Three years ago, today, Banana Boy was born. His birth was traumatic for me, but I feel like I need to share what I wrote about it when he was about 2 months old. Yes, I sound bitter and angry because that's what birth trauma does.
"Spoiler Alert : I gave birth to a healthy baby boy via c-section.
Let
me start by saying that nothing went according to plan. NOTHING. That
doesn't mean I love my son any less. My feelings about my birth and my
feelings about my son are not the same thing. I can be thrilled beyond
all description that my son is here and healthy and still think it sucks
that he came into this world that way. I don't expect most people to
get that. I guess you have to have lived it.
Anyway, my plan was this:
- Go to the best OB in town.
- Be informed about my options and rights when it comes to interventions.
- Have a flexible birth plan based on having as few interventions as necessary.
- Prepare mentally, physically, and emotionally for a natural vaginal
birth. (Childbirth education, various relaxation methods learned from
the Internet..)
- Create a birth environment with minimal stress. (Low lights, few people, soft music)
- Have OB and hubby on board with said plan.
This was all for the sake of breastfeeding. There is no debate;
breast milk is far superior to formula. Period. The few interventions,
the greater the likelihood of success for exclusive breastfeeding.
From 16 weeks on, I measured 2-3 weeks ahead of date.
December 14, 2010. Parking lot after registration. First contractions. Very mild.
December
15 2010- January 9, 2010 Have contractions every day. Trying everything
imaginable (except castor oil) to get labor going. Small success with
"labor induction cookies" in late December. Contractions lasted for
about 4 hours then went away.
Monday, January 10, 2011
I
wake up with contractions about 5 minutes apart. At 9 a.m.We go to the
hospital because that's what you do at 5 minutes apart. We get hooked up
to the monitor. Baby's doing well. Contractions aren't very strong. The
nurse "can't find" my cervix. She proceeds to shove her fingers up me
like a sock puppet. IT HURT! Even though she "can't find" my cervix, she
declares me 2 cm and tells us to walk for two hours. We walk and walk.
We call my mom and let her know what's going on. We walk some more.
Nurse checks again. She "can't find it" but I'm "still 2 cm." We get
sent home. I'm ticked and sore. I contract all day. I try to sleep.
11
p.m. We're at my mother-in-law's. Contractions have been coming on
stronger but nothing crazy. 2 minutes apart. She advises we go to the
hospital. Hubby and I drive around for a bit to kill time. We get to the
hospital around 11:45. We get hooked up to the monitor again. Baby's
fine. I get checked again. 2 cm. We get told to walk for 2 hours and
then they'll check again.
1:30 a.m. We're walking and
walking. Out of nowhere, my contractions stop dead. Not slow down. Stop.
From every two minutes to nothing. I tell the nurse what happened. My
next OB appointment is 12 hours later, so we get sent home. Best night's
sleep I'd had in weeks.
Tuesday January 11, 2010
We
go to my OB. We get an ultrasound. The estimated size of baby is 9
pounds 11 oz. At this point my OB is "legally required to offer a
c-section." Ummm... knife? My baby? No thanks.
However, baby is getting bigger everyday (I'm eating over 3000 calories a
day and not gaining weight) and needs to come out sooner than later. We
schedule an induction for 7:00 a.m. the next day. My mom comes up that
night.
Wednesday January 12,2010 7:05 a.m.
We're
late for our induction appointment! ARG! Well, as it turns out, that's
okay because every pregnant woman in our city went into labor the night
before and every bed was full. (They'd called earlier, but we couldn't
hear the phone ring in our room and my mom didn't pick it up because she
didn't want to "invade our privacy" by answering our phone. ) They tell
us to go home and they'll call us when we can come back. We wait all
day. I'm stresses beyond stressed. This is NOT how my labor is supposed
to be, dang it! I'm the first one to snap. (I blame the hormones.)
Then Hubby kind of looses it. Mom breaks about 4 hours later as we're
sitting around the table playing cards and stress eating everything in
the house. We all start laughing for no reason, and it didn't stop. I
swear, if you walked in at that moment, you'd swear we were drunk.
5:30
p.m. We get a call from the hospital. Induction isn't going to happen
that day. We reschedule for the next morning. We watch
The Sword in the Stone to pass time. More stress eating.
Thursday January 13, 2011
My
mom wakes me up to tell me the hospital called. No reason to come in.
Another rush of pregnant ladies came in overnight. More waiting. I cry. I
just know something bad is going to happen! No. No. No. We're going to
get me to go into labor. More attempts. No go.
5:00
p.m. Dave went somewhere with his mother and of course, we get a phone
call from the hospital. Come on in! Typical, right? Good thing he wasn't
far away.
5:15 p.m. We're admitted. I change into the hospital
gown. I immediately begin to itch. Guess who's got sensitive skin and
having an allergic reaction? (Hint: ME!) I change back into the
undershirt I was wearing. The doctor comes in and explains what's going
to happen. I'll be stuck on every beeping machine they have. In my head I
hear all the reasons you're supposed to avoid that stuff. But I'm being
induced and it comes with the territory. (Maybe induction wasn't such a
good idea? But, of course, I never said that out loud.) The most
awesome nurse says to me, "You wanted to do this naturally, didn't you?"
"How'd you know?"
"Because you look like you're about to cry."
"This just isn't how it was supposed to be."
"I
know the feeling. But you're here now and I promise I'll do everything I
can to make this as close to what you wanted. Dare I ask your
preferences on pain management?" We giggled.
"Don't offer it to me unless I threaten your life." :)
5:45-ish
Pitocin is started. They tell me to try to get some rest. My MIL goes
home and my husband and mom lay down on the cot and bed-chair thing. I
stare off at the wall and cry a little.
5:55 I feel a
cold, wet spray. It tastes salty. I scream for my mom. I'd managed to
pull my IV out of my hand. It's dark. My mom feels it, but doesn't
notice the cold. She thinks I'm bleeding out. (It's actually kind of
funny in retrospect.) We call a nurse. She has to re-stick me. She tries
my left hand. Nope. Tries my left wrist. (OUCH!) No good. She tries my
right wrist. (Again, OUCH!) We got it! It's taped in good. We're sent
back to bed.
6:00-ish Hello contractions! It hurts but
nothing crazy. I wanted out of that bed, though. I call my mom over to
help me with the IV line. I get on the ball and breathe. My mom rubs my
back.
The next few hours are blurs of increasing pain,
me demanding my mom put hot packs on my lower back and trips from the
birthing ball to the toilet. (I peed 6 or 7 times that night.) The
"breathing techniques" we learned in childbirth education class did
squat. My mom taught me Lamaze breathing while I was IN LABOR. About
midnight the contractions got
INTENSE, one right
after the other. I thought I was going to die. The line that shows the
strength of the contractions on the monitor was peeking out at the very
top. At one point, I turned to my mom and asked why the h-e-double
toothpicks I hadn't just had the stupid c-section. Her response was
exactly what I needed. "Don't think about that. You need to focus on the
now. Not the past or the future. Just worry about right now, and right
now, you're doing awesome."
Around 3 a.m. I realized
that my contractions weren't doing anything. I could tell that the baby
wasn't lower. I had to shake that thought out of my head. I didn't have
time. I had breathing to do. All I can do is pray and visualize my
cervix opening and breathe.
5:30 a.m. I make a deal
with my cervix. If it will just dilate to 6 cm, I can handle the rest
naturally. If it can only dilate to 3 or 4 cm, I'll wuss out and get the
epidural. "You can do it," my mind tells my cervix." You can open
another centimeter before you get checked at 7."
7:30
a.m. (Friday) I get checked. Still 2 cm, and I'm less effaced than 12
hours prior. I'm broken. I'd break down and cry but I'm too busy
breathing through contractions. "Cut me," I think. One centimeter! My
cervix couldn't open one centimeter?! Seriously?! The doctor says that
they could break my water and see if that will help. Maybe put an
internal monitor in and see what's going on. "What's the point," I
think. "I've failed. Just cut me." I tell him, "No, it's time." The
nurse stops the Pitocin. I want everybody out except my husband. I cry.
We pray together.
The nurse and our moms come back in.
The Pitocin stops. I contract for another half hour or so. I sign the
forms. There's a woman ahead of us in the OR, so we wait. I get a shower
and get prepped for surgery. I put on the happy face. Yay, my baby's
being born. It's a facade. I'm devastated... inside.
11:15
a.m. I walk to the OR. The scrub nurses are prepping everything. I get
the spinal and go numb, physically and emotionally. As I lay on the
table, I look around and begin to see everything in terms of "That
shouldn't be that way." The bright lights should be dimmed; the beeping
machines should be soft music and encouraging words; the body, numb from
the chest down, should be up and moving to facilitate labor and instead
of lying on my back, I should be up, squatting or on my hands and knees
pushing my child out. It's all wrong!
11:49 a.m. My
son is born via c-section. He poops on the doctor and pees on the nurse.
They show him to me over the curtain, and some amniotic fluid drips into my mouth. My hands are tied, and I'm numb from the neck down, so I can't do anything about it. He weighs in at 10 pounds 6 oz.
and 21 inches long. I'm given some drug and I fall asleep while they
stitch me up. I see my son in recovery, but I'm really drugged up and
don't remember much of the next 3 days. I found out later that Hubby was
with him in the nursery for an hour because he had breathing trouble.
Maybe
a c-section is how Babyzilla needed to come into this world. Maybe he
wouldn't have been able to handle a vaginal birth. Maybe he would have
been fine if we'd waited for labor to start on its own again. Maybe I
have nobody to blame but myself. I don't have the answers to that, but I
do know that having that c-section changed me forever."
Shortly after I wrote this, I found ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network). That group was a God-send! 2 and a half years later, I'm still grieving.
