Cesarian deliveries

I'm terrified of pain. I have no qualms in admitting it - I flinch even at the thought. I'm the kind that, when I go to the dentist, starts boo-hooing, has to have someone hold my hand and starts wincing in pain as soon as the dentist puts his flashlight in my mouth. So was I going to let myself in for a normal delivery and God knows how many hours of pain? Uh, I don't think so.

My doctor, a stern martinet, kind of like a high-school principal, would tell me in her high voice, "Things are going very well. You're all set for a normal delivery", as if she was giving me some good news, and I'd smile palely and skedaddle on out of there to moan in fear to A.

Somewhere around the 7-month mark of an otherwise smooth pregnancy, I started itching. Itching as in so crazy with the need that I sat up all night scrubbing myself with the clothes-washing brush. So we rushed to the hospital and were told it's something to do with the liver and I needed medication. It's called cholesthiasis and basically means that bile starts building up in the mother's body. There were medicines to ease the itching, but that pretty much put paid to the possibility of a normal delivery.

Then when I was about 9 months along, I started to feel really hot on my face one morning, as if I was flushed, even though I wasn't. My BP was normal, but that night my body swelled up. I gained 5 kilos of weight overnight and looked as bloated as a whale. The doc said to come on in and check myself into the hospital. Mom had organised one of my God bharaai events for that afternoon, and thereafter we went to the hospital. My BP which is usually very healthy, had skyrocketed to something like 160 or 180. I was put on a drip and told I'd have to stay there and they'd observe me.

Now hospital stays are amongst the worst things on earth. First of all the boredom. Then, the inability to move around without having someone unhook you from the painful drip. Then the food. I have thin veins so the blood would constantly clot up and make the drip highly painful. Like the human pincushion I'd been through the pregnancy, I had to constantly be injected with something that delays clotting - gory, eh?

The BP didn't come down despite the boredom they induced, and to cinch the matter, Chubbocks had wound the cord around his neck rather tightly and was in breech position, so it had to be a C section. "We'll watch her till Saturday and then we'll decide", says the doc sternly on Thursday. "But I'm going to Bombay on Saturday", says A. Doc gives him a piercing glance. "Saturday morning". "Yes ma'am". A still claims that he uttered those words on a purely reflexive urge, without thinking, and didn't mean - can she wait while I finish my business trip.

I, who am usually non-observing, asked Dad if he could go to the Ganesh temple for me and break a coconut there before coming to the hospital Saturday morning. All manner of dark thoughts about death were running around in my head the night before the surgery, and I kept instructing A about what to do for Chubbocks in case it happened, at which A stuck his fingers in his ears and refused to listen anymore. A asked if he could be present during the surgery but the Doc said she didn't let fathers in on principle, because she'd rather attend to the original patient than a fainting dad. I had no intention of hanging around half conscious while they yanked and pulled and blood came out of me so blissfully sank into the general anaesthetic.

I have to admit, I did have the out-of-body experience that general anaesthesia induces in some people. At one point, I felt myself going down this peaceful, calm white tunnel. There was a blaze of light and of joy at the end of it and I speeded up my footsteps as I got closer and closer to it. But then, suddenly, I thought of A and how much I'd miss him and how he'd feel if I didn't come back, and of my infant son and how he would need me. I reluctantly turned my back on that place of joy and retraced my steps, glancing at it over my shoulder and saying, "Not now. Not yet." I resurfaced and saw someone lying on the surgical bed. I could feel some tugging and pulling going on, and I saw a technician and the doctor's face in the mask. Then I decided I didn't want to know anymore, because the person on the bed was me. I went back into the body and retreated to a quiet, dark place this time.

I resurfaced many hours later in my hospital room, with my parents, my inlaws and A in the room. I had asked dad to take a video pic of the baby as soon as he came out, and I saw the picture. I couldn't tell much about the baby from the picture, though everyone around me said he was cute. I felt nothing towards him at that moment either, and just had an overwhelmingly groggy need for everyone to go away and let me be.

I recovered from the surgery pretty quickly. The second time we were having a baby, I hoped it would be a painless C section again, but the doc, with what I thought was a malicious glint, insisted that I could have a normal delivery this time. BP monitored - check. Cholesthiasis pre-prepared for - check. Baby had wound cord around her neck but only little bit which would slip off - check.

Then we went shopping for the baby's clothes, one saturday. As I got out of the car, I stepped on a loose stone and promptly turned my ankle on it. I sank back into the car with a loud cry, and tears of pain started pouring down my cheeks. A and Chubbocks were horrified and alarmed. "I think it's a sprain. Get me a painkiller", I managed to say and they raced off. I gulped the tablet down and we went on to shopping and lunch and then a visit to my sis-in-law in town from Toronto, with me propping my leg up everywhere, since it was still hurting. Back home I went upstairs to nap for the afternoon. When I woke up, I set foot on the ground and it had swollen up badly. I hollered for A who was sitting downstairs and he came running. Poor thing had to help me to the loo - than which I can think of no other more intimate service - and we dashed to an orthopaedic. Sure enough, had broken two bones in my ankle. I couldn't take any medicines apart from the crocin, though the doc put a new fancy-type plastic plaster on the ankle which immediately dried up, was light and could be bathed with.

We were back at the ob-gyn's the next morning and she looked worried but still pressed for a normal delivery. I of course was insisting on working until just a week before the due date, so hobbled in and out despite the doctor's orders and my extreme ungainliness, especially with the plaster. Then I started getting stomach pains and when the Ob-gyn saw me, she said my old C-sec stitches had come loose with the body movements during the broken ankle incident and the Puddi's kicking, so there was no way they could take the risk of a normal delivery.

This time we were much calmer about the surgery, and had packed up all the baby's clothes and nappies, diapers etc. I tried to sleep but couldn't the whole night, and went to hospital in my PJs, figuring who's going to see me at 6 am. The doc said they would deliver the baby with an epidural only. I protested that there was no way I wanted to see, hear, fell anything that was going on and preferred to pass out. She rebuked me and read me a stern lecture on moving with the times and did I know that I would lose only a quarter of the blood that I'd lose with General Anaesthetic and so on. I finally agreed and we rolled into the OT.

The anaesthesiologist says lean over and I'm going to inject you...now your toes are getting heavy...now your legs are getting numb. I experimentally wiggle my toes and say, yeah, my little toe does feel kind of heavy. They exchange glances over my head and give me another dose. Are your toes getting heavy now...are your legs getting numb...Well, my little toe does feel heavier and number, I guess...Finally the doc decides that maybe it's psychosomatic and that she should try a little nick with her scalpel. I almost fall off the bed flailing from the pain. I'm surprised the roof didn't cave in from my scream. They exchange resigned looks, and then I'm off to la-la-land.

I woke up only that evening, having taken so much anaesthetic in. Everything was all blurry and I figured that was because I was still groggy. I could barely see what the baby looked like. The whole night, my eyes hurt every time I open them so I keep them tightly shut. I haven't been able to take a good look at the baby. I don't know why they make hospital beds so narrow you feel like you may fall off every time you move.

By morning, my eyes are still smarting and teary. We call in the doc, the nurse...the doc calls in a senior ophthalmologist by midday because I'm seeing ten of everything. Oh, it's nothing to do with the surgery, maybe your eyesight was weak, he says. Pardon me, but do you think I might have noticed if I was seeing ten of everything, even before the surgery? Oh right...then some eyedrops and eye exercises are prescribed. There's no effect and I begin to have terrifying visions of having to go through life like this. Everything I do and like uses my eyesight - reading, writing, watching films, painting - how will I manage? Eventually it takes a good three days before the tearing up stops, and a further ten days of regular eye exercises before my vision goes down from seeing ten to only three of everything - and that starts to feel almost normal! My eyesight is still not back to the way it was before, and things that looked crystal clear before are still blurry to me at a smaller distance than before, though the power hasn't increased drastically. My uncle, who's been through it ( surgery and general anaesthesia, not pregnancy and C section), says it might be nerve damage. It might take years for the nerves to recover.

Well, that's the price I paid for having two beautiful little children and while I may wish I didn't have the side effects, I can't imagine life without my two rainbows.

Strangely, my good friend S had her second child, a girl, recently, and she had the same experience with the anaesthetic, though thankfully not with the eyesight. She's an Arian too, like me, and we were actually wondering if there is some congenital predisposition against anaesthetics...???( music from the twilight zone...)