Both here and gone

There are still 2 heartbeats.  I hear the number 136.  They are still alive and "well".  And yet they're not.  But they really, really want to be and refuse to display signs of anything else.  Oh god that makes this so much harder.  I desperately want it to be true that they are ok, and yet I'm also wishing that they could already be gone so I don't have to experience this in real time.  I just want this to be over one way or the other and they won't let it be.

And it's agony to wish them both dead and alive at the same time.  How can I possibly wish them to be gone?  How selfish is it to wish that I could just be told it's over rather than to have to go through the experience of desperately trying to keep them alive and ultimately failing?

I'm still in somewhat heavy labor at this point.  And I'm thinking if I can't hold them in, they will die.  But if I can hold them in, there's still hope.  And oh my god how I despise hope.  And no matter how much everyone is trying to say it's not my fault, I might have to experience my body killing my girls.

If they were DOA when I got to the hospital, I wouldn't have to experience the hope.  I wouldn't have to experience the moment of failure.

The nurse/doctor/I don't know who is there, is asking me how I deal with stress and pain so I can do that (since I won't do the Lamaze breathing to calm me down) and I tell them that I'm doing it, I narrate.  I don't know what information is relevant to a doctor and since I'm the only person who can convey the physical sensations, I just keep narrating so that no relevant little detail is missed.  That's the pragmatic side of me.  Do everything I can to be of assistance to those who are attempting to assist me. 

I've always been the person that you want around in an emergency.  I've experienced emergencies on another persons behalf and no matter how scared or stressed I was in the situation, I'm able to think pretty clearly, get done what needs to get done, and get the person through it.  I tend to freak out and panic after the actual emergency is over and it's safe to do so.  And I'm doing my best to be that same person now on my own behalf.

But the downside to this coping strategy is that K has to listen to it.  I don't want him to know how much pain I'm in but the doctors need to know so I need to say so.  Which means he not only had to watch what was happening, but he had to listen to it being described in minute detail, all while having no ability to do anything about it.  And the whole time, I know that I'm inflicting this on him and I don't want to do that.  But I have no choice.  So now I'm hurting and I'm hurting him in the process.  K is a protector, a fixer.  Every instinct he has is to make it better, and I know full well that there's not a damned thing he can do.  And that's his personal hell through all of this, and I'm actively inflicting it on him.

I'm given a shot in the arm of something that is supposed to stop the contractions.  What I had felt in my vaginal canal and my fingers is one of the sacks.  It has been trying to push itself out of my body.  And I'm still coughing in my throat and trying not to allow that cough into my abdomen.

The shot begins to take effect and there are a couple more sets of contractions but they get progressively lighter and more tolerable.  They finally stop altogether.  I'm on a bed, reclined backwards in an attempt to allow gravity to gently pull the sack back into my body.

And now we wait.