"Where do you feel the coldness?" The anesthesiologist looks down at me, grabs my hand, waits. "All over my belly, right side, now left, middle, upper thighs," I answer haltingly. He frowns behind his mask, I can tell because his eyes squint a little at the corners and his forehead wrinkles. He glances over the sheet draped across my chest , "Thighs is normal. But we'll test before cutting to make sure, I promise it'll be alright." He squeezes my hand again then passes it off to my husband.
I glance at Steven, smile.They're taping my stomach up now, making it easier to reach the babies after making the incision. It starts to feel like my lungs are compressed to nothing and I struggle to breathe, my chest is refusing to expand. My arms are strapped down, my legs. I feel panicked, begin shaking, "I can't breathe." Everyone glances at the monitor to check my oxygen. "You're alright, you're ok," Steven says, "Your oxygen is good."
I know this.
Pushing it away I concentrate on the anesthesiologist as he talks about his kids, his new grand babies. I focus on the man complimenting my make up. On Steven gripping my hand and try to be strong enough for him.
Then pain, sharp and strong in my lower stomach and I cry out. "I can still feel it, it's not numb." He frowns again, checks some levels, "I can't add anymore epi, your blood pressure is falling. They'll give you a local anesthetic and that'll give the epi time to work and get deeper." I nod, unable to do much else while silently losing it. Too many stories of people feeling their c sections has made me paranoid.
I feel the stick of the needle, but only barely. They wait a few seconds where my breathing is still shallow and quick before starting. I look at Steven again, holding his eyes as I try to calm myself and smile because I will finally have my babies.
I scream.
Startled, confused. I feel the scalpel as it starts cutting my flesh, a sharp pain shooting through me as I jerk my legs against their straps. "Stop, stop!" I can't breathe. Anything they give me passes to the babies. We're not doing alright. We can't pass anything. I don't want my husband to leave. I don't want to miss their birth. They stop to give it more time to numb me, only it doesn't.
I keep crying out, tears are streaking down the sides of my face as I try to hold still, as I stare at the ceiling and the lights and try to breathe myself to relaxation. "You're focusing, that's good," the anesthesiologist again,. I know he's trying to help. He wipes the years away from my face but they just keep coming. "Her bp is too low. 60/30."
That explains it.
My body is floating. I'm somehow floating above it and still inside it feeling every time the scalpel cuts through another layer. "She is in excruciating amounts of pain!" Steven yells. He knows me enough to know that my crying and actually screaming is abnormal. I want to stop, I want to be calm and relaxed and let Steven enjoy this birth.
I scream again. "It's almost over right?" I stammer through my teeth, still feeling lightheaded. They don't say anything, just wipe away the tears that keep leaking from the corners of my eyes. Steven keeps squeezing my hand while I stare at the lights and jerk against the straps every time I can't hold myself still anymore. I know they have to cut through the scar tissue but its so slow. Torturous. "We'll give you something to calm down and relax you and take it away as soon as the babies are out."
I manage to nod my head in between screams.
"Do you hear that? It's the water breaking, they're reached baby A. They're pulling him out now." I tried to focus on that intense pressure, the feeling of him leaving my body rather than the sharp pain radiating through my vagina and pubic bone. They keep saying they don't know why I am feeling pain there, just that it is probably referred pain from the incision. I jerk. Straps cut into my thighs.
Every time they pull trying to yank him loose from my body I cry out, the pain becoming more than I can silently handle. Finally he's free and I hear screaming. Tears now fall for another reason as I struggle to turn my head and catch a glimpse but I can't. I'm quickly distracted by more pain as they pull my stomach apart to reach baby B whose wedged himself into my ribs.
I gasp, breath leaving my body completely. It feels like they're laying against my stomach and ribs attempting to pull him out. Finally he's free "he was feet down!" and everyone scrambles. My IV is pumped full of morphine, something to relax me, another something to stop the pain. Steven is trying to look at them so I tell him to leave, to go be with them because something is wrong. Someone isn't breathing right.
My chest is heavy now. the morphine starting to work. I'm heavy and floating and finally starting to drift off into nothing happily.
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