was the end of my idiotic staff, you'd be wrong. They knew I was breastfeeding and prescribed me a pain medication that could AFFECT MY BABY'S BREATHING.

My baby Dean is 7 lbs, 2 oz (his brother was 7 lbs, 12 oz.) He is 19 inches long (his brother was 17.5 inches long). His head is 13.25 inches (his brother's giant melon was 14 inches.).

Thankfully, my baby boy is very healthy. The birth was a nightmare with pain, a whole team of staff that can't set an IV or epidural, does not communicate at all with me, and treats us impersonally. But the only thing that matters in the end is a healthy, beautiful baby boy. He's perfect in every way. He's very calm and alert and so beautiful. He has beautiful dark hair like his parents (big brother came out with beautiful red hair somehow!) His skin tone is gorgeous.

He started off with a bad latch. I breastfed my first, so I knew immediately that his latch wasn't right. He latched incorrectly for the first five days, but on the sixth day, he got it down. He's a week old today and breastfeeding like a champ!