Belly Laughs_ The Naked Truth About Pregnancy and Childbirth - Jenny McCarthy [33]
I rang the nurse and asked her to check me again. Sure enough, Mom was right: I was dilated eight of the needed ten centimeters, so they called my doctor to tell him to be on his way. My husband finally woke from the dead and tried to comfort me. In fact, my whole family was now around me, but that didn’t stop the terror of what was to come shortly. MORE PRESSURE was building, and I heard this beeping going off next to me. I asked the nurse what it was, and she calmly smiled and said, “Oh, that’s your epidural machine; it ran out.”
My reply: “WHAT!? YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. NO FREAKING WAY. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I CAN’T DEAL WITH FEELING ANYTHING, NOT EVEN A LITTLE ACHE. GET SOMEBODY IN HERE NOW!”
She told me I was too close to pushing and that I needed to feel a little pain in order to push. But I told her in order to get me to push, she had better get that epidural going again. My doctor now joined the party, and I begged him to give me more if I promised to push better than any woman he had ever seen. He smiled and agreed, though I’m not really sure that he did give me more!
When—shortly thereafter—I was dilated to ten centimeters, the doctor told me it was game time. The family surrounded me, with my mom holding one leg and my mother-in-law holding the other. What a sight we must have been.
I started to push and realized I had no idea if I actually was pushing, because I was so numb down there. I didn’t say anything for fear they would take the epidural away. So I just pushed really hard like I was trying to go to the bathroom . . . bathroom??? Immediately I thought, “Holy shit! Am I pooing on the table? I have no idea because I can’t feel anything down there.” Fortunately, that particular panic lasted only two seconds. At that point it was as my mother had said it would be: I could have filled the room with poo and could have cared less. (I came to find out that I did fill the room with it . . . my husband broke the news to me at a much later date.)
My doc and nurses told me I was a great pusher (there’s nothing like “pleasing the teacher” to make you want to try harder!). They also told me to save some energy and to try to rest between contractions. I think it was at about this time that I noticed my body temperature rising. I yelled at my husband to get a wet cloth.
He came back with a corner of the cloth wet. Well, I lost it and yelled at him to “soak the fucking thing in ice because I’m fucking dying.”
More pushing, and the doc said he could see the head through the canal. Though it kind of surprised me, all of my sisters decided to cruise down there and take a peek. I watched their faces to see how excited they would be. Instead, they looked like they’d just seen a grotesque horror show and covered their faces and ran away. Understandable but certainly NOT THE REACTION I HAD HOPED FOR.
Now I was exhausted through and through. I had been up all night and hadn’t even had any energy when we’d started. As the hours went by, I was passing out between contractions. My husband was throwing ice on my body and my head (so much for that blow-dry) because I was becoming delirious. At one point, I managed to open one eye and saw the look on my mom’s face and knew something was wrong. I looked down between my legs and saw that they were using a vacuum to try and get my baby out. All of my fears were coming true. I knew my vagina was not meant to get a head through it! As the doctor pulled the vacuum cord with all of his might, a nurse laid her entire body on my stomach trying to push the baby out. This was like battlefield labor and delivery!
My mom was crying, I was screaming, and my sisters looked purple. I was completely out of ammo and could no longer physically push. My doctor told