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Rough Beginnings: An inspirational story of breastfeeding
By Adele M. Borkowski
I was in the labor room for 12 hours, trying to induce myself with all of the natural methods but not getting anywhere, so he decided that Pitocin was the way to go. At that point, I agreed. The Pitocin started out easy enough. I got contractions, but nothing unmanageable, and figured that if they kept it up at the rate we were going, I'd do fine. Then the doctor (unbeknownst to us) decided to crank up the Pitocin, because he felt that it was taking too long. As soon as the nurse followed his order, the pain hit!
I was still trying to get through without an epidural, so when the nurse offered me Demerol which "would take the edge off" I accepted. They administered the Demerol, and, as I said to my husband at the time, now I was still in pain, but dizzy and angry. So I finally consented to an epidural, because it seemed that there was no relief between contractions. As is the way of the world, the second that I got the epidural, I had to push. Pushing took 20 minutes at the absolute longest, and there was my beautiful baby boy! I immediately brought him up to my breast and tried to feed him, but apparently the Demerol made him dizzy and angry, too, because he didn't really do anything. At that moment, the nurses swept him away saying, "The Demerol has him to sleepy to nurse, so we'll just do our tests and then give him back to you."
On and off for the next two days I tried to get him to nurse but we always had difficulty. He usually just fell asleep. I was released from the hospital on Friday, but told to go to a clinic that Sunday to get his bilirubin level checked because he was slightly jaundiced.