My son Ben asked me a few days ago about the worst physical pain I'd ever experienced. Of course, the first thing to my mind was his birth, where my epidural failed to kick in and relieve the pitocin-induced contractions that racked my body for hours.
But then I thought twice. It wasn't the labor or birth itself that was so excruciating, but the pain from the(mis)management afterwards that made me want to die, and then almost granted my wish.
Ben was born at 4:29 in the a.m., 9 lbs. 10 oz. of red, grunting, gorgeous boy. I hadn't anticipated having to do this birth with no pain medication, and I certainly wasn't prepared for the rush of endorphins that flooded my body and my heart as I held him, awash in love hormones. That sensation was so powerful that I didn't notice at first when the nurses started becoming alarmed at the amount of blood I was losing.
But I began to be more aware of the tumult brewing when they began to take turns palpating my uterus to get it to contract and stop the bleeding, and when each successive palpation was growing harder and harder until I, who never made waves back in those days, was gripping the bed rails, crying out and begging them to stop. If I could ever imagine what violent rape felt like, that was my moment. Or maybe I should say those were my hours. Because this went on, and on, and on, for what felt like a small epoch. My husband was in and out, visiting Ben in the nursery, and I needed him like I'd never needed him before or since. I don't think he was fully aware of the growing gravity in the room, and maybe I wasn't either.
The hours stretched on until the sun out my hospital room window was high in the sky, empty syringes of coagulant were safe in their little red biohazard box, and I lacked the strength to speak above a whisper. Seven and one-half hours had passed and I had lost nearly 2 units of blood, an amount I would look back on later and shudder at the thought of, when finally it was decided to take me into emergency exploratory surgery to find out what was going on. I maybe didn't realize the seriousness of my situation, despite my growing fear, until my father-in-law gathered my husband, still-baby daughter, mother-in-law, and brother around my bed to pray. My father-in-law is a strong, tender man, and I didn't expect his words to falter and tears to fall as he pleaded with God for my safety. Something in my head finally clicked and I realized, though weakly, that I could be dying. I think I was dying.
When I was wheeled down the hall and through the doors that meant my husband could no longer accompany me, I realized a split second too late that I hadn't told him goodbye, and this terrified me. What if I never came back? I hadn't said I loved him one last time. I hadn't kissed our daughter goodbye. I hadn't kissed our new son goodbye. I called after him, but my weak, whispering voice trailed off into nothing, swallowed even by the small sounds of wheels and feet on linoleum. I was terrified, and drifted off shortly afterwards into the anasthesia mask, with that one last image burned into my brain.
I woke, vaguely aware that I was alive, that the pain was gone, and with a heart flooded with gratitude at the surgeon who had discovered and repaired my torn cervix. My physical recovery felt so slow, with fever, blood transfusions, and a baby who never knew the peace of a non-emergent birth. I went home a few days later, completely unaware that a seed planted in that hospital bed as I lay bleeding would germinate just a couple of years later and blossom into life-change, awareness, and a determination never to birth in a hospital again.
Four home births later, I can be grateful for that experience. I can be grateful at my own fear, at my cowardice during parts of that ordeal, at my total lack of commitment to my body and even to the precious life that came into the world amidst such tumult. I think the reparative work is still being done, but today, we celebrate. We celebrate Ben's 11th birthday, we celebrate how he's beginning to reach upward into manhood, we celebrate how far he has come in his life.
But in a secret corner of my heart, I celebrate something different. I celebrate my own birth on that day, when a woman emerged from the heart of a girl, having touched reality for the very first time, bearing that scar forever but also gaining a world of strength because of it.
--Teri.
