The Birth - Part Two (The Nasty Bit)

After they finished the surgery, they took out all of the equipment they hooked me into including the epidural catheter from which I was told painkillers will be given for forty eight hours post delivery.

My husband mentioned it to me and we wondered why they took it off but decided not to worry about it then.

We figured they were going to give me shots instead.

After all, we had discussed with our doctor a pain management plan after consulting a US health professional about the details. We were told everything is available and is up to standard.

To be sure, we had gone as far as reconfirming the details of the birth, including the pain management part, during our last appointment before surgery.

So, we didn't say anything as they took me to my room and laid me flat on my back with no pillows (apparently pillows cause headaches) and put a sand bag on my stomach to "make the dirty blood come out".

The bag was a small one but still heavy enough to cause discomfort. I was not about to fight with anybody so I just had my husband take it off when they left the room.

As expected, the anesthesia began to wear off and I started to feel pain.

I have read that the pain must be managed before it became dire because once it reaches a certain point, it takes a lot of time and energy from the body to get it back under control.

So, I told Paul and my friend Sandy to tell the staff that I was ready for pain relief.

Nurses and residents came to take my blood pressure, temperature, and to massage my stomach (ouch!) but for the next hour, no one showed up with a painkiller.

As I grew increasingly miserable, I began to demand when a painkiller was going to be given to me.

Mind you, this is a major abdominal surgery.

These people had just sliced me open and pulled a baby out of me and mucked around in my insides for an hour and half!

Yet, instead of getting me something as soon as possible, the hospital staff was acting evasive and would only answer questions in an unclear way.

They kept on assuring my husband the painkiller will come soon but wouldn't tell him what the hold up was.

Hours passed.

People came and went.

The pain became intolerable.

I started to scream not just out of agony but also rage.

In the middle of this, our little girl wakes up, cries, and goes back to sleep with me unable to try to breastfeed her or comfort her.

No one would tell us what was happening.

After about four hours of this, they finally showed up with a shot and gave it to me.

I immediately began to feel drowsy and my muscles felt like they weighed tons.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't keep my eyes open.

But my pain remained intolerable as I started to feel my mind float away.

I could hear everyone talk but I could hardly speak to express how I felt.

I lay on my bed horrified as my doctor told my husband not to worry, that I would go to sleep soon.

I knew they had given me a strong sedative and a heavy dose of muscle relaxants. I knew I didn't get a painkiller.

Something was going very wrong. And I didn't know why.

To the doctor's surprise, I was still not asleep as she predicted and I was telling my husband I was suffering, that I was still feeling pain, that my whole stomach area felt like it was on fire. "Please help me" I kept on repeating.

At some point I even started to cry.

So, they decided to give me another shot. They assured my husband that, once again, it was a pain killer.

It wasn't.

It just made me drowsier but gave me absolutely no pain relief.

The thing is, I have done this before. I already have one child via c-section! So, I know the difference between a painkiller and a sedative.

A pain killer pretty much does what it the name says it does.

It kills the fucking pain.

It occurred to me that I was not going to get any pain relief from the hospital. Whatever was happening, I knew they were not going to solve my problems.

At this point, I was very high and pissed off beyond belief.

In one of my more lucid moments, I was able to instruct my, by then distraught, husband to call a couple of people who I knew had surgery over the past year. I wanted to know if they had any strong, prescription grade painkillers left over.

It turns out, one of the girls we knew did. My husband arranged for those to be picked up.

In the mean time, around 9 pm, my doctor came in and declared she had morphine for me. I couldn't refuse. I was still hanging on to the hope that she would provide something that could help me.

Instead, it turned out to be the same drug they had given me earlier.

If it had morphine in it at all, it was a trace amount---so small that it couldn't be effective.

After my codeine pills from outside of the hospital arrived, my husband had to withhold it from me until he was sure my bowels had began working.

For those of you who don't know, when you have an abdominal surgery, your stomach stops working to protect itself from infections. If you eat or drink before your system starts up, it can be dangerous and very painful. So, post surgery, patients are not allowed to eat or drink until a doctor verifies their bowels are back in business.

In our case, we didn't have the luxury of a doctor to verification. I was told not to eat or drink until the next day. My husband had to depend on his rudimentary medical knowledge and our past c-section experience to decide when to give me the painkillers.

You can imagine this was hard for him because I was demanding to have them. I was out of my mind with the pain. He had to keep on telling me no.

Around 12:30 a.m., I was able to take some codeine. It took about twenty minutes for it to take effect. I felt the pain slowly go away and then stop.

I turned to my husband, looked into his bloodshot eyes, and said "Now, THAT is a fucking painkiller!"

He laughed but it wasn't a funny haha laugh.

He looked like he would collapse to the floor.