Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 3, 1994 TAG: 9402020090
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A couple dozen women responded to my recent call for funny childbirth stories - wherein I asked readers to share such perennial favorites as leaving the suitcases at home, watching the husband pass out during delivery, and then watching the husband wake up, only to shout: "Wait a minute, that baby looks like Pete, our VW mechanic!"
(Just kidding about Pete.)
Quite naturally, I was drawn to the food-related tales. Especially the story of Kimberly Fuller, who had her baby a few days before the opening day of fishing season in 1986.
"My husband had me out at midnight looking for fish worms, which, according to the `expert fisherman,' was the best time to get them. We had been out for about one hour when I started getting really hungry, so we went to the Texas Tavern to eat chili. When we got home, I was still starving so I fixed a frozen dinner - `salisbury steak.' "
Of course a few hours later Fuller went into what she calls "extreme labor," which meant the parademics came, her water broke in their faces, the baby's head was crowning and she had diarrhea - all at the same time.
"We finally got to the hospital at 6:45 and the baby was born at 7:05," she wrote. "My husband said after all was over with, `Can we still go fishing on Saturday morning?' "
Stephania Munson of Floyd wrote about what it was like at the nine-months-plus stage to be stricken with "the sense that I would be the only woman IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE to be pregnant forever. This strange feeling of quiet resignation (fatalism? nihilism?) was followed by a `Who cares?' eating binge," consisting of three dozen sugar cookies, two rye bread/cheddar cheese/mayo/onion/sweet-pickle sandwiches, a pint of orange sherbert and half of a half-gallon of Heavenly Hash ice cream.
"Then VOILA!" she wrote "Labor [with both children] began less than five hours later. What they don't tell you, though, is that one of the first questions one is asked at the hospital is, `When was your last meal, and what and how much did you consume?' Next to the Old Enema, that's probably fairly high on the list of humiliations."
Toni Fowler of Galax had her own food-horror story: "We were being prepped very near shift-change time . . . but all the involved staff were delaying the beginning of my delivery until they could get their order in to the person who was making a breakfast run to Hardee's. And they wouldn't take my order."
And speaking of nursing gaffes, Willow Rosenblatt of Roanoke has no love lost for the maternity nurse who broke the epidural needle off in her back, then grew impatient with her - while her baby's head was cresting - because her shift was soon to end. "Here I was crying, and she said, `Grow up so I can get off in time!' "
Lisa Poole of Roanoke is still laughing about the nurse who woke her up between contractions - to tell her to relax.
And Gelene Thompson, who is a nurse herself, described what it was like wearing a drawstring scrub suit in the operating room during her third trimester. "I went out to the unrestricted area to get a patient, and all of a sudden felt something around my feet - and my pants were right there on the floor in front of the patient and his wife."
Thompson also recounted another third-trimester embarrassment: "Once when I got locked out of the house, I decided to crawl in through the window. The only one I could get to was in the bathroom, but when I got halfway in, my tummy got stuck in the window for a while. I can just imagine what people thought driving by and seeing a pregnant woman sticking out the window."
Kathy Whitley of Collinsville shared a good nesting/labor story that happened to coincide with the switch to daylight-saving time. She cleaned house, rented a long video and stayed up late watching it - believing she'd have an extra hour of sleep.
"Well, my water broke around 1 a.m. while we were asleep on the water bed. My husband thought it had sprung a leak instead of me! After we arrived at the hospital, everyone wanted to know how long it had been since my membranes had ruptured. It was very confusing because I would say, `Before or after the time change?' "
Marybeth Chaconas of Hardy recounted the C-section birth of her son, in which her husband's only job was to videotape it:
"He had a dilemma - he wanted to watch it live, not through a viewfinder. He solved this by placing the camera next to his head and narrating, `Here is Derek'; `Here are the nurses cleaning him up,' etc.
"On film you see the table, the floor, the wall and - best of all - a long shot of the nurse's chest. At least you can hear the baby."
And finally, Mary G. Haviland of Abingdon and Audrey Mosley of Roanoke win the HIGH DRAMA awards for child-birthing. When Haviland arrived at her Abingdon hospital to deliver, she was told the baby was too small and would need to be transferred - in a hurry, via helicopter - to the University of Virginia Hospital.
"Cruising above I-81 at 3,000 miles both high and mph, I calmly announced over Salem to the only other two people with me - the pilot and the medical assistant - that my water had just broken. At this point the medical assistant confided, `This is my first week on the job. What should we do?'
"Roanoke Memorial Hospital was a speck in the horizon. `Batten the hatches! Land on the roof!' I yelled amidst the roar of the propellers. I succeeded in preventing 2.999-pound Hannah from ejecting from my uterus until we were all happily inside the hospital and had a triumphant delivery."
Audrey Mosley sent me a wonderful five-page letter that brought tears to my eyes - though at this stage, what doesn't? Her story is too good to summarize, but for space reasons I'll try my best:
After her first delivery, which took 18 hours of labor, she and her husband decided to stay home longer before going to the hospital with the second birth. Two hours after she went into labor, she told her husband, "I can't stay here another five hours . . . Why don't you pack now?"
He fumbled in the closet packing their bag while her contractions grew more fierce. It was 1 a.m. "He is moving soooo slowly," she recalled of her husband. "He is not fully awake. He wants to coach me. I want him to pack."
As soon as her water broke - still at home - she immediately felt the urge to push. She was in so much pain, she couldn't imagine even riding in the car. "I think I'm pushing. I can't move," she told him. "CALL SOMEBODY!"
She imagined the parademic's assessment: "This is early labor. No emergency. You are constipated." After her husband went back and forth with the dispatcher for 10 minutes - while meanwhile Mosley screamed in the background, still at home - the paramedics left for the Mosleys' house . . . only they couldn't find it.
When the paramedics finally burst through the doorway, Mosley squinted and said, "I don't know if we should've called you. I don't know what's going on. I may just s--- all over you."
" `It's OK. I'm Chuck . . . Roll onto your back.' . . . another contraction . . . another SCREAM . . . What was that?
" `You did it honey! The head is out! The hard part is over.' My husband sounds nervous, but happy.
"Holy cow the head is out?! More contractions, more screams. The baby is stuck. We're all going to DIE.
"Then another contraction and the push that would birth a combine harvester. I feel the baby wriggle free.
" `It's a boy.' A boy?
" `Congratulations.' A baby?
" `He's doing great.' A baby? I had the baby? It's over? I'm alive?
"He is in my arms. He is beautiful. It's 1:49. Later we learn he weighs 9 1/2 pounds. God is awesome. We are blessed."
by CNB