The Manu Kenzo Experience

Sept. 23, 2009

St. Mary’s hospital – Montreal, QC.

There is a long running argument as to who can withstand more pain – men or women. I was once a man who was somewhat on the fence with regards to this issue. Sure, women put up with menstruation and childbirth, but men get kicked in the gonads and get into fights and generally break shit. Who was I to say? I can now stand here before my brethren and admit in all honesty that getting kicked in the testicles and complaining about it is comparable to breaking a nail and crying about it. Yes…I said it. Guys, we’ve got nothing on these ladies. As I watched my wife just withstand 27 hours of unrelenting and excruciating labor, I can safely say that men are nothing more than a bunch of girls. I would have lasted one hour…max.

The contractions had been sprinkled here and there during the weeks leading up to the real deal, but it wasn’t until around 11:30 pm on September 21, 2009 that they became strong and regular. Séverine managed to finally pass out for about an hour sometime early the next morning, her only break from the contractions that were visibly rocking her to her core. This will have represented her last morsel of sleep until nearly two days later. The contractions were more or less consistently hitting every ten minutes, lasting around thirty seconds apiece. Technically, one isn’t supposed to go to the hospital until they are hitting every five minutes; one minute in length, for at least a solid hour straight. While Séverine’s contractions were never much longer than forty seconds each, once they had been happening every four minutes for a couple hours we finally decided to grab our bags and head out the door. This was after twelve hours of non-stop contractions.

We arrived at the hospital at around 2pm with our small, slightly broken rolling red suitcase, two pillows, my laptop bag, the iPod touch (for contraction timing and general distraction) and hopes and dreams of a smooth and simple delivery. Given that Manu was delivered via c-section two years prior, there had been a special amount of care attention going into this to ensure that this delivery would not end with an invasive surgery. Additionally, it was Séverine’s wishes to attempt the vbac (vaginal birth after c-section) au naturel – no drugs, no contraptions, no gimmicks, no outside help. This was to be what the first one could not, and there were no indications that it would be anything but.

The first thing that they did was sit Séverine down in a examining chair to run some preliminary tests while I headed downstairs to deal with the admittance, insurance, hospital cards, all the bureaucratic fun stuff. It took quite a while as this process involved more than one desk and more than one line to wait in. When I finally got back, my heavily contracting wife had been moved to her case room where we were to stay for the duration. In an odd twist of luck it turned out that the physician on call was in fact Séverine’s obstetrician, which is apparently quite unusual (such was not the case for Manu’s birth). She was at this point examined and it was determined that she was about 3 ½ cm dilated…in other words there was still quite a ways to go before there would be enough room to pass a baby. This was around 3pm.

The staff at St. Mary’s proved to be capable and attentive, but they also left us the space we needed to go through this process in relative peace (I say “us” in the most unbalanced way possible, of course). The contractions continued more or less consistent for the rest of the afternoon – lasting closer to 40-50 seconds each. We tried watching an episode of Pushing Daisies on my laptop at one point, but found that the pauses for contractions every five minutes didn’t really do much for the continuity of the storyline. That would be our last attempt at external entertainment. It was all about coping from this point forward. Periodic examinations revealed that while the contractions were doing their thing, the cervix was dilating very slowly – in fact not much at all. By dinnertime it remained essentially unchanged.

Sometime in the early evening, the contractions began accelerating and growing in intensity. It was clear that Séverine was running very low on energy, each surge sapping her more and more (one hour of sleep, remember?). This series of intense and thoroughly ass-kicking contractions apparently made a dent, as the following examination revealed that she has finally dilated to around 8 -8 ½ cm. Almost there, we exclaimed! You can do this, I encouraged! She even sent an SMS to her mom and sister to inform them that we were in the home stretch…they were looking after Manu after all, and were naturally concerned at how long this whole thing was taking. This was around 9 – 9:30 pm. The contractions continued. Séverine was getting close to hitting the wall…her ability to deal with the pain and energy drain was coming to the end of the line. She had been in labor for twenty hours at this point.

It was at this time determined that it would be a good idea to go in and rupture the membrane to help move things along. The doctor who came in to do this, while nice enough, clearly wasn’t the most thorough one of the bunch, the typical gush of water normally associated with water breaking was replaced with a tiny trickle of fluid. “Oh, the baby’s head must have plugged the whole”, she declared. We all agreed and waited for the next series of contractions to have a more profound impact.

At around 11 pm, another exam proved that she was still stuck at 8 – 8 ½ cm. The unrelenting contractions had not made a difference. Encouragement that “we’re almost there!” and “you can do this!” gave way to exhausted back massaging and quiet comfort (I only slept for two hours the night before, ok?). To make matters less certain, Séverine’s OBGYN had been performing another c-section in the OR, and was not available to come take a look. By the time she finally re-appeared it was around 12:30 am, Séverine was losing her mind with pain and exhaustion, and the cervix had still not budged. Upon closer examination, it was finally discovered that her membrane had in fact not been ruptured as previously thought, and that this was blamed for the cervix failing to move aside that final little bit. Dr’ Wrzesinski went in with the same plastic poker as the doctor from earlier, only this time we were greeted with a monumental GUSH! An embryonic tsunami spilled all over the lower part of the birthing table and the floor. Now things were getting going.

An epidural was offered at this stage (I guess they were finally taking pity on this poor creature who had already withstood 25 hours of contractions). For whatever reason, Séverine, in a moment of pseudo clarity, determined that she had made it this far without drugs, why not go the distance? Let’s give her an hour to see how the cervix responds to the broken water, it was decided.

1:30 am had rolled along, another examination found her still stuck at 8 – 8 1/2 cm, and the pain had finally won. An epidural was needed. NOW!

The anesthesiologist was summoned, and she, along with our amazing nurse, proceeded to get everything set up. The big fluorescent lights replaced our dimly lit sanctuary, the face masks and hair nets were distributed, and Séverine was rolled on her side to yet again face her demons as her phobia of large needles was pitted up against her excruciating and unrelenting contractions. The first attempt at inserting the needle was unsuccessful, given that her reflex to jump was stronger than the command to sit perfectly still. I held her tight for the next try.

At the exact moment that the needle went in, Séverine let out a series of banshee cavewoman primal shrieks, the likes of which likely woke up some sleeping children across town. “ça pousse!!!” She belted. “It’s pushing!!!”.

They laid her back, only to discover that, in fact, the baby was ready to come. There is no way to know for sure if the procedure of inserting the epidural was the trigger that finished the cervix dilation or simply a freakish coincidence (I compared it at the time to giving up on waiting for a late bus at the bus stop, only to have it arrive at that moment), but in the end the epidural would have no effect on this delivery. All natural until the very end. The drugs were in fact never administered – there simply wasn’t enough time.

I can gloss over the gory details, but finally, at long, long last (27 hours to be exact), little baby Chiara Baron-Jerugim was welcomed to this third rock from the sun at 2:13 am, September 22^nd, 2009 and placed directly on her mommy’s chest for an hour of bonding and binge drinking. A proud daddy cut the cord and proceeded to do his job (photos, videos, and beating back an over-eager medical community with their vitamin K shots and antibiotic eye drops – this is a self-serving exaggeration – the delivery staff was in fact not even responsible for these things, they told me…twice). The placenta was removed, a slight tear required a few quick stitches, some crazy looking blood clots were cleared away, and we were left in a dazed and blissful peace.

An hour later, another examination revealed that there was more bleeding than normal, and given that this had been a v-bac delivery, they didn’t want to take any chances. Chiara and I were whisked away to pediatrics (yes, this was the place where I successfully beat back the voodoo pharmacists), and were admitted to the recovery room to await news of her mother’s well being. Here I was again, same as with Manu two years earlier. Skin-to-skin with a newborn, unsure of Séverine’s present condition. This time, however, thanks to past experiences, Séverine made sure to have her nurse report on things to our side of the ward. This was, of course, delayed by an hour as her nurse was pulled into the OR to transfer six other babies into the ICU.

An hour later, the head nurse in maternity ward notified Chiara and I that due to above average bleeding, Séverine was to spend the night in the case room, and we were whisked back to go rejoin her. The good news was that after all this Chiara was finally able to eat and sleep on her mommy again, and after all the hoses and tubes were inserted into Séverine, we all managed to get some seriously well deserved sleep. Well…15 minute here and there, since there was a uterus to examine. All of this took place around 6 am, and we were re-transferred to the recovery room at 8 as Séverine had proven that the bleeding had chilled out and all was well.

I’m sure there are some men out that there that could withstand a 27 hour labor, and I’m equally sure that there are some women who could not. That is not for me to judge or decide. What I do know is that in all my years, never have I seen that level of sustained suffering in another human, and my beautiful and seemingly fragile wife proved herself not only to be resilient beyond the limits of reason, but that she deserves a medal, a trophy, a large box of chocolates, a second baby shower, several hundred million dollars and a beautiful, healthy baby daughter. And a handsome and intelligent husband. And a Ferrari. And some sleep.