It's true, I birthed a baby in a foreign country. I detailed my prenatal experience here, so a few words about my labor and delivery. I had been having some of the obvious signs and symptoms that my body would go into labor at any minute. I was fully effaced (as is usually the case with me in the coming weeks before delivery) and dilated to nearly a 5. I lived in fear everyday that my active labor would come on strong and suddenly, and that I wouldn't make it to my hospital in Belgium - about 1 1/2 hours away. What if I can't get a hold of Ryan and have to drive myself? What if I don't make it and my Dutch midwives make me give birth right here in my house on my new couch? What if it's rush hour and it takes us 3 hours to get there? Seriously, the paranoia was real. In reality, being the neurotic planner that I am, I had several sets of plans in place - including a few supplies gathered in case I actually delivered IN THE CAR, which I was also terrified of.
Then, on the evening before my due date, I had a scary symptom - bright red blood. I called the hospital, tried to hurdle all the language barriers quickly, and explained what was going on. I don't know if she even understood, but she didn't seem alarmed by it. She said she would have the doctor call me in the morning. The next day, the doctor called to see if I wanted to schedule an induction 2 days later. He too was concerned that I wouldn't make it to the hospital if I waited to go into labor on my own. I asked him about the bleeding, and sure enough he never even got the message. He told me I could go ahead and come in today if I wanted to. I jumped at the chance, not because I was done being pregnant or wanted to get it over with or any of the typical reasons for wanting an induction - I knew I could easily make it to the hospital with Ryan before rush hour, and that was a huge relief to me.
So we did it - I delivered the children's overnight bags to my friend Annie who would pick them up from school and let them stay the night, and we headed to Brasschat to have ourselves a baby! Of course, induction is not at all commonplace at this hospital. I was expecting the typical pitocin drip, a quick epidural, bottabing bottaboom, baby. So they tried their best to make the induction a natural thing - which it's just not. They gave me cervadil (sp?) to help soften my cervix. Ok, so that seemed pointless since I was already 100% effaced, but whatever. They repeated that 3 times with 1-2 hours in between each time, just to see if anything would happen. It didn't. I found out later that I'm pretty lucky that I wasn't hurling by round 3, I guess that stuff can make people pretty nauseous. By this point, I'm starting to get tired and restless. Finally, they gave me an iv of their brand of oxytocin on the lowest teensiest tinsiest drip possible. I started to feel a few contractions, but nothing serious. Then the nurse came in to break my water and turn up the drip. "Finally," I think, "let's get this show on the road." When she matter of factly informs me that there's no way I need an epidural and that I probably wouldn't have time for one anyway. Um, I just drove over the border to get it - so that infuriated me. I told her to go ahead and get my doctor on the phone, because I WOULD be getting an epidural, end of story. The next thing I know, my contractions pickup and were only mildly painful. I started breathing through them and was doing ok - but ready for the relief of discomfort and pain so I could maybe get a little rest before I had to push the baby out. A middle eastern guy with zero bedside manner comes in to give me my epidural. "I don't really have time for this," he says, "so we're going to have to make this quick." Just what you want to hear before getting stabbed in the spine with a gigantic needle. He did the deed quickly, and I waited for relief. Pretty quickly, within 15-30 min, I felt a little tingly and less aware of my contractions. I was happy for a little relief, but sort of waiting for the real deal to kick in so that I really felt relaxed. The next thing I know, I feel horrific intense and awful pain. My eyes pop out of my head and I tell Ryan he needs to get the nurse, something is wrong and the epidural is definitely not working. A couple minutes later, before the nurse even came, the pain subsided and I was ok again. That whole scenario repeated itself several times, and I was pretty terrified. The nurse checked me and explained that the baby's head was engaging with every contraction, then moving back up when my body relaxed in between contractions. So, if that was just pressure from the baby's head, what would it feel like when I pushed? Because I could feel EVERYTHING from about my hip bones on down. I frantically explained to the nurse that we needed the anesthesiologist to hurry back here and adjust my epidural, that it wasn't working right and I wasn't ready to push. The nurse was like, "Welp, sorry, too late, here we go."
Long story short, I pushed the baby out and felt every last bit of it. I was exhausted and terrified, and my regular 2 or 3 pushes to get the baby out just wasn't happening. I felt like I was outside of my body watching. I was screaming like in a movie. I remember one moment in between pushes when I looked the doctor in the eye and barked at him "Get it out!" He gave me an episotomy, which I probably could have done without when recovery came around, and the baby was here. We went in at 2:00pm and baby B was born shortly after 10:00pm. Longest 8 hours of my life.
I know this isn't as bad as it could have been, but for me - the whole experience was horrifying. I was pretty upset about it and didn't want to think about it or talk about it for weeks. Weird, since I'm not one of those people who has some perfect experience in mind. It was just excruciating and I still don't like thinking about it.
Good thing I have a perfect little baby to show for it! The aftermath of the delivery was even more concerning than the delivery itself - no tests, vaccines, heal pricks, not even so much as a suction of the nose and mouth for that baby of mine. I am so relieved that he was perfectly healthy, because if something was seriously wrong I don't know how they could have possibly figured it out. Also, they don't believe in bathing the baby until the next day. Gross.
After 2 days in the hospital (of my maximum 5 day stay I could have), I was ready to get the heck out of there. It wasn't a typical hospital experience - the baby stayed by my side the entire time (which I prefer, but still - having a nurse offer to take a screaming baby so you can sleep is a nice gesture). I had no, ABSOLUTELY NO painkillers postpartum. I had to have Ryan bring me some advil from our american drug stash at home. The whole thing was just surreal. And now it's documented so if anyone ever wants to hear about it - I can point them here. And I never have to think about it again!
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