(The birth story series starts here.)

You remember meconium? That black, sticky tar that would.not.come.off? That’s how these emotions feel in my heart.

I’m actually apprehensive to write this. I can’t figure out how to do it. I want to get it out, I’d like to be thorough, I’d like to not have you eyeroll and leave halfway through. I can’t figure out how is best. So I’m just going to go for it. It will be graceless, it will not be tactful. And at one choice point in time, I will use the C word. Yes. THAT C word.

My midwife team had been very laid back my entire pregnancy. We walked into our appointment when I was at 40 weeks 3 days and the following things happened:

OMG I was overdue!

My exam was so rough that I thought she was cutting into me. I arched back and away from her on the table.

I still feel physically violated by her complete lack of care. I really do.

She followed up the physical digs with statements like, “you aren’t dilating” and “I’m not thrilled with where the baby’s head is, it’s not down far enough.”

I wish I would have had the strength to tell her to go “examine” herself.

Real time post here.

OMG! I was STILL OVERDUE! Clearly we should all hold hands and panic!

We walked into our appointment at 41 weeks and the mEdwife’s (Medwife = midwife gone medical on you.) first statement was, “Did Medwife 1 talk to you about induction?”

Um, wtf? Hi, how are you doing today?

She proceeded to tell me I would come in on Tuesday to have my membranes stripped. (TOLD ME). That my induction was scheduled for 600pm the following Thursday, and they would start pitocin the following morning.

She continued to repeat these things during the exam. I continued to say, “Yes, that’s a nice plan B if I’m not already in labor by then.” Her response might as well have been, “Yeah whatever, your body clearly is defective since it didn’t go into labor on your made up from thin air due date.”

Fucking bitch. (Oh, just wait for it, the C word is yet to come. I won’t let you down.)

I spent the weekend trying to screw my head on. Trying to talk to Alex. I had a horrible weekend.

I spent Monday (41/3) in bed. I prayed. I talked to Alex. I told him we could do this on our own, but that it was up to him. That we could do this our way our their way – and their way would commence at 820 Tuesday morning. I told him I was scared. I told him I needed him.

And he told me to not worry.

He was right.

He got labor started on Tuesday morning at 41/4.

(This part I will tell tomorrow.)

At the hospital, they didn’t even give us a water birth room – I was overdue and all.

And lucky us! We got the mEdwife from Friday! Oh goody. She entered the room and decided to break my water – because I was overdue and all. I didn’t want her to. I didn’t have a choice. Which since one intervention tends to lead to another – this was NOT kicking off well.

If I had 1 minute with her now, I would tell her the following:

Fuck you, mEdwife 2. Fuck you for bringing all of your fears into MY labor. Fuck you for not trusting me. Fuck you for not separating your own agenda of covering your ass, worrying about insurance, worrying about malpractice. Fuck you for not being able to settle your own issues and for pushing them off onto me. You almost singlehandedly destroyed my confidence to do this. You didn’t trust me. I was a number to you. You let me down. You didn’t give me care. You didn’t treat me like a person. You didn’t look out for me, you looked out for you. You suck. (Oh wait, I’m still working toward the C word.)

She wouldn’t let me out of bed because she didn’t like Alex’s heartbeat. Mind you she wasn’t paying any real attention when she was out of the room, because when it dropped *I* had to page *HER* to come see me. When his heartbeat was better, she let me get on the birthing ball once, but then decided that clearly sticking me in bed to labor on my side was better. Then she decided that the internal electrode was the way to go.

Then when I told her no, I didn’t want an IV she said, with a threat in her voice,

“Well, I’d hate to have to call Dr. McScalpel to do a C-Section.”

You motherfucking CUNT!

(I feel a little better now.)

So they did the IV. They messed up the IV and I sprayed blood all over the floor. My eyes were closed, I knew there was a problem, I chose to not open my eyes (I don’t do needles). Scout was behind me praying I didn’t look.

I had an oxygen mask.

Oh, and I had asked about drugs. My choices were: epidural (which I’ve explained why I didn’t want), Nubane (which would only relax me between contractions – which I didn’t need), getting in the tub – which she ended up not letting me do because of the heartrate, and the birthing ball – which I couldn’t do – for the same reason.

So, she effectively took away any form of pain management available, short of the needle in my back. We really believe that the reason she wanted the IV so bad was because she’d already decided I was a C-sec case.

And when is the one time that you’d really like some drugs? That’d be lidocane at the “point of entry”, if you will. She didn’t have it ready. They couldn’t find it. Yeah. Thanks for nothing, biatch.

As point of joke – All of this mothershagging hell was due to me being “overdue”. My biophysical profile indicated I was between 38 and 40 weeks – so according to that, the most I could have been was 40/5 when Alex was born. The nurses also think that according to his size that there is no way he was almost 2 weeks overdue. All of the stressing the mEdwives did in regards to the due date apparently was pointless because my due date calculation was apparently more correct than theirs. (Mine was 5 days later than theirs). Again, we women do know ourselves, our bodies… and what were doing what day in July 06.

I started thinking about writing my birth story as soon as I read the first paragraph of this post. She put it so perfectly for me. She gave words to the experience that I had not been able to find.

This post is all about the “disappointing and enraging”. I have needed to get this out. I feel better now. I am sitting on the floor of Alex’s room, I am holding his warm baby self to my chest, his feet are planted firmly on the ground. His cheek against mine. His heart against mine. I am healing as I write this. This was the story of how other people tried to change our story. Tomorrow I can tell the real story. Tomorrow, I can tell the story of his birth. Tomorrow I can tell you how Scout and Alex and I all met.

(Ten Steps for Creating Breast Health)