"Ok, Ms. Holst! You've been pushing for an hour and Kai is still yet to make his debut", explained Dr. Wright. "I know we discussed the fact that he is face up, making it a little more difficult for him to come out. What we are going to have to do is go ahead and prep you for a cesarean section." The sudden news caused my eyes to protrude out of my head. No words escaped my lips, but my mind was racing a mile a minute. I thought, "Why? No! I have been due for a natural birth for the past 4 months, and now I have to get a C-section?" I was beyond terrified! What if something goes wrong, I can die on the table!" Only then did I realize what I had gotten myself into. It is surprising how you can carry a baby for nine months, and through out …show more content…
those months feel your baby growing, and the thought of labor doesn't hit you until it actually happens. I was rushed to the hospital with my contractions being 5 minutes apart. I had no idea that I was even in labor, in fact, my best friend and I took a trip to 'Torchy's Tacos' the hour before. I just thought it was the usual Braxton Hick's contractions women feel during pregnancy. I was in complete shock and the only thing I could say was, "This is it...I'm going to push out a baby.." My best friend took the liberty of calling my fiancée and our family for me. She was so excited that this was happening while I'm thinking that life is finally smacking me in the face. We checked into the hospital, and we were greeted by my doctor. Unable to cope with reality I asked Dr. Wright, "How can I be in labor if my water did not break?" "It is very common for women to be in labor and not even know it, because they are expecting for their water to break. Patients have regular contractions before their water breaks, and in some cases we break it for them." I felt like I was in a tight room and the walls were slowly pushing in on me. Everybody was so cheerful and thrilled, while I screamed inside to just get through this. I was taken to my room and I was instructed to change into a hospital gown. As soon as I finished changing, 3 nurses came in to insert an iv catheter into my arm, attach me to an electric fetal monitor and placed a pulse oximeter on my finger. One of the nurses had curly black hair with a wide smile, and pretty hello kitty patterns on her scrubs. She said," Hi I'm Kelly, and I'm going to assist you with anything you need, ok? This here, is going to be your hamburger and fries for today." She pulled the iv bag hanging from the intravenous infusion pole towards the bed, and secured the iv to my arm with tape. My fiancée, Randy, rushed in bringing a sign of relief with him. "It's go time!", he screamed with excitement as he took his place by my side. I smiled and looked at the clock, it read 8:28 pm. I knew it was going to be a long night, the question is could I handle it? I glanced at the clock again across from the hospital bed, and it read 11:15pm. By this time, the crowd of medical professionals in our room subsided, and I was able to take a little nap after getting the epidural. By the way, I just want to take the time out to say that the epidural is AMAZING! After my contractions began to be 1 minute apart I couldn't take the pain anymore. Yea, the needle is huge and the process of the anesthesiologist inserting it into your spine is nerve racking. But oh how it feels afterwards....! I glanced over at my fiancée, who was sleeping like a baby in the chair next to me, with an NBA game playing on the television. Directing my attention to the electric fetal monitor, I could see and hear Kai's heart rate. I smiled knowing that at any moment I was going to finally see his face, after wondering who he would resemble for so long. My new friend named, Epi last name Dural, was everything I expected and more. I touched my legs, and noticed that I could not feel my leg being touched at all. I scratched my leg, nothing. I poked my leg, still nothing. I grabbed my thigh and squeezed really hard. I could feel the pressure from the squeeze, but I felt no ounce of pain. I closed my eyes drifting off to sleep once again, and now thinking that this was going to be a breeze. I woke up to bright lights and Dr. Wright explaining how Kai's heart rate has continued to stabilize, and she was going to go ahead and break my water. She told Randy and I that once she breaks my water I will need to start pushing, and Randy can assist me with this process. Randy assured me that he was ready, and he would be with me every step of the way. I thought, "Okay, here we go. She's going to break my water now. Damn I should have took that Lamaze class. I hope I push correctly!" Kelly used what looked like a knitting needle to break my water, and the other 2 nurses positioned me to start pushing. Dr. Wright informed us that Kai was positioned face up, towards my pelvis, which means that I have to push twice as hard to deliver him. While being instructed, I began to push with all my might. Because of how numb I was from the epidural, I had no clue if I was doing anything at all. I asked Randy if he could see anything, and he said I was doing great and Kai seems to have a head full of hair. I thought," Yay, they can see his head! This is happening quickly!'. 45 minutes into pushing, I realized I jinxed myself. Kai was in the same position he was in when we started. But I did not give up, I keep trying. I pushed so hard I felt like my brain was going to explode. I began to feel really discouraged, along with not knowing what the next step should be. After an hour of pushing, Dr. Wright told me I would have to have a cesarean section as soon as possible, to make sure there are no complications due to slow labor. Terrified, I took a glance at the clock. It was 3:02 in the morning. Randy's phone call to some of the family to notify them of the current situation, broke my trance. He seemed distressed, and in that moment thoughts of me dying before I got to see my son plagued my mind. The nurses adjusted the bed, and proceeded to roll me out of the room to the operating theatre. The trip there felt so time-consuming and frightening, that I seemed to have an outer body experience. Arriving to the room, I was immediately lifted of the bed and onto the operating table.
Dr. Wright asked me if I was okay, and not wanting to say that I wasn't, I answered yes. My body started to shake, and I felt like I was in an icebox. I have never been so scared in my whole life, and fear covered me like a thick heavy blanket. The nurses strapped both of my arms down so that I wouldn't move, and an oxygen mask was placed over my nose and mouth. A green sheet was raised high, and positioned in front of me to conceal me from surgery. The anesthesiologist issued me more anesthesia, and I felt a cold rush as is dispersed throughout my body. I don't know if it was my nerves or the way the mask that was placed on my face, but I could hardly breathe correctly. I felt like my fear of dying was coming true, but I wasn't going to go without a fight. I could not get the energy to mutter any words to let the nurses know that I could not breathe, so I started to wiggle my nose and mouth to position the oxygen mask away from my face. Since all of the healthcare professionals were positioned on the other side of the green sheet, they didn't notice what I was doing. Breathing deeply, I relaxed as I could finally breathe normally with the oxygen mask on the side of my face. I was alone in that room, and I had no idea what they were doing to me. I prayed what seemed like 15 prayers for it to be over, and be able to see Kai already. Suddenly, I heard a faint whimper and a rush of footsteps. I looked around trying to get a glimpse of what was happening. A minute later I see this beautiful, flushed faced little baby being placed in my view by his father and every negative emotion left my body. The noise in the room fell silent, and it was just him and I. I was in love, and I could not stop smiling. I lifted my arms to hold him, forgetting that I was still strapped down. I continued to stare into his angelic face with joy, and I vowed that no harm will ever come to my son. Randy
told that the nurses were taking kai to the nursery to clean him up, and they still had work to do on me as well. I was so anxious to see my son again, that 20 minutes of still being in the operating room seemed like a lifetime. Following the closure of my incision, I was taken to my room and as I entered I gave a sigh of bliss. My fiancée was in our room holding our son. As the nurses positioned my bed towards the wall, I cried tears of joy and reassurance. Today. I conquered death and gained a new life. My life as a mother had just begun, and I was intensely filled to capacity with love. Kai gave my life so much meaning, and I was euphoric, and there was nothing that could stand in my way. I was given a gift from god, and I was so blessed. Randy placed him in my arms, and he immediately tilted his body towards me placing his hand on my heart. It was love at first sight, and I couldn't believe that he was all mine. Meeting my son for the first time made every outrageous feeling disappear. No words can describe how holding him made me feel, and to this day he continues to take my breath away. I love you son.
She checks me, and tracks my surges. My surges are not as frequent as earlier so she recommends for me to sit on the birthing ball. I sit up right on the birthing ball, and lean back on Poet for support and those surges are coming now. I tense up, and my midwife's assistant beautifully guides me through each surge, encouraging me to relax instead of tense up with each contraction. After a while of being on the birthing ball, I am guided to the bathroom, and I sit on the toilet for a few of the surges and finally I am ready to get in the tub and begin pushing. I felt like I was never going to meet our baby. I felt like our baby was
In doing this project the literature drawn from is largely non-scholarly for the reason that I am prevailing upon the reader to think outside the box about birth. Most of the “scholarly” research that is available was written by doctors or nurses/nurse midwives who were trained in the medical model of birth. Since part of my premise is that the high rate of Cesarean sections is caused in part by viewing birth as a medical and therefore pathological event, and in part for its emergence as a capitalistic industry, it was then necessary to find literature written by people who have expertise in birthing though not from the traditional obstetrical/medical school approach.
“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books...” ― Richard Wright, Black Boy this is a quote from the famous Richard Wright an African American author. This quote means that no matter what was placed in his way or what he lacked that others had he hung on to what he had and did what he could. And the more he read about the world, the more he longed to see it and make a permanent break from the Jim Crow South. "I want my life to count for something," he told a friend. Richard Wright wanted to make a difference in the world and a difference he did make. Richard Wright was an important figure in American History because he stood astride the midsection of his time period as a battering ram, paving the way for many black writers who followed him, these writers were Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, John Williams. In some ways he helped change the American society.
Upon viewing “More Business of Being Born” (Epstein, 2011), I learned a lot about the different pros and cons of Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC). Women are often deprived of the choice of the method of delivery of their children after they’ve previously had a cesarean birth. The cause of this is that there exists medical fright about a rupture of the uterus which often leads to death of mother and baby (Epstein, 2011). In the mid twentieth century, it became a common saying that “once a cesarean, always a cesarean” came about. This saying perpetrated the fear and understanding that women have to go about having another cesarean, depriving them of choice (Epstein, 2011).
Poet, journalist, essayist, and novelist Richard Wright developed from an uneducated Southerner to one of the most cosmopolitan, politically active writers in American literature. In many of Richard Wright's works, he exemplifies his own life and proves to “white” America that African American literature should be taken seriously. Before Wright, “white” America failed to acknowledge the role African American writing played in shaping American culture. It was shocking in itself that an African American could write at all. Thus, Richard Wright is well known as the father of African American literature mainly because of his ability to challenge the literary stereotypes given to African Americans.
I knew it would happen. As much as I tried to stay optimistic, to put off my feelings of suspicion to an old man's negativity, I knew that this case would cost me something more than just my reputation in the town and that didn't even really matter. In Maycomb, reputation is a day by day concept. Sure, we have more than enough of our fair share of immovable gossipers, and drama kings and queens looking for a story to spread. But in everyone's own mind, if you did something stupid, immoral, or just mildly humorous or entertaining, it was the talk of the town and you were judged terribly for a few days, a few weeks tops. Then the whispers, and glances faded to conversations over coffee, and deep inside jokes. My reputation didn't bother me one bit.
I had just finished facing my fears watching the metallic needle slip so seamlessly under my skin into the veins of my nervous, clammy hand. Hugging my Mom like it could have been the last time I saw her, seeing my dad's face stern and worried. I wheeled down the hall into this operating room, white was all I saw, a bed in the middle for the surgery to go down. As I lay on the bed waiting to be put under I remember seeing the blue masks of the people to be operating on me, I had to put all my trust in them, trusting someone you seen for less than 5 seconds with your life. Absolutely terrifying. The nurse slipping the fluid into my IV as I lay on my back looking up at the white ceiling, this cold sensations rushed over me. Then suddenly, I was out.
As Father Gabriel walked into the church that Sunday morning he dropped the bibles from his hands, getting ready for the sunday morning service in horror. As he looked to the altar, he saw one of the most horrifying sights he had witnessed, the was a body placed to represent one of the ten commandments, Thou shalt not steal, it showed a boy he had seen in the church giving a confession a few weeks before. Father Gabriel immediately called an old friend he knew could help with solving something as horrific like this, a man named Tom Pearce, he was known for helping catch people who committed crimes like these. He was one of the detectives who helped to catch the Detroit Scrapyard Killings, but after the case was solved Tom seemed to fall off the center of the Earth and went quiet for sometime until a few years ago when he decided to rejoin the crime scene and opened up his own private detective office and would only take a few cases that had caught his eye. Father Gabriel hoped that because they somewhat
The version of childbirth that we’re used to is propagated by television and movies. A woman, huge with child, is rushed to the hospital when her water breaks. She is ushered into a delivery room and her husband hovers helplessly as nurses hook her up to IVs and monitors. The woman writhes in pain and demands relief from the painful contractions. Narcotic drugs are administered through her IV to dull the pain, or an epidural is inserted into the woman’s spine so that she cannot feel anything below her waist. When the baby is ready to be born, the doctor arrives dressed in surgical garb. The husband, nurses and doctor become a cheerleading squad, urging the woman to, “Push!” Moments later, a pink, screaming newborn is lifted up for the world to see. Variations on this theme include the cesarean section, where the woman is wheeled to the operating room where her doctors remove the baby through an incision in her abdomen.
Many women today are doing more C-sections, also known as cesarean, than they are natural. Whether the reasons being because it’s more convenient or that some moms did not really have a choice, the percentage is still growing. “The cesarean delivery rate increased from 26% to 36.5% between 2003 and 2009; 50.0% of the increase was attributable to an increase in primary cesarean delivery (National Partnership for Women & Families, 201.)” There are many things to consider when deciding which is the right or safer choice. With both choices comes risks for the baby like, possible respiratory problems with a C-section. The mom has many risks to worry about for herself as well, like possibly hemorrhaging. There is also the recovery and the long-term effects that a woman has to put into consideration. They both have their pros and cons that should not be taken lightly.
Today was my second day on labor and delivery. When Grace and I first arrived, we were sent to change. After Grace and I changed into our scrubs, we went to the front desk to receive our tasks. A registered nurse (RN) asked us if we would like to see a vaginal birth or a caesarean section (c-section). I choose to watch a c-section, and Grace decided to observe a vaginal birth. Once we decided on who would do what, we went our separate ways.
So, I told my doctor I wanted to be induced. After all, my due date was only two weeks away and only five percent of women give birth on the day determined by their doctors. When I was finally there, I looked at the outside, the hospital was set in a suburban – like area, and when I went inside the building, I was in a welcoming ultramodern facility. I went straight to the labor and delivery section where they said my doctor had gone out of town; nobody believed that I was supposed to be induced that day. It took them like 15 minutes to confirm what I had told them, to finally decide to take me to a room to connect all kinds of tubes to my body. I went into the room; it looked very comfortable, but it was freezing. I lay on the typical hospital bed, one of those that make sleeping and resting easier.
The moment we stepped foot into the hospital, I could hear my aunt telling my mother that “he is in a better place now”. At that moment, something had already told me that my dad was deceased; it was like I could feel it or something. I felt the chills that all of a sudden came on my arms. As my mother and grandmother were both holding my hand, they took me into this small room. The walls were white, and it had a table with four tissue boxes sitting on the top. My other grandmother was there, and so were my two aunts, my uncles, and
The miracle of life is something most of us will experience in our lifetime. The process before actually giving birth, I think is the hardest part of the entire scenario of child bearing. This amazing experience is something that can make the individuals who are involved in the process change in so many ways. The process of giving birth, for those of you who have not experienced or will never experience it, can be very hard, long and rewarding all at the same time. To give a better description, think of eating a fireball. At first the fireball is tame and calm, but just when you least expect it the fireball becomes hot. Then, when the hot sensation becomes too much, the sweet flavor of the fireball breaks through.
...tered and saw what was before me; my stomach got a really bad feeling and I began to breakdown and cry. My daddy was laying on a big white bed with cords connected to him. His arm was wrapped up and he had doctors surrounding him. He was crying which made me even more upset.