My story is a long one (how could it be short when there are 8 of them?).

        My first baby was supposedly three weeks overdue. My doctor sent me in for x-ray pelvimetry, something I had no idea was both a dangerous
thing for a baby in the womb and a useless exercise. He told me from that that I probably was "too small" to deliver this baby, but that he was
willing to give me a trial labor. I was to check into the hospital Thursday morning for induction.

        The morning I arrived, I was brought up to a room where a nurse gave me an enema and a shave and got me settled on the labor table. She
also got an IV ready and put an external fetal monitor on me. As we were waiting for the nurse who was supposed to stay with me through labor,
this nurse noticed that I was having contractions, according to the monitor. I couldn't feel a thing, but I got very excited. I thought maybe this baby
would fool them all and come on its own.
     
   As it turned out, the staff was too busy that day to spare a nurse who could stay with me full time, and apparently when pitocin is
being administered, you're not supposed to ever be left alone. (What does that tell you?) So after a couple of hours on the table, they came and
told me they were sending me home. They told me if I didn't want another enema the following morning (believe me, I didn't!) not to eat or drink
anything before I came back the next morning. I went home really hoping that natural labor would kick in and I'd have this baby without their
help.

        Through the night I had some contractions that I could feel, but nothing ever got regular, so back to the hospital we went next morning.
This time they lost no time getting me hooked up to everything, including the pitocin drip. At first the contractions were very manageable, and my
husband and I were so excited. I remember the nurse chuckling and saying, "They all start out this way. Just wait a while." Well, she was right,
because before long they were very difficult to handle, plus I was vomiting and extremely miserable. I was made to lie on my left side,
which made the contractions even more painful. My husband helped me breathe through them, but often I would just lose it and thrash through
them. I felt like such a failure because we had been to Lamaze classes, and I felt that I should be able to stay in control, but I just couldn't.
My husband was sweet and supportive the whole time.

        Probably around 5:00 in the evening (this was a Friday, now, remember), my doctor stopped by. He had been in a couple of times to
check on me, but I barely remember him being much involved. I had dilated to 5 cm, but stayed there for hours. Now he had the nurse break my water.
When nothing happened, he looked at the monitor and said something to the nurses, who then told me that the baby was in distress and they needed to
do a c-section. For the first time during the long day, I was relieved of the drip and allowed to sit up in a chair. The contractions continued,
and they were still painful. I felt like with each contraction I could feel the baby's head trying to ram its way out through the chair. But I
was so exhausted I was glad I was going into surgery to have it over with. I had not eaten for about 32 hrs.

        My son was born at 6:06 p.m. weighing 6 lbs. 12 oz., with a head circumference of 13 3/4 inches. I had a general anesthetic, so I was out
of it for quite a while. I remember being groggily wheeled to my room and having my husband excitedly ask me if I'd seen him yet, and wasn't he
cute! He was so proud and excited. I was just tired and faded in and out as visitors came to see how I was doing and congratulate me. 
       
     A long time later my baby was brought to me to nurse, and we fumbled the job pretty well. Periodically a nurse would come in and wake
me up and make me cough while she pressed a pillow hard against my stitches. It was so difficult and painful. I just wanted to be left alone
to sleep. My baby and I spent a week in the hospital, and we continued to have problems nursing. They were giving him water bottles, and when I'd
try to get him to nurse, he wouldn't latch on properly, and finally they ended up having me use a nipple shield, which worked okay, but we never
got the nursing thing down well until we were home alone. We were absolutely delighted with our little son, and I recovered very well after
the week in the hospital.

        We weren't planning on getting pregnant again any time soon. We were having a wonderful time with our little boy. But almost exactly on
his first birthday, I found out I was pregnant again, in spite of using contraceptive foam. My doctor explained that I had a "tipped" uterus,
which made it difficult to get the foam in the right place. I casually asked the nurse practitioner on my first visit if there was any chance I
could deliver vaginally, and she replied, "Oh, no. The doctor never allows that." It was no big deal to me. I figured after labor, a
c-section was a cinch. So my daughter was born by scheduled c-section, weighing 8 lbs. 3/4 oz., with a head circumference of 14 1/2. This time I
had decided I wanted a local anesthetic, because I'd read they were safer for mother and baby, and I'd get to see my baby immediately after she was
born. Plus I hoped recovering would be faster. The anesthetist paid my husband and me a visit the night before to try to talk us out of it. He
tried to scare us that it was more difficult and it wasn't the way he liked to do things. We believed it was better for us, and we were
trusting God to keep us safe, so we stood our ground. Again my baby and I spent a week in the hospital and again I recovered well. The hardest part
is standing up for the first time. I felt like my stitches were all going to fall out and my stomach was going to fall open. Once that trauma was
over, things progressed well. 
 
       I suspect in the back of our minds, we figured we had our boy and our girl, and that would be that. But I also didn't want to trust foam
again, and I didn't want to go back on the pill. At that time I came across a book explaining a natural birth control method, so when my
periods returned, I started doing that. My daughter was only ten months old when I got pregnant again. During the prenatal interview, when the
nurse asked if we'd been using birth control and what kind, I answered that we had been using a natural method. "So naturally you got pregnant,"
she quipped. She was going to write down that we'd been using the rhythm method, but I explained that it wasn't exactly rhythm, it was called "The
Billings Method." That elicited the joke from my doctor, "Oh, is that when he's in Billings, you abstain?" It was very embarrassing, but I
lived through it.
        
     My doctor scheduled this c-section two weeks before my baby's due date. This reallly surprised me. I hadn't noticed before that c-sections
were scheduled well in advance of due dates. I had always harbored a secret desire that the babies would come early and thwart the c-section
process. Now I realized that they never stood a chance of that. When I went in to to have an amniocentesis done to determine if the baby was
ready to be delivered, it came back negative, and I was so disappointed to find out that I had to wait another two weeks to test again. Next time
she was ready, though, and my second daughter was born weighing 7 lbs. 1/2 oz., with a head circumference of 14". By the way, my doctor had
offered to tie my tubes "while he was at it" this time. Probably figured anyone who was dumb enough to try natural birth control was dumb enough
to keep getting pregnant. Fortunately for me, I had good counsel to not do anything permanent, so I declined.

        This surgery didn't go so well, though. Again I had a local anesthetic, but there was a "window" in the anesthetic, meaning that I
could feel a certain section of my body that had somehow managed to not get numb. As I was being sewed back up after the baby was delivered, I
could feel everything. When I tried to explain what was happening, they at first ignored me, then didn't believe me. I found myself reaching out
from under the sterile drape trying to convince them I could feel the stitches and it was agony. That got their attention. I'm not sure what
happened after that. I passed out, either because of the pain or because they gave me a good dose of general.
       
       Immediately after surgery, there was a period spent in what they call the recovery room, where the nurses observe you until you come out
of the anesthetic or apparently meet some criteria that indicates you made it through safely.  In all three cases, I experienced uncontrollable
shaking and chills. I thought maybe I was in shock, and it really scared me, but nobody ever explained it to me. My brother-in-law happened to
know a couple of the recovery room nurses the third time, and they told him they were really worried about me. But, still, no one would say what
went wrong. Later in my room, when my doctor came to see me, I asked him why it hurt so much. He snapped at me, "You knew what it would be like."
He wouldn't explain anything more. The anesthetist came in later. He was the only one who seemed at all concerned or apologetic. But he, too, was
evasive about what happened. I never did get an explanation. 

        In addition, recovery was complicated by very painful abdominal gas. It was bad enough to make me cry, especially since it was in the
same area where my stitches were. When I would ask a nurse for help, there seemed to be minimal sympathy. They put me on my stomach with a
pillow propped under my stitches. Maybe that's all they could do for me, but they acted like it was a pretty small thing to complain about.
    
     After that I didn't even entertain the idea of another baby. Not wanting to take any chances, I got back on the pill. Unbelievably, when I
went in for my checkup and to request a prescription for the pill, my doctor said, "You should have more babies. You're so healthy and you come
through so well." Can you imagine the nerve? He always acted like nothing had gone wrong.

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