Dreams

I had a very, very, vivid dream last night. It involved an ex-boyfriend of mine, one who I dated for several periods of time, interspersed with long periods of not seeing or talking to each other. We first met in high school, had our second go around in college, and had our third and fourth (and final) encounters in our 20s.

While overall the relationship was good, it ended very badly. Really, it was awful. There was your typical drama: a screaming phone call (which, ironically, was him screaming and not me--surprised, aren't you?), harsh words, things spoken that can not ever be taken back. It was one of the true confrontations I've had in my life (I avoid confrontation--at all costs--some day I'll tell you how I broke up with another long-term boyfriend, or rather, never seemed to break up with him...).

Anyway, about a month after this big blow out, I met the man who would become my husband, and life moved on. I've thought about the ex every now and then, and about the good things, but always remembering that truly ugly phone call. He even emailed me about a year after it happened, very close to my wedding date, and apologized for how things went, and said he hoped that life was treating me well, etc. I never replied.

So, it was a little unnerving to have this dream about him. We were both running, in opposite directions, down my old street, and when he saw me, he stopped and pointed, and somehow we ended up talking somewhere, for a very long time, about our relationship. It was so vivid, that when I woke up, it took awhile for me to realize that this had not actually happened.

I spent the next day in a state of I don't know what, but agitated/confused/conflicted were all part of it. I searched for him on-line (ok, seriously, what did I do before facebook and linkedin and google?), and found out quite a bit of information, and started to wonder if maybe I shouldn't email him and apologize for my own role in our harsh end. I feel bad about never responding to his email.

However, I don't think I will do this. One of the "rules of thumb" I use to gauge whether a behavior or action is acceptable is how I would feel if my spouse/friend/whomever would do it to me. And I feel uncomfortable enough with contacting an ex-boyfriend, and with the thought of my husband contacting an ex-girlfriend, to not send off an email.

But I'm curious what others think. Is it okay to be in touch with former significant others? Are there levels of contact that make some of it okay, some of it not? For me, part of what makes me feel so uncomfortable is that there was so much good in our relationship. This was a person that I did think about marrying, at some point, even though some important things of our relationship were not right. Can a person truly be friends with someone with whom they once shared a close, intimate relationship?

Part Two

My apologies for the format of Part One: for whatever reason I can't fix the spacing of the post, and even though I'm frustrated with it, not enough to figure out how to fix it. Oh well, here's Part Two!

So, after having my WTF revelation, which granted, when you are mere hours away from pushing out your child, seems a little late to be panicking, things went from pretty good (I mean, really, I'd had no contractions, so I was still kind of in denial about what was about to happen) to really bad. And fast.
So, when they gave me my pill of Cytotec, the nurse said, and I quote: "This is only your first dose. You will get a second dose in 6 hours, and 6 hours after that you will start pitocin. You will almost certainly need pitocin, because this pill has never helped anyone go into labor. I'm not even sure why they are giving it to you." Great. So, in my mind, it would be at least noon before I would even begin the actual work of labor, and maybe I could catch some sleep before then? My husband certainly thought this would be the case, and he promptly fell asleep on the little pull out couch next to my hospital bed. Because of the cytotec, I had to be hooked up to a heartrate monitor, so I was restricted to certain positions on the bed, which combined with my anxiety and racing mind, resulted in no sleep for me. Which allowed me to be perfectly certain of the exact time when I experienced the worst fucking pain of my life. At exactly 1:20 a.m., my entire body was wracked with pain, so strong that it caused me to scream and curl up on my side, making the heart monitor go crazy because it lost contact with whatever it was monitoring. Up jumps my husband, in rushes nurse, and casually sauntering in is Leslie, my midwife.
Nurse looks at me as if to say, "Um, I just gave you that f'ing pill 90 minutes ago, nothing should be happening now."
Husband looks at me as if to say, "Was it really necessary to wake me up with that banshee-like scream?"
Midwife looks at me as if to say, "I thought you were prepared for a natural childbirth?"
The next few hours are a complete blur, what I do remember are mere snatches. I remember Leslie rubbing my back and shoulders, telling me to simply breathe through the pain. I remember going into the bathroom, sitting on the floor and putting my head against the metal railing because I was so hot and it was so cold, and thinking to myself, this is undescribable and unbearable and I want to die right now. Part of what made it all so hard was that the contractions came one right after the other with about 30 seconds inbetween. Really. Apparently, cytotec has this effect on women. Making it a poor choice for inducing women who will probaby go into labor on their own if left alone. I do think I would have fallen into that category if given time, but I wasn't and I feel my midwife gave in to the doctor on call in pushing for an intervention...but that's a story for a different post.
Anyway, the contractions were coming, literally, nonstop, with no reprieve, not even enough time for me to breathe inbetween. The nurse looked kind of shocked, like she had never seen this reaction to this drug before, and I think this because she immediately became very nice and sympathetic towards me.
This continued until about 3:45 a.m. at which point the midwife decided to see how much I had dilated and the result -- a mere 3 c.m. Seriously, people, I almost lost my shit and killed my husband right then and there. Why him? Easy target and he was looking at me like, "What is up with all this drama? Didn't she think it would hurt?" As soon as Leslie said "three", I knew the gig was up. If I continued to progress at this slow rate, that would mean at least three more hours of these contractions, and I knew I just couldn't do it. I was already exhausted and pushing wasn't even on the horizon. I cried "epidural" louder than I've ever shouted I word before in my life.
Of course, because we had talked about this before, Leslie looks at me, and says, "No, no, you can do this! You don't need an epidural! You are strong!" and some other bullshit, I don't even remember what. Husband is looking at her like, "What the fuck is your problem, give her some meds or I'm going to" and the nurse, who by this point is my biggest fan and looks like she herself regrets giving me the stupid cytotec, just rubs my back and nods and says, "its okay, honey, its okay...whatever you want to do is okay." Consensus was, someone please do something to get this woman to stop screaming and start breathing. An epidural was thus ordered.
About 30 minutes later, in walks the resident who will administer this life saving drug. Those were a loooooong 30 minutes, my friends, a long 30 minutes. I mostly remember laying on my side, praying for something, anything to happen. So, here walks Ms. Suzy Sunshine to give me some relief. The best words out of her mouth? "I'm going to give you a little extra, because I think I went a little too left instead of dead center." Thank you! I'll take it! Instant, and I mean instant, relief was had. A huge sigh was heaved by all in the room, and probably the next room over too. At this point, everyone assumes I'll be getting some rest, as the room is vacated, lights are dimmed, husband is back asleep. Except...
The epidural gave me the shakes. REALLY BAD. My teeth were chattering. It was bad enough to keep me from sleeping, but of course, much better than the alternative, so nothing to do but lay in bed and let things take their course. Which is right where we'll pick up in Part Three!

Part One

So much to blog about...turning 31, how life has changed, etc. However, in anticipation of the biggest life changing event I've experienced so far, I decided to write about my son's birth. Not known for my brevity, it turns out I'm going to need several entries to get this all down. So far I've only finished Part One, which you can read below.

Saturday evening I attended my brother's wedding shower. Many of the women there commented on my big belly: "You're still so high!" they exclaimed, and insisted I had at least one week more of pregnancy. I was already a few days past my "due date" and was feeling rather ambivalent about it all; I knew my baby would arrive exactly when he wanted to.

The next day, at about noon, I felt something. I thought my water had broken, and upon further investigation, realized my mucus plug had passed. So, it begins, I thought, and told my husband. As I had no contractions, and knew from my extensive reading on the subject that the passage of the plug could happen anywhere from days to weeks ahead of time, I felt no rush or anxiety. We decided to check out a kite festival taking place, and it was there, three hours later, while walking around Edgewater Park, my water broke! "We better head home", I said to S, and I proceeded to lay in bed in anticipation of some contractions. When none started after a few hours, I called my midwife.

"Hmmm...", she started. "Well, if you haven't had any by 9:00 tonight, then come on in," she said, "and we'll figure out what to do."

Well, by 9:00, I had had only 3 contractions, none of them very strong. I thought to myself, "Wow, is this it? Maybe it will be just like those hippie mama's I read about in Ina Mae's book, where it just flows and flows..." Thankfully, I did not share this thought with my husband. I had planned on trying for a natural labor and delivery. I was terrified at the thought of having a c-section, and didn't want an epidural because I saw it as the gateway to other interventions, which I was against. I also wanted to be able to move around as much as possible during my labor, which an epidural does not allow for. As we drove to the hospital, I was feeling good, like, "I can do this! This isn't so bad! When will it really begin?" I distinctly remember everything about that drive, what we passed, how it was when we arrived at the hospital. It was all so surreal; this was really happening!

Upon arriving at UH, we were escorted to a lobby, since I obviously was not in distress or popping out a baby anytime soon, and as my midwife told me, when we arrived, "Its like a bus just came and dropped off every pregnant woman in labor at once." After about 30 minutes of waiting, we were taken into the triage area, where I was to be examined. This turned out to be the first of what would be several funny encounters with "students". UH is, after all, a teaching hospital, and I expected I'd have a student midwife. However, for my initial exam, my midwife brought in what had to be a first year, possibly even first week of first year, medical student, from some Arabic country, and instruct him to give me a pelvic exam to see how dilated I was. He couldn't even look me in the eye. I got great pleasure out of this, seeing as how I was still feeling fine.

Unfortunately, I was only 1 centimeter dilated. "Well........", said Leslie, my midwife. "Hmm. Um. Well, in general, we like for you to deliver within 24 hours of your water breaking, because of infection possibilities. So, um, I think we're going to have to give you some pitocin, to get you going." Well, after reading nothing but horror stories about pitocin, and the kind of contractions it induces, I was not very happy to hear that. Thankfully, my husband took this moment to step in. He asked, "What about that gel we learned about at our last appointment, the one that will help ripen the cervix. Can't Jessie have that instead?" Leslie considered for a moment, then decided to consult with the physician on call. He agreed with S that the gel may be used, and in fact, why not try the pill version of this gel, which is supposed to be milder, and may help get things going. "Great", I thought, "I just need a little push to get things going" (no pun intended).

I was a little concerned when Leslie brought me my pill of Cytotec (which, as it turns out, is a BAD, BAD DRUG, more on this later!). By this point, I had been moved to a private room, it was about midnight and you know how everything is different at night. I sat there, staring at the baby warming table, and all of a sudden, it hit me: I was about to have a baby. Somehow, sometime soon, I would be giving birth to my son.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

I. Am. Not. Ready.

For. This.