My Part of the Birth Story

After my lovely daughter was born, and I had been taken to a room, I developed a terrible headache and stiff neck. My back hurt between my shoulder blades, probably from all the fun activity. Well, it turned out that I had reacted to the saddle block injection. When I would sit up, I had the sensation in my neck of water wings expanding. Isn't that bizarre since I had never seen water wings. I was to lie flat on my back but it hurt between my shoulders. I begged for them to let my chiropractor come and help me with that. They refused, of course, but had someone come up from Physical Therapy. She gave me the lamest back rub I had ever had. So gentle. I wanted one of those muscle squeezing massages. It didn't help. I had an I.V also. In fact, when my father-in-law walked in, he almost fainted. In his day, an I.V. was a last resort and it usually meant impending demise. I don't remember how long I stayed there flat on my back, but when I went home, I had to take muscle relaxants for a couple of weeks. That meant bed rest and my wonderful mother-in-law came and took care of me and my baby during that time. I slept a good deal of the time from the medicine. Mom would bring in the baby for nursing whenever necessary. I wonder if my daughter had any lifelong effects from that medication? She was probably pretty limp. Remember, that was 1966 and doctors weren't too much in agreement that stuff we ingested could affect the breast milk.

I just read in an old nursing book that letting the patient lie down too quickly after the injection might cause the anesthetic can rise too high in the spinal canal. Hum! They had to lay me down pretty quickly that day. Makes me wonder now.