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Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Eight Hours of Torture - Horrible Epidural Experience Ends in Cesarean

I've been reading messages for about a month now and figured I should say hello. I've already learned a great deal of information. My son weighed 9lbs 3oz and was my first baby. He is doing great and is a sweet baby. I was very traumatized by the birth and pregnancy, which I will attempt to express.

First of all I changed doctors at week 16 of my pregnancy because one of the doctors in the practice was rude to me and my husband. We went from a group of three men to a group with 2 women and 2 men. My primary care Dr in the new group was a very young woman.

I started having trouble in my pregnancy around week 19. I had terrible sharp pains in my left side that would wake me up at night. Dr. said they were round ligament pains. They were really bad until about week 24, then got a little better, only to return again around week 32. From week 32 until my c-section they were awful. I could not lay down on either side. Sometimes I would just pace around the house all night. One night I was sitting on the edge of the sofa and dozed off only to fall face forward into the coffee table. I became very sleep deprived. Called my Dr several times and got many possible explanations i.e. round ligament, kink in colon, maybe even contractions, always saying that the pains would go away after the baby was born and that they were NORMAL. When I expressed my concern over them hurting during labor she said they wouldn't. After all she had these annoying round ligament pains with her first pregnancy. Needless to say all I wanted when I got to the hospital was an epidural or any pain medicine (first huge mistake!).

When we got to the hospital at 5:30 am (labored a whopping 2 hours at home) I was a "3 plus" and 75% effaced. At my last Dr visit one week earlier I was at a 3 and 70% effaced so not much change. After an hour I was at a four so the nurse called my Dr and she said to keep me. She order an enema which previously she had said sometimes gets things moving but it would be up to me. This was the beginning of NOTHING WAS UP TO ME. The enema nearly killed me by making my side hurt so bad I almost threw up and passed out. All this on top of the contractions.

The Dr finally came at 9am broke my water, put an internal baby monitor on, and said I was at a 4 plus. My contractions had slowed after the enema. Imagine that.

I asked my Dr about an epidural and she said maybe in an hour - that I wasn't in enough pain yet (which was probably true). After about 30 minutes my contractions got stronger and in comes my l&d nurse to put in an internal monitor for contractions. She nearly sent me flying out of the bed with this supposedly simple procedure. After she was finished the baby had a new position-in my throat. I got mad and asked for stadol. Big mistake. It really made me dizzy and unable to focus.

L&D nurse came back shortly to let me know they needed to get a bunch of fluids in me to start the epidural so they could start pitocin. Next thing I know the anesthesiologist was there to do the epidural. This is where things really go wrong. Over the next 2-3 hours he stuck me at least 6 times all resulting in 2 different epidurals that never numbed anything but my right leg. They make your husband leave the room during the epidural so he was in and out during this time. The anesthesiologist talked rudely about me the whole time like I wasn't even in the room. He would jab the needle around in me like he was looking for a vein. They made me curl up in a ball on my left side which already hurt even though I asked if I could sit up for the procedure.

During this 2-3 hour period I just cried through the pitocin contractions and the pain in my side. My nurse was irritated at me the whole time for not relaxing during contractions (I tried to explain that my side hurt but finally gave up and just shut my eyes, cried and hyperventilated) They would not let me sit up. I also was given Demerol during this time. Finally my dr called anesthesiology (probably with c-section in mind). The next rude anesthesiologist came up and did an epidural on the first try with me sitting up. It was working within five minutes and I had calmed down. The nurse cranked the pitocin back up and guess what. The baby's heart rate dropped into the 60's with the very next contraction. It did come back up over a hundred ( husband is not sure how high) but that was the end of my labor. Via phone conversation with my nurse the dr said let's section her. My dr never spoke to us about it. My thought was how convenient now that the epidural is working they can finally do a c-section. At least they didn't want to put me out.

The dx was fetal distress and ftp. I never made it past 6 cm. My son was born at 1:36 pm, after 8 hours of torture at the hospital. His apgars were 8/9. When getting ready to sew me up my dr said she was going to remove my pain for me. It was a tennis ball size dermoid cyst on my left ovary. It had twisted it and was cutting of the blood supply to the ovary (have I said this was painful?).

I was thankful to be alive for a few hours (the anesthesiologist made me fear for my life along with the drugs). However, by the next morning all the events started setting in and when i complained to my dr guess what reply i got. Yes, "You're healthy and the baby's healthy etc. blah blah blah." At my 2 week incision check I got the "You need to put this behind you and get over it." Well, 11 weeks later it is still fresh in my memory. She has gotten me a referral for counseling but I have not gone due to breastfeeding and lack of faith in health care professionals.