I have four kids. The first one was born in 1968 in Louisiana. His name is Ted a and I went into the hospital with pyelonephritis, so I had these big pains which I thought was labor and it was close to my delivery day, so I was admitted to the hospital for antibiotics, IV antibiotics, and then after two days I was induced to have my child and, gosh, the delivery was so crazy. I labored, I don’t remember the labor too much, but I remember that I was in the delivery room and he wasn’t coming out as quickly maybe as they wanted him to. A bunch of people came in. There were three or four people that were pushing on my abdomen to push him down, and then the doctor used forceps, so Ted was born with forceps. He had Bell’s palsey for six weeks afterwards and totally went away after six weeks. I also had to have two units of blood, so I know it was not a good delivery. I was ecstatic with this baby anyway even though I had the blood and it was in a military hospital. That was another thing that was different about it. You kind of had to do your own bed and go get your tray of food off the tray. Yeah, and after I lost all that blood, it was just kind of crazy, but I was young and I loved this little baby of mine, so it all seemed odd, but that’s what that story was.
So then my second one was only 18 months later and she was born in a hospital in Louisiana also, but I was working there, so she’s born in a regular hospital. And I was definitely induced. I was working as an RN. A night nurse, actually. I was even after Ted was born. I was working for a while – back to work. So anyway, Trace was born in this hospital, and I’m trying to think here. The physicians there thought that this twilight sleep was the way women should have babies. So I was given scopolamine and even a bit of morphine, I believe. I do not remember her birth at all. I just don’t remember it. And so the first thing I remembered was getting a call from a sister-in-law in the northwest where I was from. And she said, well, Robin, what did you have? And I said, well, I had a head of lettuce! No, I said no, no no no, no that’s not right. I had a head of cabbage! I was still so out of it when I got that phone call. Also I know that my daughter also was affected by these drugs because she was in the newborn nursery. I don’t know if it was the intent of the newborn nursery or not, but I didn’t get to see her for a long time and I cannot tell you how many hours that was. But I remember hearing a cold blue in the nursery. I thought, oh my gosh, it was my daughter. I called one of the nurses over and asked if somebody would go in and give her a conditional baptism. So it was horrible. I remember getting her back and finally she was all wrapped up, this pink little darling little baby girl. And I was so relieved that she was okay.
So then we moved back to the northwest and three years later I was having another child. I didn’t know if it was a boy or girl. It turned out to be a girl. But I knew I wanted to have a natural birth. I did not want to have anything like that happen again and, you know, be a danger to my child. And so I took, with my husband, natural birthing classes and that was great. So I went into labor with her. We went to the hospital. I had this whole plan. I don’t remember that my husband got to stay in the room with me because I don’t remember that at all. It was early in the natural childbirth movement, you know, and the classes were in a house. They weren’t in a hospital setting or anything. They were in someone’s home. The first birth was 6lb and then 7lb, and now this is 7lb 3oz for my third child. So I labored, progressed, and got to a point where I’m going, oh, yikes, you know, yikes, I can’t do this. And, so it was too late to have an epidural, which I think was new at that time too. I’m not sure, but anyway, that’s why I had a caudal which was pretty hard to get. A caudal is an anesthetic that’s put into your spinal caudal space at the base of your spine. So it’s really just a perineal kind of an anesthetic. And so I got that, turned over back onto my back and she was being born. She was being born. I was so bummed about that because that’s all it took. I wished I’d had a doula which is a good thing to have now. A doula or someone that would help me, because the labor nurse could have just told me “you’re ready to have this baby any minute – you don’t need to have anything – I’ll help you through it” or something.
So finally, six years later, I was going to have another baby and I wasn’t going to — I just wanted to do it this time and not have any interference. I had a good labor nurse for one thing but I also had it in my brain that I knew I could do it because I almost did it with my third child. So I didn’t get induced at all. I went in when I was barely starting labor. I can’t remember exactly except it was a really stormy day and we went in and I labored. It was nice. I walked around a lot. I had no anesthetic at all. I did a lot of walking and I was on my hands and knees and just rolling around – I remember rolling around in the bed. I had a great labor nurse help, even though the shift changed, it was still really helpful. But I was in a really good space in my mind and having another little girl and the nurse saying, okay, you can start pushing. And it was just like, so good. It was so much different than my first two, even though every time you have this little baby afterwards, and it’s just the most amazing moment and this amazing thing. But my first three kids were induced a little bit too early. I can’t remember why. And um they were all 6lb something 6.15, 6.10 and 6.4 and this fourth child was 9.4. She had the whole time to get ready like she should have. That’s one thing I wanted to know: what would my baby really weigh if I waited till the exact time it was supposed to happen.
So anyway, I now have these four amazing children, watching them have their own children and I love them a lot. And the stories were just the stories that they were.
And how did you recover after all of your four deliveries?
Well, that’s an interesting thing too, because, you know, I did not breastfeed my first two, which is interesting. My mother didn’t and I didn’t really have the support. I don’t know why I didn’t, but it’s probably kind of good because I lost a lot of blood with my first child and that would probably not have been good for producing milk, I think. But anyway, so I think that also helped in my recovery a bit after going home. You know, I think I had so much endorphins and so much excitement for having these kids that the recoveries always seemed fine. I never had any problem really with any recovery of any of them.
Did you have any tearing or any pelvic floor stuff that you needed?
I did have Episiotomies with all of them, with an intentional one on the first. I think I had Episiotomies with all of them. Yeah, it’s interesting. I think at most I may have had a little tear with my fourth one because I was just older and had already had three babies. I don’t know. Things I don’t remember. You can easily forget – these things sort of got away from me anyway. I just remember the excitement of having all these little people to look at and wonder who they were and look at and see. And yeah, it was pretty amazing.