I've taken to bed

As one does

Apr 25, 2026

I've taken to bed, as one does.

Due to my hip dysplasia from childbirth, my stuff gets rearranged down there sometimes…Around my sacral area. It completely fucks me up when it happens. Today it was right as I was walking out the door to take my son to the school for their band trip. Just a right step forward and just enough pressure on my right side as I bore my weight down. Twisted. Screamed out in pain and would have fallen down if it wasn’t for the table near the door. It scared my son shitless.

I hobbled out the door and I managed the 10 minute round trip.

I got home and tried doing the normal stretches and it fucked me up worse. Can’t walk. Can’t sit down on the toilet without pain that brings tears to my eyes. I have a high pain tolerance. I had an unmedicated child birth. That was a 6. This is a 9. I never cried from the pain when I was giving birth. The tears came as I was shown my baby for the first time.

It’s crazy to me how the stretching of one’s self from the inside can do so much damage. He wasn't ready. But he was so big. Doc said I could try but when he tells me it's time to cut him out, to listen. I agreed on inducement. He was the third doctor and the only one I didn't fire. I often wish I would have waited until he was ready, but this thought is always followed by the realization something could have happened to him if I would have waited.

I had fired my original doctor after he told me that I needed to schedule a C-section. I was 5 1/2 weeks along. I was naive enough to listen to him. That is, until I watched The Business of Being Born., and learned why doctor's schedule C-sections. The physician, Se. Edmond, who delivered Arlo was one of the doctors that I had scheduled an interview with after I fired the sketchy one. He was late getting back to me and another doctor had won me over. I'll never forget the moment he called me, himself. Not his secretary or nurse to talk to me about meeting for an interview. I was 5 or 6 months in and working in a hospital delivering IV pumps to patients rooms or nursing stations and picking up the soiled ones to sanitize them and stock. I was cleaning a cart full of said pumps when I got the call.

“Thanks for calling me back, but I settled on Dr. Raven”.

“She's a fine doctor. But, Fiona, if anything happens, and you need me, don't hesitate to reach out to my office. It doesn't matter at all to me how far along you are. I'll be there.”

I was dumbfounded. I called my then husband to tell him about it. I had never had a doctor treat me with such respect since my early childhood pediatrician. My ex suggested I call him back. I wish I had.

Fast forward:

He was 1 week late, no contractions. Still happily loved inside my belly. I was feeling good. My happy self waddled into my check up. At that point they were weekly. As the ultrasound tech moved the nodule around on my swollen belly, I told her about my plans for an unmedicated birth. She started making a clicking sound with her mouth. “I shouldn't be telling you this, but I feel like I need to warn you. Your baby is pretty big. And you're already a week over. He's only going to get bigger. When Dr. Raven sees these images, she's going to want to schedule a C-section.”

I was prepared for this moment and told her I'd be fine. I sat down with my asshole ex and prepped him for what to say in case she pulled out the C word.

We had watched all the films and read all the books. We had a birth plan. He promised me he would remain strong.

Dr. Raven pulled up a chair close and faced the both of us.

“I'm not going to sugarcoat this.” She held up the image of my fat baby. “Your baby is too big and if we don't schedule a C-section, your baby could die.”

I was appalled. I knew she might get a little pushy, but he callousness took me by surprise. I started to tell her no but my ex said, “can you give us a little while to think about it?”

Now I had two people to be pissed at. We went to eat at a locally famous Mediterranean restaurant and sat outside on the patio. We ate in silence for several minutes. As I started to shove a ranch dipped fry into my mouth, my ex said “If you don't schedule this C-section, and something happens to my son, I will never forgive you.”

My mouth dropped open. I was stunned, then tears began rolling down my face. I called her office and told them to schedule it. Wednesday the following week, they were going to paralyze me and cut my baby out.

I took to bed, as one does.

After 2 days of sobbing in said bed, and constantly texting my doula, she called. She told me to call my husband in the room. I put her on speaker. “You need to call and get a second opinion from a different doctor. What she's referring to is shoulder dystocia and the increased risk in infant mortality rate that she failed to tell you about, was 0.01”.

He agreed and she went with us. The doctor who had said he would always be there for me if I needed him, was not at work. We met with his partner. My doula asked the questions.

Doula: How many years have you been delivering babies?

Doc: 35

Doula: How many cases of shoulder dystocia have you seen?

Doc: 5

Doula: With injury?

Doc: 1

Doula: With death?

Doc: 0

Doula: In your experience, how many of those babies were considered big?

Doc: 0…and listen, I don't think you need to schedule a C-section. But I don't think you need to wait either. Your baby is only going to get bigger. You need to be admitted and go ahead and get induced.

I asked if Dr. Edmond was on call and it turns out, he was. She walked out and walked back in with the doctor on speaker.

“Hello, Fiona. Doc is right. You need to go ahead get some pitocin. I see no reason why you can't have this baby naturally. You're going to try at least.”

So I did. I fell asleep with a steady drip of pitocin. The next morning with no progress, they increased the dose. That night they gave me a break and my sister brought me a Mccalisters baked potato and a giant strawberry cake slice from Edgar's. The next day they tried the balloon catheter and they broke my water. After that is when the pain came. My sweet mother-in-law made a song up about feeling the pain in my butthole when I asked if that was normal. We all laughed while I bounced on a ball.

My shithead ex who I realize now had probably relapsed under the guise of all the stress he was under, kept disappearing and claimed a crisis in the throws of my laboring. He almost went to the emergency room because he couldn't pee.

My mom was pissed.

But we were both pissed at her because she kept asking the RN to give me drugs.

That didn't excuse him going off on her in a narcissistic tirade in the parking deck, making her cry.

She did not dare ask the nurse again though. That's the kind of effect abusers have on their victims.

The nurse was panicking because they were having trouble finding a heartbeat because the baby was too far down in my cervix and he had gotten stuck. It didn't mean he wasn't breathing but she just couldn't get to him. I felt that bearing down feeling every one had told me about. The nurse told me not to. She said I had to wait. She kept saying “don't you dare push”. It took everything I could not to start pushing. The doctor had to check first.

At 12 something Saturday, March 3rd, 2012, my doctor came in to examine me. My body was spent. I was passing out in between contractions. But I was only effaced on one said. 100 percent on one side, 0 on the other. I had not progressed a fraction of a centimeter in 3 hours. I only got to 6.5. But looked how happy I was then! 🤣

I couldn't move my body. If I did, it would have been to push. I was fighting through the contractions in the most uncomfortable way. He snapped off his surgical gloves. “It's time, Fiona. You really did a great job but your baby isn't moving. He's too far down and we got to get him out before he goes any further and gets stuck.”

I said yes. I didn't hesitate. My doula whispered in my ear that I could agree to an epidural instead and that may help with the effacement. But I had given my word to the doctor, and I owed him. I was ready. “It's okay”, I whispered back.

The doctor that helped us avoid the scheduled C-section assisted Dr. Edmond with the emergency C-section. They gave me a local block. I had a contraction right as they put the needle to my back and they told me I could not move an inch or I could be paralyzed. You try to have a contraction while not moving one fucking centimeter. (It's actually pretty easy when the alternative is paralysis.)

My ex husband is the only person besides the medical staff who has seen inside my guts. The doctor pointed out a little mark inside of my uterus that he said was like a birthmark, but that occurs during gestation as the organs are forming. Not everyone gets one. I felt so special.

Before I got to see my baby, a nurse walked over to me and held out her hands in a large circle. The look on her face was pure shock. “Your baby’s head is 16.5 inches…16.5 and a half!”

No wonder he wouldn't move.

My doctor told me that evening, as he leaned up against a ledge near my bed. “You had a natural child birth, and you had a C-Section. Your body went through a natural birth. And it went through a C-Section. I want you to know you did it. And I am proud of you for trying. When you get ready to have another baby, you'll have a V-BAC.”

I cried.

My ex husband kept passing out on the couch while we were staying at the hospital. He was trashing up the room. I cried. My wonderful nurse yelled at him.

I cried in embarrassment.

I couldn't get enough milk out of my tits. I had been refusing to supplement. Every lactation nurse that came in gave me conflicting advice from the last.

As we were leaving, a nurse grabbed my finger and put it on my son's tongue. “Do you feel how dry that is? Your baby is dehydrated. You need to give him a bottle.”

I cried in heartbreak as I gave my son his first supplemental bottle.

I cried 8 months later when he got hand foot and mouth and stopped nursing. The little bit of milk I had dried up.

I wanted a big family, full of kids. But the subsequent relapse of my ex and his abuse and the divorce that followed, changed that. When I did finally meet someone I wanted to have a baby with, I ultimately decided I couldn't. I was older, geriatric in the obstetrical world, and the toll Arlo’s birth had taken on my body was too great.

I was in great shape before. 3 months after he was born I was in the emergency room…all twisted up. Ortho doc said herniated disc. The first physical therapist I had seen started feeling around on my hips and said that it was a form of dysplasia. The herniation comes from the imbalance.

I also was given a little extra gift. A nerve damaged spot on my left shoulder blade: Nostalgia Parasthetica.

Despite all of it, I wouldn't trade a thing. Not the pain. Not the 8 years of abuse and narcissism before his birth that I endured, not the dreams I gave up to marry his fucktart dad. I would have taken it all on and more to be his mom, and I would do it all again to be able to go back to that day when I first met him.

He slept through the night his first night home. We had to wake him up to feed him. My sister jokingly said “you aren't a mom because you don't have a real baby.” I knew she was joking and also, it felt good. I knew she now had something to finally be jealous about. My brother and sister both had all girls but my sister had one son, her first. She told me, “I knew you'd have a son cause you always have to be different than everyone else.”

When his photographer came over to my house to do his newborn pictures, she said, “out of all my years of doing this, Arlo is the most aware newborn I have ever experienced. He is seeing much more of this world than most newborns do and he's already curious.”

When he was a few months old, the pediatrician made him cackle when he examined his stomach. The cackle surprised him. He did it again. He looked into my son's eyes and my son stared right back at him, a giant grin on his little face. Before he stood up straight, he looked at me and said, with a gleam in his eye, “Your baby is a perpetually happy baby.”

I accepted this without any doubt. Because deep down, I already knew. My baby was a perpetually happy baby. I accepted it as prophecy. As truth. As a blessing. And it has been the truth. He is the greatest gift of all. He is a perpetually happy baby.

Today, I'm fucked. I can't move without being in excruciating pain. Every time I have to pee, I am brought to tears with each effort I make to get out of bed, to walk to the bathroom, to sit down, and then being on the toilet is the worst. My poor husband is having to endure the cries of my suffering as I grip the toilet paper roll with one hand and the wall with the other. I don't care what he says, next time I'm peeing in she shower.

He's been wonderful. He's grown into a nurturer-a caregiver- over the years. He wasn't always like that. He's learned he can receive enjoyment from taking care of someone else. And he's good at it. Not annoying, just sufficient.

My mom sent some good drugs. My husband had lunch and dinner catered and brought me lunch to bed. He put my sweet tea in my big sippy cup so I don't have to sit up to drink it. I am in one position. When I move, it hurts. My husband has been bringing me fruity ice pops as an ice pack. Surprisingly effective.

I have learned recently about a surgery that would set my hips in place with a screw. I'll look into it. But I'm sure what will happen is that I'll hobble into my chiropractor office in tears and come out slightly less twisted and move on until the next time.

I could help prevent this, if I changed some things. I need to be doing core workouts every day. When I was in the best shape of my life, it would happen, but it didn't happen as much. I need to be using my standing desk. I need to spend less time on my phone and more time moving my body.

I could say I'm going to do that. But I won't make any promises.

I've got some work to do today. A friend and I have a special surprise for you, to be released tomorrow. I'm gonna try to sit up a little and do some voice overs.