Blindfolded

I should have had my baby in the back of a car on a highway in the middle of rush hour, as it poured down rain and ice. My experience with the hospital when I gave birth to my only son was far less pleasant and fraught with mishaps. I hear about the wonderful, dreamlike experiences other women have had, and that was not mine. It was one mistake after another, and I was cut open for the birth of my angel. It was hell. Angels should never be delivered in such a place.

Fail One

The place where I delivered our son via C-section was not a hospital per se, but it was not ideal, and I think the staff was possibly laissez-faire about too many things. Laziness may have been a factor, too. Either way, a new mom has certain expectations, and they weren’t met.

When I arrived for my delivery, they gave me the rundown on the process and asked me to wait while the medical staff prepared me. The first sign something was off was the nurse who came in to place the I.V. in my hand. That woman must have poked me half a dozen times and still could not find a vein for the cannula.

Placing a cannula in the hand is painful enough, but when a nurse digs in to find a vein, that is trauma on a whole new level. My husband was traumatized. You thought I’d say I. Go ahead. Admit it.

He was traumatized and had to leave, and I was in significant pain. I had to ask her to find someone else. I felt like Swiss cheese. So she left to find someone. Fail one.

It Takes Pro

In the meantime, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the talk. You know the one. He told me what I was getting, how I was getting it, and what to expect from the drugs he would use. He also said a nurse would insert an intravenous cannula for hydration and so on when the klutzy vampire came back in.

He asked why I didn’t have the I.V. in yet, and she said she had gone to find someone who could get it in. My pain-free surgery guru told her to get him the kit. He prepared it, swabbed my hand again for the seventh time, and, blip, it went in on the first try. I didn’t feel a thing. I even think he had his eyes closed. He was that good.

My hand after the delivery turned black and blue and was sore as if that nurse had tried to catheterize the vein with a McDonald’s straw.

The Comedy Tour

I was taken to the surgical suite with my courageous husband in tow, and we began. Incidentally, a husband is never cuter than in scrubs. Wild thoughts were dancing through my head, but let’s not go there.

The man, with mosquito-like precision, came in and told me about the epidural or spinal. This is a horrifying-looking cannula; that is what I remember as being 12’ long. I sat up, clutched a pillow to my abdomen, and bent over for him to do his thing. Not the kind of bent-over position a woman enjoys.

He told me not to move even a little, because any movement could risk hitting the spinal cord, and that would be bad. I shouldn’t have asked what “bad” meant, but I did. It was not good. So bad, in fact, that I obeyed the master. This is beginning to sound far more interesting than I thought it would.

After the prep work, I waited a bit for modern medicine to take effect. The perinatologist then came over and said he was going to poke me. He asked me to speak up if I felt it. And for once, a man wanted me to say no. Once he was satisfied I wouldn’t feel the fillet knife, he began.

This is the only part of the whole experience that was enjoyable. No. Not the poking. The spinal’s effects. I don’t remember what I said or did, but I had the entire suite laughing, even the doctors. My husband was cracking up, and I had visions of nightclubs on open-mic night at the Comedy Club.

I am not that funny in real life, so it never materialized. I guess my fans will have to wait.

Stupor

Now, when you have a C-section, you experience different dynamics than what I imagine natural childbirth offers. Coming off anesthesia isn’t as fun as I thought it would be, given the antics during the procedure.

I think they had me on some morphine drip-type medication, and I had to scream several times for the nurse to get that crap out of my arm. It made me nauseated and dry heave, as well as cough. With each spasm, I felt like I was being disemboweled. It hurt.

Later that evening, I was asked if I wanted to shower, and yes, yes, I did. It’s ironic that when you are in one of the most sanitized places known to man, you feel dirty and unclean. Yes, physically. Nothing else was on my mind but pain, showering, and oh, did I mention pain?

Nurse Ratched (yes, I went there) led me to the bathroom and left. I got in the shower and nearly fainted. I had to lean my back against the wall just to stay upright. Fail two. A nurse should not leave you alone in the shower after serious surgery and while on medications. The fall risk was real, and I could have wound up meeting a slew of neurologists on this trip, too.

Patterns

When I came out of the bathroom with my baby’s daddy’s help (some of you will spot the reference), I sat on the edge of the bed. I was still a bit out of it. When the nurse came back in with my son, who had been kept in my room the entire visit, she said that while I was showering, she had bathed the baby. Sacrilege!

The first bath for a baby should be given by the mom and dad, with the nurse’s careful guidance. This was my first childbirth, and I had no clue how to do it without hurting the tiny morsel. The only thing I was fairly certain of was that a loofah was not involved. Fail three.

The next day, the lactation nurse came by. A case of formula had been left in my room overnight, and the following morning the nurse told me to try to begin nursing. Apparently, a newborn doesn't need to nurse immediately. Who knew? So I did. I tried. He seemed to nurse, but then he stopped. Maybe he wasn’t hungry yet.

The lactation nurse came in and examined my breasts, which was creepy in itself, considering that the word nurse was my label, not hers. She was not a medical doctor or nurse. She was a specialist in all things boob and all things sucking boob. Essentially, a man in a woman’s body.

She was brief, told me I might have issues nursing, and if I did, to just supplement my son with formula. That fell flat. Nursing mattered to me not just because it provided the baby with the most natural source of sustenance, but because of the bonding.

She said I had inverted nipples, which I had never noticed, and that she would bring me an aid to keep them pointed so the baby could latch on(Aid as in tool, people. Sheesh!). I kept thinking, “She’s doing it wrong.” (Some of you just got that.) Yes, inverted means they tuck in like a belly button, but there are varying degrees, and mine was minimal, which is why she used the word might.

The boob specialist came back, handed me some Elizabethan object, told me I should use it if I needed to, and then left. No lesson, no instructions, and no practice using it. Fail four.

Top 10 List

No one ever came in to teach me how to put a diaper on correctly; no one taught me how to bathe my child and clean his wee-wee, since he was not yet circumcised. I had to wing it all on my own, and I was becoming scared.

After the second day, they came to collect my son for his circumcision. The following day, I was neither instructed nor shown how to clean the injured wee-wee, which had a plastic ring on it. That was another tick in the fail column. What is that 5 or 6?

I was discharged from the hospital's security, not by their security(there’s a distinction), where, at least, if I screwed up, a medical professional would save the day. They wheeled me out in a wheelchair. I guess they didn’t want to risk me falling, having to stay longer, and the longer list of fails. We might have had a top ten list of favorite blunders. We were very happy to be going home. We took our boy home, and I never again darkened the hospital's steps.

I know this isn’t entirely the hospital’s fault. The staff should be conscientious and caring enough with new moms and dads to offer advice, since most of them probably have children. When they know it’s your first time, they should take a little more time with the parents. After all, the day they give birth will change their lives forever. A confidence boost for the couple, along with a little wisdom, was not too much to ask for.

Instead, we ventured out into the expanse, blindfolded, and had to feel our way through it.

(Published on Patreon, August 2026)   

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