A little reproductive history--feel free to not read

Lynn, VBAC stands for vaginal delivery after a c-section.

Becky--Alma makes me chuckle. If that is his line of thinking than I wasn't meant to reproduce. I would have died with all my kids if not for timely, competent medical intervention and technology.

Miriam's delivery was the worst, and guess what--the only delivery without Dr. Swift. I had a midwife (whom I have since heard from several sources is one of the worst in Utah--how do you know this going in with your first???) because I wanted to go natural and I heard great things about midwives (don't give me any pro-midwives lectures, I'm not opposed to them--I just know that my body gives birth in such a way that a doctor is the best choice).

My water broke with Miriam in the early afternoon. I walked around all afternoon trying to get some contractions started, but nothing happened. Timothy returned early from his overnight backpacking bike ride with Kayli's husband Brett (I'm still grateful for the bugs that drove them out of the great outdoors), and we went to the hospital. I was checked in, was only to a three or something ridiculous like that, and then I was ignored. For 18 hours. Again--my first baby. I would never allow this to happen to me now.

Once, an on-call doctor came in and checked me and told the nurses to put me on pitocin, but they didn't. I have no idea why not. They called my midwife several times, and she answered the phone, and then fell back asleep.

I'm not sure if it is like this in Canada, but in the States, it is pretty much required that you have a c-section if you don't deliver on your own within 24 hours of your water breaking. I was getting pretty close to that when the midwife finally appeared. She convinced me to get an epidurral (bad, nasty things) to "speed things up." I don't know if it worked or not, but the anethetist put it in wrong and it never really kicked in, except to make my legs completely numb, and I had severe back pain for months afterward. That's another story.

But, the labor did pick up speed so I can't say it was the wrong decision. When I finally delivered, Miriam was fine but my placenta wouldn't come out. I now know, thanks to Dr. Swift, that my body takes about 1/2 hour before it delivers the placenta. He's a patient man who doesn't stress about things.

However, I shouldn't be totally harsh on my midwife because apparently I started bleeding pretty heavy (another thing we now know to just expect), and she freaked out. There is really no other way to describe it. She called frantically to a nurse to "get a doctor in here right now!" Then all these people came rushing into the room, the lights were turned on full bright, and an unknown doctor was reaching inside me to tear the placenta out of me. It was attached to the uterine wall so you can probably imagine how insanely painful that was. Remember the useless epidural was not doing anything by way of pain management--at least I don't think so. If it was, I don't even want to IMAGINE what it would have felt like without the epidural. There are some things a girl just does not want to know.

So, I was bleeding very heavily and crying, a little loudly, but certainly not screaming or kicking or acting crazy. So what does the stupid doctor do? Tells the freako nurse (who had been discussing with the midwife the various patients she'd seen who had died from what was happening with me) to give me demerol. I now just lie and list demerol as an allergy so I will NEVER AGAIN be subjected to the nasty stuff. So there I was, bleeding like crazy, crying, and thanks to the demerol--dizzy, disoriented, and throwing up. Lovely.

When the doctor figured he had all the placenta, I was pretty much too weak to do anything besides lay there. Timothy brought me the baby at some point (all that was a little foggy), but I couldn't hold her and I couldn't keep my eyes open to look at her. It registered that she had red hair, and that was about it.

Then--another travesty of justice, they MOVED me to a different room. Have you ever had two people lift and move you when your whole body is in either severe pain or numb? Extremely unpleasant.

I don't remember much else. I slept for a long time. Timothy put a note on the door preventing visitor access, but I remember him calling my parents and telling them that we'd had the baby. I also remember the pesky nurses waking me up every ten minutes to check my blood pressure. The monsters. I also remember the lactation specialist trying to get me to pump with a hospital grade pump (way stronger than the ones you use at home) when I had NOTHING due to blood loss. They just piled pain on pain at that miserable hospital.

Oh yeah, that's where I'm delivering this one. Bah humbug.

I'll add a note on Cowen's delivery after I put this pesky red-headed two year old to bed.