From MonkeyButt to Twinkey B, and EVERYone In Between (except the two stepmonkeys...wasn't there for those deliveries, SORRY!)

Lotus over at Sarcastic Mom is hosting a Birth Story Carnival. Now, we could all be here for days reading how many centimeters I was at what time and how strong the contractions were bringing these five monkeys into the world, but I figured I'd spare you and just go over some of the highlights. Now, I must precaution you before you read further...this post is rated 'R', for 'R'eally bad language! I am the daughter--and wife--of a trucker, after all (no, I didn't marry my dad...I live in hickville, but come on). ;o)

MonkeyButt 2001: Attendance: KingKong, my mom, my dad, my whore of an ex-SIL.
8lbs 8oz. Drug-free except Pitocin

I awoke in the middle of the night to the gush of my water breaking. We called the hospital and they said come in. We got there and, of course, NOTHING happened!! They asked accusingly, "Are you SURE it was your water breaking?" Ya, I haven't really been a bedwetter since I was like three, but thanks for asking.

LadyKong(in the throws of labor--after much pitocin--trying NOT to push): "Um, I think I just had an accident..." Water broke, you thought, right? Nope. It was good 'ole #2. Right there on the table for all to smell see. I never read about that in magazines. Must have skipped over that paragraph in "What to Expect..." All the moms I'd spoken to decided to spare me of this little tidbit apparently. Bitches. "Could someone please clean up the fecal matter?" the doctor asked. Fecal matter. How embarrassing. KingKong, to.this.day. swears he doesn't remember that happening. Fucking liar. Good Man.

The excitement continued as the real pushing began. KingKong held my left leg up while a little nurse held my right. We all get by with a little help, right? Like I could've held those waterlogged limbs up on my own! And, you know, I'm AWARE that they do this EVERYday, SEVERAL times a day, but I don't! So while I was pushing, KK and the nurse were pulling my legs, and the doctor was in position to catch MonkeyButt, the nurses passed the time between contractions sharing their vacation stories. That one little nurse actually LET GO of my gawd damn leg to hold up her hands and show the others how tall the drink glasses were or something as a contraction was starting. So I politely growled, "SOMEBODY GRAB MY FUCKING LEG!" I, of course, apologized profusely later to everyone in the room. My dad likes to finish the story saying he asked which leg it was and the doctor replied, "It was that one (pointing), I learned to keep an eye out for those long ago."

CuriousGeorge 2002: Attendance: KingKong, my mom, my dad, my ex-SIL
8lbs 8.2oz. Drug-free except Pitocin again

After being sent home several times the week prior with false labor, and having sausage links for toes, I finally timed tiny twinges late one evening. We arranged childcare for MonkeyButt and I alerted the usual audience and the hospital that I'd go in after 'finishing some laundry.' Five hours later, we arrived. Again, they contemplated sending me home. My frustration emotion must've kicked things into high gear, because they broke my water within the hour.

CuriousGeorge looked just like MonkeyButt when he came out, except I finally "got one with my dimples." Which I kept repeating in my deliriously happy state.

SpiderMonkey 2006: Attendance: KK, my mom & stepdad, my dad & stepmom, my new- and-improved-SIL(no, I'm not really into voyeurism, I just wanted to share this with the ones we love and who love our kids the most) 9lbs Drug-free except for that plug thingy NOTE: My sister took a week off work and her life to come home from Ohio for EVERY one of my deliveries, but missed all of them by only days :o(

SpiderMonkey was a scheduled induction. The put in the plug and I sent everyone out to dinner under the pretenses that I would not be pushing until VERY late in the evening or the next morning. Well, just a few quick hours later, I'd gone from "hard and closed" to "flimsy and 8." The nurses had me 'assume the position' and called the doctor to come back. She arrived to check on me while I tried not to push, waiting for her and my dad to get back. Not believing it was time, she said I'm just gonna go get dressed and I'll be back in a bit and I told her there's no time. She got to the door and I growled, "Somebody catch this." She had time to put her arms in a smock (still in my room) and gloves on in the next two quick contractions and caught my baby. My dad and stepmom made it back from dinner just in time to see SpiderMonkey arrive at 6:00pm.

The Twinkeys 2007: Attendance: KK, My Sister, my mom & stepdad, my dad & stepmom 6lb 6oz. and 6lb 8oz. I eagerly accepted an epidural, what, with the scalpel waiting to cut into my abdomen and all ;o) my SIL and BIL bravely took the other three for the night.

SIDESTORY: The birth of the Twinkeys wasn't near as eventful as how we found out they were in fact Twinkeys. I never had a period after SpiderMonkey was born in August (except one day of really light spotting in September), so once I made an appointment with our new OB (new insurance) in January, I believed we were 4 months along with a new baby. After two miscarriages between CuriousGeorge and SpiderMonkey, I'd begun waiting until after the 12wk point to make my prenatal appointments/announcements.

They scheduled an U/S appointment to confirm dates and I could not WAIT to go and find the absence of a penis. I'd already bought some sparkly infant jeans and top from Old Navy for "her." Yup, I jinxed it. KingKong had taken that morning off from work. MonkeyButt and CuriousGeorge were at school, so we just had SpiderMonkey to worry about. No problem, KingKong assured me. We took the umbrella stroller, some snacks (and some for the baby hehe), a bub, and we were on our way. In the room, the male technician (a first for us) had me lay down and look up to my right at the screen he was working on. He asked KingKong (who was now holding the squirming SpiderMonkey) if he wanted to bring a chair over and sit.

KingKong(in his 'been here, done this several times' voice, leaning on the counter to my left): Nah.

U/S Tech (getting his bearnings on my tummy): Is this your first U/S with this pregnancy?

Me (answering what I remember was a typical U/S question): MmmHmm. And IT better be a girl, dammit.

U/S Tech: Are you two looking at the screen? (KingKong was sort of dancing around entertaining SpiderMonkey)

Me: Yeeeee-es. (In a sarcastic sing-songy voice, thinking, what'ya think we're here for? Der.)

U/S Tech (pointing): Well, there's a heartbeat right there...And there's the other heartbeat.

Me(keeping my gaze to the upper right, not yet looking at KingKong to my lower left): Oh...my...

Then I hear, SSSCCCCRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCHHHHHHHH, as KingKong pulled a chair over to take a much needed seat. LOL!

So, instead of going to find out the sex of a 4-5 month pregnancy, we went and found we had two babies who were only about 3 months along. I was apparently irregular after SpiderMonkey, and having two babies in there explained why I was measuring correctly based on what I thought was my LMP. I had scheduled my next prenatal appointment for that afternoon while we were in the city and hadn't yet "come down" from the news of the morning. That poor girl taking my bloodpressure was counting so fast. They had to do it twice. The one at the end of the appointment was a keeper. Phew.

Anyway...The Twinkeys were scheduled for a c-section at 37wk2d at 1:00pm. But they decided they'd try to come out Old School the night before. Twinkey B was transverse, much to my relief, because my motto for the 5+ months we knew they were baking was, "I'll do it once (natural delivery), but don't make me do it four minutes later." As relieved to hear I was having a c-section, I was equally--if not MORE--scared of the epidural needle. I had scoliosis rods put in when I was a teen and swore that NO ONE would EVER touch my back again.

So, the night before our scheduled c-section, I felt the familiar faint twinges and I called our new high-risk OB at 10:00pm and said I think I might be having contractions, should we just wait 'til morning? And she said to come in, that even if it wasn't real labor, they wouldn't send me home (LOVE her!!), they'd just do the c-section as scheduled. Fine with me! It took an hour to get the sitter (our niece) here and another forty minutes to get to the hospital. After checking in and changing, it was midnight.

We all arrived and I was checked. 6 centimeters! Oops. Within minutes, the doctor was called, I had an IV in. The nurse brought KingKong some scrubs and told him he could use the bathroom to put them on. Okay, he said. Pause. She told him he might want to take his workboots off, that the booties might not fit over them. Okay, he said. Another pause. I looked at the nurse. Her eyes darted from KingKong to the bathroom door and back again, then to me.

ME to KingKong: King! Like, NOW!!!!! (We were all pretty much used to the sitting and waiting for babies. Ha! Not this time.)

Next came another humiliating part, followed by a scary part, then a funny part, then a happy part.

First, the room was cleared so that the poor nurse could, um, shave me. What the fuhk. I mean really. Nobody mentioned this before. It's not like it's experimental and I was the first ever to have that done. Couldn't someone have dropped me a note or something so I could've put that on the 'ole To Do list before I got to the hospital??!? Oh, ya, and I believe you all forgot that little sidenote about the catheter!!?! Yowsa!

Then it was time to go into the operating room where they'd TRY to place the epidural. I was leaving my husband and my family to go back to the operating room where they MIGHT be able to place the epidural. The anesthesiologist had informed us just a minute and a half earlier that if they did put it in, they'd come get my husband for the delivery, and if they couldn't get the epidural in my back based on the placement of the rods, they'd have to put me under and he couldn't be in the room. WTF??!? No pressure. Holy emotion. See you in a minute hon, or maybe, you know, never.

The epidural was placed and it.was.awesome! A pick and a burn. That's how they described it would feel. Man, did it burn! But the "warmth" they told you you'd feel immediately was bliss. My legs were toasty and numb by the time my hubby arrived in the OR. It was heaven. Besides the itchy nose from the narcotics, but that just made me giggle. Several times KingKong had to itch my nose. hehe

Twinkey A was delivered at 1:00am. Twinkey B took a couple minutes to wrangle outta there. He was wedged up under my ribs.

I have to say their delivery was the least satisfying...for lack of a better word (which is rather bizarre because this is all about words) of all four...I didn't get to hold them right away or talk to them; I didn't get to see how they were being cleaned/weighed, etc.; they left the room before my surgery was over (with KingKong--I threatened his life if he left their sides). It was definitely, by far, the most painful recovery I've experienced to date. I remember sitting there with my little pillow hugged to my abdomen--the one you use to stand up--when I realized that one of these days, possibly soon, I was going to have to sneeze and how fuhreaking painful was that gonna be??!?

I was glad to have the procedure completed, however, as the nightmare of delivering one baby naturally and then having to do an emergency c-section on the other and healing in two places did not sound like a fun memory!

So that's all the baby-making info thus far. Thanks for reading this, and for the great idea Lotus!