D&C

Labor and Delivery

November 11, 2012 Sunday

According to the OB, the best way to get the baby out was to let it pass naturally before a D&C. So Saturday evening, at around 7 o’clock, I was given the first inducer. I went into contractions on long intervals that night. Losing a child was painful and overwhelming. I could not sleep.

I had my husband bring me to the hospital the next day at 5am. I was discharging water and blood. When the ER doctor asked me what happened, I could barely explain myself as I was crying through my words. They sat me down and read my doctor’s request instead.

The first day, Sunday was spent in the Labor Room with continuous medication to make the baby pass. Porthos hung in there quite well. There were minimum contractions and I felt fine. I was monitored every two hours for my vital signs. I could feel everybody’s prayers and so there was no fear in my heart.

November 12, 2012, Monday

Monday came and Tuesday came, and still I could o’t go into active labor. Porthos had not come out. It was a difficult situation. Porthos was 14 weeks and was too big. His position was transverse. There was risk of infection and poisoning from within. The doctor says he’d have to fold in order to come out.  And our heart’s desire was for Porthos to come out whole and complete and to not to risk any damage to my uterus. I was monitored faithfully by the nurses at the hospital.

I have never had to be so brave. I was braver than the time I had delivered Ozzy. I’ve had IV’s stuck on me. First on my left, then on my right, two skin tests, two cbc’s. I am normally very pleasant and sensitive to the responsibilities of the people around me, but I remember telling the nurse, rather resistive “nasosobrahan na yata ako ng turok”. She could only say she was sorry.

Mothers came in and out of the labor room to deliver their babies. I was there for three days, waiting to pass out mine. I prayed for each one and blessed their babies too. But when I would hear a baby come out crying from the nearby delivery room, I would cry by myself. I’m not sure exactly what my cries were about: loss, sadness, regret, envy, impatience, and so on…

November 13,2012 Tuesday

By Tuesday, my doctor was convinced she had to put a deadline. If the baby doesn’t come out, she’d have to perform a “piece meal”. That meant: to take out the baby piece by piece. It was scheduled for Wednesday morning, 8am. Tuesday night, around 9pm, I uttered “good bye baby” and touched my stomach lovingly. It was the most painful thing I’ve had to say. Porthos came out Tuesday night at 10:45pm after a rather painful bout of contractions. I finally went into active labor.  Porthos was placed in a bottle. I remember he was very cute even if he was just a 14 week fetus. Children are always beautiful to their mother’s eyes, and it was very true.

I remember my nurse’s name that night was Joy. And she sounded like a pre-school teacher as she talked to me. She could be a good one, I thought to myself. She was talking me through what had to be done and what was going to happen. When my anesthesiologist gave me the anesthesia and put me to sleep, it was the first time in three nights that I had slept well. In recovery, the nurse had asked me to move my feet. “I can’t”; even if I used all my will power to. She smiled at me, “nagagalaw niyo po.” I looked down at my feet and they waved at me, left and right, like another person saying hello. It felt bizarre.

November 14/ 15, 2012, Wednesday and Thursday

The day after the D&C, Wednesday, I had the worst pain in my gut. So this is what a mother meant when she wrote “like I had been run over by a bus” in her blog after a D&C procedure. It felt exactly as she said. It was worse than delivering a living baby. My sister Aika took a leave to be at my side that day. I was lucky to have her there. In the afternoon, my friends from work came to visit. It was good to see them and have their energy around me again.

Porthos was put in a bottle and was given to me. Nobody wanted a look. As I carried him in his bottle on the way home, I was carrying my baby and although it was a shell, I was still carrying my baby, born still.

It was the first time that I had missed Ozzy. We hadn’t seen each other for four days. I couldn’t wait to come home to him and find out how his days went. We were discharged at around noon time.

I lay on the bed as soon as we got home. The hospital beds where too firm on my back. I could hear the school bus stop in front of the gate. Ozzy, with a great big smile on his face, enters the house and jumps on the bed. His hair was standing up wildly for he has missed his Sunday haircut, his button nose full of scratches from his uncut nails, and had a huge black and blue bruise on his forehead. He looked as if he had gone to battle himself. He showered me with kisses like a puppy smothering his master. “Mommy I (l)wove you. I (l)wove you. I (l)wove you”.

I told him that Porthos is gone. He looked at me with understanding. “I can (l)wie down on your stomach now,” he said and did just that.