A Navy Wife’s First Birth: Pain, Fear, and Strength

I was 18 years old and 3,000 miles away from home with basically no friends and no family. My husband was in the Navy, so I was going through Navy hospital clinics prior to giving birth. You rarely saw the same doctor twice. No one recommended doing Lamaze or Bradley in 1983. They just wanted to do saddle blocks, as they called it in the naval hospital.

On my own, I found a Lamaze class and attended two sessions. However, my husband at the time did not feel it was necessary to show up and did not attend with me. Since I didn’t have my own vehicle, I ended up dropping out. I had no labor coach or any kind of support. The only things I remembered from the first two classes were that the instructors kept telling us that the doctors and nurses would try to convince us to take medications and that we needed to stay strong and refuse. They also told us the staff would try to make us stay in bed the whole time, and we were supposed to insist on getting up and walking around, even if we had to wait until they left the room. For some reason, I remembered those parts but not much else. They made it seem like the doctors and nurses were the enemy, which was terrifying since I had nobody there to support me.

I gained so much weight that it became difficult to walk at times. I didn’t really understand why I gained so much. I weighed 99 lbs at my first appointment and 174 lbs when I went into labor. Because I was so big, the doctors kept telling me I was going to have a large baby when they measured my stomach. They repeatedly warned me not to buy too many newborn clothes.

The day before my due date, I had gone to the fair and walked a lot. The week before, I had swollen so badly that I had to have my rings cut off because they were cutting off circulation. My face was puffy, my whole body was puffy—I felt miserable.

I went to bed that night and woke up around 3:00 in the morning feeling strange. I walked across the room to the bathroom, and as I entered, my water broke all over the floor. At first, I thought I had urinated, but I could tell by the look of it that it was actually my water. I felt no pain or contractions whatsoever.

When I arrived at the hospital, they checked me, and I was neither dilated nor effaced, and I was having no contractions. But because my water had broken, they admitted me.

Shortly after, they decided to start me on Pitocin. I was in no way prepared for going from absolutely no pain to immediate, intense contractions. When the first one hit, I thought I was going to die. My entire body tensed up, and I couldn’t suppress a scream. Because of the Pitocin, my contractions were very close together—only three to five minutes apart. I tried to get out of bed and walk in between, remembering what the class had told me, but the nurses would rush back in and make me lie down. They warned me that since my water had broken, walking could cause the umbilical cord to wrap around the baby’s neck. That scared me, so I stayed in bed.

I was in hard labor for over 18 hours. My mental state had deteriorated probably within the first two hours. A lot of it is just a blur. I remember at one point the doctor came in and yelled at me, saying I was scaring everyone on the ward. My husband came in and out a couple of times, but he couldn’t handle all the screaming and tension, so he left. I was all alone, in unbearable pain, for so long.

When they finally had me push, it lasted for a very long time. They did automatic episiotomies back then. I don’t remember exactly how long, but I believe I pushed for well over an hour. My poor baby’s head looked like a football when he was born. So much for the doctors’ prediction of a big baby—he was only 6 lbs, 7 oz.

I wanted to hold him so badly, but they whisked him away because I was shaking so hard, and they were afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold on to him. I remember shaking so violently that even my teeth were chattering. It was hours before I got to see him again and finally hold him.

I was never diagnosed or told that I had preeclampsia, but I believe I did because I lost almost 30 lbs in the two weeks following the birth. I’ve always thought that’s what caused the swelling and all the excess water weight.