I’ve given birth twice now, and both times were completely different from what I had imagined.
Photo by Olivia Gray Photography
My pregnancy with Lil Washi three years ago was fairly uneventful. I was terrified the whole time after having two miscarriages, but the pregnancy itself went really smoothly. At my 39 week appointment, everything was going along just fine. I felt fine, the heartbeat sounded good. I did mention, offhand, that the baby seemed to be moving around a bit less than he had been. It wasn’t something I was concerned about in the least – I had read many times that babies tend to slow down as they get bigger and more constricted in the womb. But my doctor decided to do a quick ultrasound to check on things anyway.
I was pretty shocked when the doctor came in to talk to us after the ultrasound and told me to go check in at the hospital. During the ultrasound I could see that the baby was moving around a bit and the heartbeat was good, so I assumed things were just fine. It turns out the baby’s cord was wrapped around his neck and the fluid in the amniotic sac was too low. My doctor’s office is actually attached to the hospital so my husband and I walked next door and the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and monitors. According to the monitors, I was already having contractions although I hadn’t felt anything. It was early evening by this time, so they started me on a low dose of pitocin and my IV drugs for strep B and I settled in for the night.
The next morning, I still hadn’t really made any progress, so the doctor broke my water. And then not a whole lot happened. They increased the pitocin. I got an epidural. There was one moment when the fetal monitor showed distress but the nurses ran in and when I turned back to my other side, everything was fine. My epidural stopped working after awhile and they increased it.
And after basically 24 hours on pitocin, I was still only dilated to a 5. My doctor started talking about a c-section. I really didn’t want a c-section. I had seen so many statistics about how they are overused in the United States and about how both moms and babies who have a vaginal birth do better. And while I realized c-sections save lives, this really didn’t feel like a life or death kind of situation. The doctor and I agreed to wait another hour and then reevaluate.
After another hour, I had made zero progress. (Although my epidural had worn off yet again.) I agreed to the c-section.
It didn’t go quite as planned. The epidural stopped doing its job. I really didn’t want to be put to sleep even though I was really hurting, but the anesthesiologist made the call to have me put under anyway. So I was asleep when my baby was born. My husband also wasn’t there – he was kicked out of the room when I was put to sleep.
When I finally came to, a few hours later and was allowed my first groggy look at my sleepy newborn, I was told his umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck, not once, but four times!
Poor little guy was super swollen at birth.
At first I was pretty disappointed with how things had gone. I hadn’t truly been present for my baby’s birth and my recovery from the surgery was really hard. But eventually I realized how lucky I was that things had gone so smoothly. It may not have been the birth of my dreams, but it was the birth that allowed my son to be born safely. And absolutely nothing is more important than that.
guest
And that’s the power of modern medicine. Both my births ended in c-section, both turning into emergencies, both not how I wanted, and one under general anesthesia. BUT, they were kind of how I wanted, with a healthy baby. And often my husband will say, if this had been 100 years ago, it probably wouldn’t have ended as smoothly. And with that, I have to let go of the plans I had, and hold onto what I have now, two lovely, healthy baby boys.
GOLD / apricot / 341 posts
I’ve had three un-planned Cs (two emergency, one just earlier than the scheduled surgery). With our first, I asked my OB what would have happened if I was giving birth away from the possibility of a c-section and she replied with certainty that we both would have died. Of course that put things into perspective for me in a big way and of course I am super grateful that everything went so well for me and my babies in so many ways. But I also think it’s ok to have those feelings of relief and gratefulness in addition to less positive feelings about how the birth went. I certainly do. I’m really disappointed not to have experienced un-medicated, vaginal birth. It sucks to have felt so much like a bystander in the birthing of my babies. Those are valid feelings too. I think when we come out of it with a healthy baby in our arms, we so often hear how the only thing that matters is that we have a healthy baby. But feelings matter too, and I think it’s unhelpful to be told time and again to just push those conflicted feelings aside and focus on the outcome. It’s ok for all the feelings to exist side-by-side.
On another note – your baby is lovely. Well done you!
blogger / cherry / 222 posts
@Mini Piccolini: Well said. I am incredibly glad to have my babies in a place where surgery and other interventions are possible. But you are right, it is okay to feel disappointed in how things turned out as well. Of course, the most important thing will always be that my sweet baby was able to be born safely.
guest
Thank you so much for this post! I also had an emergency CS under GA and always felt terrible about missing that moment where mom and dad meet the baby they created together for the first time. Dad met LO while I was knocked out on the table. But I also forget to think about what might have happened and be grateful for what did.