Silver Nitrate, A Cautionary Tale

At one of Jackson's first pediatric appointments, Dr. Judy asked me casually if I wanted her to put silver nitrate on his umbilical cord stub. She said it would help to remove it more quickly. Like any new (and ignorant) mom, I cheerfully agreed.

Very shortly thereafter, she asked me to help hold him still while she administered what looked to me like liquid silver (NOT mercury) onto his belly button with a cotton swab, swirling it around the base of the slowly rotting cord remains that once served to link my little dear to me and life-giving nourishment. Jackson squirmed some but he showed no signs of being bothered beyond a brief bout of crying before returning to his Mommy's embrace.

A side effect of the silver nitrate, she told me, was that he might have a temporary stain of silver on his navel. I could live with that. In a way, it was somewhat pretty. I would still need to exercise caution in keeping the recess clean with rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab.

Within a couple of days, sure enough, his umbilical cord had withered and fallen off, looking strangely identical to a raisin. I did not know what I wanted to do with it, so I set it on a shelf near his changing table and remained pleased that I would not have to expend extra care any longer in maneuvering clothing around the temporary appendage.

________________________________________

About two weeks postpartum, I asked Andrew to inspect my nethers to be sure that everything was going properly in the area. He had not been willing to look at my stitches previously, and I can't say that I blame him with the red ocean within me receding via my vaginal orifice. I had been too nervous to really investigate my healing progress for myself.

Andrew expressed some concern that the perineal area may not have been healing as it should and suggested I make a visit to have it expertly examined. I contacted the midwife group and arranged to meet one of the women, Jackson in tow. She took a quick peek and told me everything looked great--for someone who just gave birth to a 10lb baby two weeks prior.

________________________________________

Four weeks later, we couldn't wait any longer. I was due to get my 6-week postpartum exam by my midwife. Andrew and I had our first conjugal visit since the day I went into labor.

You might expect things to be loose after a woman has stretched to accommodate the exodus of another person. For me, this was not the case. I was tight. It was painful. Andrew said I felt like a virgin and jokingly commented that maybe we should wait 6 weeks every time between coitus. He is lucky that I'm a pacifist rather than a flying fist.

At my 6-week check-up, Shana (the midwife from the birth) examined me and declared all in order. She had me schedule my annual exam for July, prescribed me with the mini-pill (POP: progesterone only pill), and sent me out the door.

Sex continued to be painful, but it was fairly rare (too tired), and I had convinced myself that it was normal and would go away eventually. Or at least, I hoped so!

________________________________________

July. Shana was my examiner again. Something didn't look right. My stitched area had some extra (granulation) tissue. Where the flesh was trying to rejoin, a small pink tree of me-bits had formed and was hanging around the opening to my progeny hatchery. This was beyond the realm of midwifery, and she arranged for me to meet with an OB/GYN in the practice.

I had never been to a male gynecologist before, and I wasn't particularly thrilled when I learned that was to be a changed aspect in my life. Sabrina the Magic Doula and I had become friends, and though she was near to her own due date, she agreed to watch Jackson (who had begun cruising voraciously) in the waiting room while I showed my privates to yet another stranger--only this time, a man.

The triage nurse was rude despite my attempts at friendly conversation, reminding her how she had taught my newborn care class. Then she put me into a room and made to wait in a stupid paper gown. After a while of getting some time to feel humiliated and vulnerable, as well as scared and anxious about the unknown proceedings about to occur, the doctor finally arrived with a seemingly mute nurse in attendance.

He examined me roughly, taking little care for my comfort and seeming confused when I protested that what he was doing hurt. Dr. Oblivious finally came to the conclusion that he would help me with my little pink flesh tree. He explained what needed to happen to ameliorate the situation.

I was informed that he would need to cauterize the excess tissue. My response was, "You mean you need to burn my crotch?"

He responded in the affirmative and set to work before giving me a chance to decide if I were even ready or willing to have anything done to me that visit. While he sprayed some surface anesthetic he called Hurricaine onto my delicate lady bits, I immediately began to feel a burning sensation almost as though pins and needles were trying to work their way to the outside world from within my skin.

I was so focused on the pain of the anesthetic (ironic, I know) that I neglected to see how he cauterized the pink tree. Some part of me believed it was accomplished via some kind of surgical blow torch, though admittedly I have no recollection of the actual means employed at the time. Only a guess.

When I was done, I was told to come back the next week for a followup appointment. I felt like limping, though when the injury is where your legs connect, limping doesn't really do much good, does it?

Sabrina had her baby by then, and no one else was available to watch Jackson, so I had my little cruising baby strapped into his gargantuan stroller at my next visit. I waited an eternity again in the paper gown, this time with a little boy who was not at all thrilled about being confined. Finally, the same doctor with the same seemingly mute nurse arrived.

He remembered me, evidently, and when time came to examine me, he said, "The Crotch needs to come down a little further on the table." Shortly afterward, without consulting me, he independently decided that the Crotch hadn't endured enough pain by his hands, and Doctor Oblivious proceeded to Hurricaine and burn me yet again. Greeeat.

Only this time, I found out what he used to burn me: silver nitrate!

Was it agonizingly, unbearably painful? No. But it hurt, and it hurt for days! I decided then and there that I was not going to go back to that doctor, for one, and for another, I would be certain to remember the experience next time I was flippantly asked if I wanted silver nitrate put on my kid!

The good news in all this, I suppose, is that I haven't had any problems with stitches, pink trees, or burnt-area sex pain, nor has Jackson had any side effects of his belly button removal. But if I had it to do over again, I would just let nature take its course with the umbilical cord and be patient, rather than unnecessarily causing my dear little newborn son any more pain than necessary.

Let the burn victim beware..?

ToBP

Toward the end of the pregnancy, moms-in-waiting are encouraged to make more frequent visits to the OB/GYN or midwife.  During one such visit, the midwife I saw indicated that she wrote in my file that I was suffering from ToBP.

ToBP (or TBP) is a very common condition and nothing too serious--or at least, nothing anyone else takes seriously.  It's an acronym for Tired of Being Pregnant.

And she was right.  I was very tired of being pregnant.  I was also just very tired.  And sore.  And constantly having heartburn.  People kept telling me I would have relief once the baby "dropped".  Not so.  He was so large that it was almost indistinguishable when he did hang a little lower inside my belly.  And he kept kicking me.  Hard.

It's not unusual, therefore, for women to start feeling a little resentful of their wee one.  I began asking the little dear to hurry up and come on out, as I was sure he was sufficiently done cooking in the oven.

About a week before my due date, I wrote a diatribe denouncing all the "evils" of pregnancy that a woman experiences, even when things go perfectly well.  For example, the worse a woman's morning sickness, the better, they say.   (I kept track on a calendar of every time my nausea turned productive.  Jackson was VERY healthy.)

My conclusions then were somewhat superficial, though I still support them more than a year since:

1. Women deserve to be thanked for enduring an entire pregnancy, regardless of whether or not they were good parents afterward
2. The only reasons women willingly get impregnated subsequent to the first time are either induced by alcohol or the result of some form of amnesia, possibly both
3. The first child was probably the result of alcohol or amnesia, too

Sure, there are couples out there who naively seek to deliberately create their own temporary opaque human aquariums.  These people are also usually the ones who have a difficult time conceiving.  Coincidence?  I think not.  These types remind me of the beer called Celebration, put out by Sierra Nevada.

The back story:  A completely awesome group of people gathers each Saturday night at a house in Tampa.  One night, while I was a regular attendee, an unsuspecting member of our group purchased a 6-pack of Celebration.  He took a sip of his bottle and pronounced it foul and undrinkable.  Of the 10 or so of us there that night, nearly every one proceeded to then attempt to try a taste of something so putrid it needed to be experienced first hand.  A final assessment of Celebration deemed the flavor reminiscent of beer that had been regurgitated and strained through dirty pantyhose before being rebottled.  

"Oh, it's terrible!" 

"Let me try!"

Now, I'm not essaying to tell people not to have children.  Far from it!  But it's not all roses and sunshine.  For a year and a half, I never once slept a full night through.  For the first 6 months of Jackson's life, I spent a great deal of time wearing clothing covered in spit up, since he had reflux issues.  Conception, pregnancy, birth, and infancy are not for the delicate of manners.  They are gross.  Period.

And then...well, I have historically been a typical Floridian, feeling chill at 72F.  I used to keep my thermostat set to about 80F or 82F in the summer, and was quite fine with it.  However, the last month of my pregnancy was spent burning hot.  In December.  With the air conditioning running.  Poor Andrew, my darling husband, suffered manfully while I pushed the thermostat down to 62F at night, kicking off the blankets because it was sooo hot.

We were ready for Jackson to find the light at the end of the tunnel and venture forth into a brave new world.

Nice to meet you!

With my health insurance firmly established, I gladly began regular prenatal visits to a local midwifery group.  They are a WONDERFUL bunch of women!  The experience was far more relaxing than going to an ordinary OB/GYN and much more comfortable an atmosphere.  Finally the time came when they wanted to schedule me for an ultrasound.

On August 13, 2007, Andrew and I got to see our little guy for the second time--and learned that he had a dangler between his legs.  My midwife had suspected as much, based on his heart rate, but the little tripod images we saw onscreen confirmed things:  we were having a boy!

We were really excited and pleased to be told that all his parts were in the right places and developing properly.  By that point I was 21 weeks pregnant, and Kippy (Jackson's in utero name) was 3 weeks large for his gestation.

The tricky part was that Andrew and I had found names challenging for us when it came to boy names.  Girl names were easy enough, and we had 2 selected with coordinating middle names.  Kippy's male designation forced us to work very hard at finding a suitable name for our little alien invader.

We had begun calling him Kippy from the start as I learned of my pregnant status shortly after a unique encounter with a local vagrant of sorts.  Known around my home town of Palm Harbor as "the Can Man," this ragged bicyclist would travel around collecting aluminum cans in his bike basket, presumably to generate money for his beer fund.  Only a few hours before I tested positive for having an inner child, I had worked up sufficient nerve to ask the Can Man's name.  He very shyly had responded, half-hiding behind his long blond mane and ball cap, that his name was Kippy.  So, Andrew and I decided the name was appropriate until we knew what we would really call our future munchkin.  After all, the original Kippy was an avid recycler (like me) and was silently trying to help the world around him by ensuring aluminum was not wastefully discarded.  Riding a bicycle around town (though probably a DUI-cycle in reality) was both giving him regular exercise and saving on carbon emissions that a motorized vehicle would have produced.  What better role model could our child have?

So after we saw his dangler, Andrew and I worked long and hard to choose a name that would fit our offspring.  He had to have a solid, strong name, since he had no chance of being tiny.  Eventually we discussed the idea of naming him John and calling him Jack.  There were a few problems with this, though.  One, his middle name was certainly going to be Edward, and our last name is Adams.  John Edwards was running for democractic candidacy for the office of president, and John Adams was already the name of two past presidents.  We did not want to overstate his possible future attainments before he was even born.  Secondly, the name was too bland, too generic.  He would not be "google-able".  The final problem was that Jack was already a nickname of mine.

When I was born, my sister was only 18months old, so she could not say Jessica.  Her initial attempt, Jecca, morphed over time until Jacka and finally Jack became a name to which I would willingly respond.  This would not be so troubling except that my niece and nephew only have two aunts, both named Jessica (it was SUCH a popular name!), so to differentiate between us, they have always known me as Auntie Jack.

Tossing ideas around some more, we settled on Jackson Edward Adams.  This did not eradicate the excessive presidentiality of his name, but it didn't have to do so.  My darling husband, Andrew, shares a birthday with former president Andrew Jackson, for whom he was named.  Jackson is my son, therefore the son of "Jack".  The name seemed fitting and was suitably strong and was not a particularly popular name--or so we thought.

As it turns out, Jackson had been rapidly gaining in popularity as a first name, placing as the #36 name for boys in 2006 and #33 in 2007.

Surprisingly, we've also frequently received the response, "That's a good, Southern name" quite often.  Who knew?  Though it appears to be a fairly common mid-western name as well.

Back to the ultrasound.  Andrew and I are geeks.  I don't mean we go about biting the heads off birds.  We just are willing to recognize that there are some things we obsess over that others don't (like finance and budgeting).  Within 5 hours of having the goop spread over my belly and watching Jackson suck his thumb in utero, we had ripped the DVD of the sonogram into an Internet-ready video file, added some Dido music, burnt some CDs, uploaded the show to Veoh, and emailed the link to everyone who might care enough to open an email from us.

Experience the thrill for yourself!  

(The text that appears onscreen says "Boy!!!" and the arrow points to the indicator.)