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Weeks 10 to 11 -- Part 2
CVS!!!
I wish someone had warned me.
Let me put my relationship to pain in context. I am hardly a delicate flower or pain-averse. I delivered Henry without any pain medication whatsoever, in spite of the Pitocin induction and back labor. I intend to elect natural childbirth again without any apprehension or misgivings. I endure pain on a regular basis as well, with four herniated disks along my spine I have become an accomplished Ashtanga yoga practitioner (a rigorous and often excruciating form of yoga) even with my back injuries. I am not heroic, but I do have a high tolerance for discomfort, which is why I was so completely unprepared, and traumatized, by the whole CVS experience.
Turns out the doctor performing my CVS was the head of maternal fetal medicine at one of the world’s most prestigious hospitals. What could be better? As I gazed at the very human image before me on the sonogram, he looked at the measurements and decided my CVS was to be performed trans-abdominally.
Fine, I thought. Kind of like menstrual cramps. No big deal.
“Should I put on my iPod? Do a little meditative breathing?” I asked.
“No need. I’ll talk you through the process. First, some Betadine to cleanse the area, then a little topical anesthesia to numb the abdomen...” His hands spread various solvents over me as he spoke. The nurse lowered my table so that I could no longer see the image on the sonogram. Jack on my other side, could see it all: the sonogram, the doctor, me.
I took a deep breath and waited for the pin-prick feeling I had experienced with amnio, sort of like the initial shock one feels at a blood test that dissipates as soon as it is realized. Instead, what occurred was a pain so intense, so relentless, I felt as if my body were slipping into shock. I convulsed in muscle spasms, unable to breathe, and likely shrieked as tears streamed down to my ears. The doctor kept the needle in a holding pattern until I could calm my body down, but I panicked, thinking that with every spasm I was pushing the instrument deep into the center of the tiny fetus. It became a vicious circle: my body terrorized, my mind petrified, my doctor unable to extract the fluid because it was too dangerous for him to proceed. He withdrew the needle and waited for me to calm down.
“I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to die,” I cried. I explained how I’d opted for a drug-free birth, and would do so daily in lieu of undergoing another round of CVS.
“You’re doing great,” he reassured me. “Take shallow breaths and we’ll get through this.”
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“Did I move the needle into the baby?” I felt like an idiot. My body, betraying me, my mind completely unable to ask an adult-sounding question.
“Nowhere near. I won’t go into the placenta until I know it’s okay to get in there.”
Jack said something I couldn’t understand, something about stopping and waiting to do amnio instead, but it sounded more like a question than a demand. The doctor said I’d be fine. Helpless, Jack pet my arm, frightened, and equally unprepared for the distress I was experiencing. The doctor reassured him that we were almost done. I knew better: I knew he’d have to start over.
Then he resumed, inserted the needle again, and I writhed as hard as before. I waited for the mind-over-matter pain management tactics to kick in. They may have; alternatively, I may have crossed over into complete submission, but whatever the case the doctor warned me I might feel a small cramp (which I did) then a pinch (exactly right) and then it was done. Eight minutes with the needle in waiting; 15 seconds to extract the fluid. He rushed off to screen the sample under the microscope and make sure he had what he needed.
The room fell silent. I wept.
“You’re all set,” he said happily. “We got it.”
I nodded, searching frantically in my purse for sunglasses to hide my eyes.
“Thank you,” I managed to utter. “I will never do this again.”
“You were great” he repeated.
I wept in the taxi home. I wept all afternoon in my bed. Jack tried to help but I refused to speak. The post-CVS cramping the doctor warned me about was virtually unnoticeable, except when the sobbing grew too rough. I forced down a small lunch and waited for sleep to come. Jack stayed by my side, apologizing for the whole experience as if any of it were his fault. I barely heard him. I had retreated inside.
They say human beings have a short memory for pain, that we can’t recall the sensation with any intensity that resembles the actual event. I disagree. My body feels like collapsing every time I recall the experience. I will never forget.
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