My tiny little baby came out, two months to the day too early. He was taken away as soon as the umbilical cord was cut. Corey went with him. He needed his daddy more than I needed Corey's support. Cathy stayed with me. I was in la-la land from all the hormones. Even so, I still had my head about me enough to yell at the doctor, "Don't Pull The CORD!!!!" I shouted at him as he was attempting to help me birth the placenta.
"I'm not pulling on it, I'm guiding it."
"Don't Pull..." I warned. I remembered hearing how pulling on the umbilical cord could tear the placenta off the uterus too quickly, and leave pieces of it stuck to the uterine wall. This causes tremendous complications later on, and I was not about to have some idiot doctor ruin my uterus.
A nurse came to me and told me she was going to give me a shot of patocin to help deliver the placenta. I agreed, thinking that now that the baby is out, there's not a lot they can do to me to hurt the baby. I received a shot in my leg. I can't remember it hurting all that much. I had just passed a child, so a small little shot was laughable almost.
Shots I can handle, but IVs are another story. I have never in my life been hooked up to one and quite frankly, they scare the living shit out of me. So, when some young nurse came up to me with the fixings of an IV I lost my nerve at her. "You will not touch me with that unless it is absolutely necessary, do you understand me?"
Corey had just come back into the room for a moment, and overheard what I had said. He added to it, "We're talking lawsuits here." The poor little girl turned right around and left the room.
In the two hours waiting for my son to be ready to leave the hospital, my midwife showed up, my doula, as well as a social worker to discuss financial arrangements. She asked me if there was anything I needed and I told her all I wanted was some chocolate. She managed to procure a few Hershey's kisses for me. My midwife came in looking stunned. She and I recounted everything we had done and could not come up with a reasonable explanation as to why my son came so early or so suddenly.
At some point, the tall, slender nurse who gave me my patocin shot asked me if I could go to the restroom. She helped me off the bed and into the bathroom. She gave me a wonderful little squirt bottle to use on my tender area post birth instead of using toilet paper. The warm water was sooooo comforting. After getting back on the bed, she asked me if I wanted my placenta. I was so shocked. I was under the impression that I would have to fight to get my son's placenta to take home with us. We wanted to bury it under a tree, using an ancient Celtic tradition. I had heard that taking bio hazardous material out of a hospital is illegal, and was so happy to hear that I didn't have to make a fuss to get what I wanted.
Two and a half hours after giving birth, Corey came into the room with a cart being pushed by two paramedic-looking people. On the cart was a large plastic box. Inside the box lay my son, sleeping, quiet, peaceful. He had a tube coming out of where his belly-button would be, tubes in his nose, and IV in his foot and several other miscellaneous wires for monitors attached to him.
"We are going to fly him to the NICU in Flagstaff via helicopter. Is there anything you'd like to say to him?"
For the life of me, I can't remember my first words to my son. They were hollow, whatever they were, like, "hang in there" or "we love you", but they really had no meaning behind them. I didn't even know this person. He had been a mystery. We didn't know his sex, we didn't know his actual due date because we didn't know when we actually conceived him, he was a total stranger. Just some kid in a box. I didn't really feel anything, just a sort of numb acceptance.
I did, however remember being concerned that his ears would be affected by the loudness of the helicopter and I managed to articulate this to the medical team wheeling his cart. "Not to worry," they told me, "this is soundproof plexiglass." I felt a sigh of relief, knowing my poor little baby early, and abandoned by his mother wouldn't wake up just because he was in a loud helicopter.
The staff gave me instructions for checking in at a family house in Flagstaff for those with relatives in the hospital. I also received the number for the NICU to call and check on my son at anytime. They wheeled him away and those remaining in the room made ready to finally go home.
By that time, Cathy's husband and daughter had arrived at the hospital. Katie, my would-be doula was also still there. Corey carried my purse, Kaite followed behind me, pushed by a nurse in a wheelchair, Cathy held her daughter's hand and her husband brought up the rear of the procession bearing the tray wrapped in a plastic holding the placenta.
We left the hospital, Corey and me, in our old Buick, and finished up calling those who would like to know how it went and what happened to us and the baby.
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