International Cesarean Awareness Network

I’m new to mommy-hood and new to ICAN.

Here’s my story:

We had been trying for 2+ years to get pregnant, and when we finally did, we were over the moon about it.  Like a lot of moms I hit the library and the internet to learn all about how to have a healthy pregnancy and birth.  After tons of research, my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a waterbirth at home.  We found a local midwife and got in touch with an OB who agreed to to be a back up if I needed to transfer to hospital care.  We went to Bradley classes and practiced good nutrition and healthy living.  I had a beautiful pregnancy with no complication (other than the typical heartburn and other pregnancy discomforts).  I had three ultrsounds and all of them showed a perfectly normal and healthy baby in head down position.   I spent my pregnancy developing a very deep amount of trust in my baby and in my body’s ability to give birth.  I never once questioned my ability to have a natural childbirth… and even got a little judgemental about people who opted for medical births.

So then 3 days after my due date, I woke up at about 1 in the morning with contractions I couldn’t sleep through.  Before my due date, I had a whole week of on and off prodromal labor.  But this was different…I knew this was the real thing.  At about 2:30 I woke my husband up and asked him to start timing the contractions.  They were coming about every 7 minutes and lasting about 45-60 seconds long.  After an hour or so of this we called our midwife and doula and my parents.  My midwife showed up at about 5 to check me.  At that point, the contractions were about 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each.  When she checked me, my baby’s head was so low that she had to push it to the side in order to feel my cervix.  I was only 2-3 cm dilated and about 90% effaced… so we knew I still had a ways to go. Labor progressed slowly, but steadily.  At midafternoon, the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and I was only at 4 cm… but y midwife said it was okay to go ahead and get in the birth pool.  For a few hours in the pool I felt like things were progressing well.  I don’t remember what time, but I do remember that I could feel my cervix and birth canal opening even more with each contraction.  My midwife checked again and I was close to 8 cm dilated.  This was probably early/mid evening.  When I got back in the pool, I felt like getting on all fours and doing some rocking motions… looking back on it, this was the point in time at which I stopped feeling like my labor was being productive.  I did the rocking thing for a while, then flipped back over again.  The contractions were getting stronger, but not any closer together.  After several hours of this, my midwife wanted to check me again.  I was still less than 8 and my baby’s head had moved back out of the cervix.  It was dark outside by this point and my midwife said that she thought breaking my water would be helpful and that she wanted me laying on my left side to help straighten things out.  We decided to go ahead with this route, but still to no avail.  The contractions were getting more and more painful… but they actually started spreading themselves apart.  For a few hours my midwife tried bracing my cervix while coaching me to push to see if we could get my baby to engage again.  Time kept on passing, even though I didn’t really notice anything but the pain and slept in between contractions.  At 2 AM the next morning, we decided it would be best to transfer to the hospital.  I was exhausted and nothing we were doing was helping me to progress toward delivery.  The trip to the hospital was an agonizing.  I struggled between not wanting to relax and breathe through the contractions (because I was afraid they would cause me to progress and have my baby on the side of the road) and not wanting to tense up (because I knew it would make the whole thing more painful).  We got to the hospital and after calling my back up OB signing a few papers, the nurses started an IV and gave me some stadol, which only helped between contractions.  My OB got there and as hard as I tried to focus on what she was saying, I was just too doped up on the stadol to be very aware of anything.  My OB at one point did come over and talk to me about what the plan was.  They were going to give me a spinal block and some pitocin to see if that would help me progress and increase my chances for a vaginal delivery.  They finally got the spinal going and it was heaven.  I could finally rest.  They started me on pit… and after an hour, I had made a little bit of progress.  I was officially at 8 and my baby’s head was a little lower.  The OB said to up the pit again and that she’d be back to check again in a couple hours.  So I did get a few hours of good sleep.  By the time she came back, the spinal was starting to wear off and the pitocin contractions were feeling about like my initial contractions that woke me up at the beginning of labor.  I knew just by the way I was reacting to those contractions that there was no way I was going to have the energy to have a vaginal delivery without another spinal or an epidural.  Anyway, when my doctor checked me again, I was still at an 8 and my baby’s head had backed up again just a little.  At that point the doctor recommended a c-section.  Because my baby’s heart rate was good, she gave me the option of laboring for another 5 or 6 hours… but after my husband and I talked, we decided to go ahead with the section.  I was so exhausted by that point… I had been in labor for 31 hours, without good progress… and my OB was not an intervention happy doctor who was suggesting a section just because it was easier for her.  So they got me all shaved and prepped and took my husband off so that he could scrub for the OR.  They wheeled me into this startlingly bright and sterile room and that was the point at which I started to get scared.  I had planned this wonderful, peaceful birth for my little boy an this cold environment was such a stark contrast to what I had looked forward to for 9 months.  They had me hunch over again and gave me another spinal block.  Then they stretched me out on the table.  I felt like an inmate going in for an execution because of the position they had me in.  They set up the drape to block my view of the surgery.  My husband came in and all I could say to him was, "I’m scared."  He said, "me too."  Then my doctor came in and let me know that she was about to get started.  I could hear the rest of the surgery team talking about personal errands and trips to the local Auto Zone.  I asked my husband to tell them not to talk about their personal business while they were delivering my baby.  He called a nurse over and a few seconds later, the room was unbelievably quiet.  I could feel my doctor tugging around in my abdomen… my shoulders were starting to hurt so I asked my husband to rub them for me.  A few minutes later, I heard my baby’s first cry.  And I started bawling and shaking uncontrollably.  I was happy to hear his cry because I knew it meant he was okay… but I was also very sad because this absolutely was not how I wanted the birth of my son to take place.  My doctor asked if I was okay… but I couldn’t give an answer.  They lifted my son over the curtain so I could see him briefly.  Then my husband left my side to go stay with our baby.  A few moments later they brought my bundled son to me.  I gave him a kiss and told him hello.  Then he and my husband left while the anesthesiologist gave me "something to help me relax" while they stitched me up.  Next thing I knew, I was in recovery and the nurse was telling me they were going to bring me my baby so that I could try and nurse him.  I was so excited to see my baby.  I couldn’t really believe that he was actually here.  The first nursing did not go well, because I was still so numb and "relaxed" from whatever that last drug was they gave me.  And according to the nurses, his blood sugar was too low… so they ended up cup feeding him formula and glucose.  Once I was back in my room with my husband and baby, everything was so surreal.  I did not feel like I had had a baby… and even though I was holding him in my arms and everyone was congratulating me, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was my child.  Also, I was extremely jealous of my husband who had gotten to spend the hour or so after our son’s birth holding him and bonding with him… while I had been laid up in recovery trying to ward off the effect of all the drugs.  Nursing got easier, though… and each time I breastfed my baby, I became more and more convinced he was mine and that I was a mommy.   However, the day after the surgery, I started to get these unbearable pains in my shoulder.  I was told they were pains from retained gas.  I couldn’t sit down and I could barely breathe.  So I spent hours walking around (which didn’t help my swollen feet) and not being able to nurse.  The nurses started threatening formula again, but I made them bring me a pump to see if I could get any colustrum out.  Luckily I was able to.  The doctor also added a muscle relaxer to my pain med cocktail and that made it easier for me to sit down and rest.  The next day, I felt much better and they discharged me.  The physical healing since then (almost 2 weeks now) has been okay… Any pain has been easily managed by meds… but the emotional healing is more difficult.  I feel very cheated by the fact that my labor was dysfunctional.  I frequently find myself feeling depressed because my son did not get the peaceful homebrth that I so depserately wanted for him.  People keep telling me just to be thankful that I have a healthy baby and that I am okay.  They don’t seem to understand that I can be happy about my baby, but incredibly sad at the same time over the loss of the birth experience I wanted.  I don’t feel like I had a baby and occasionally someone will comment about my giving birth… and then I have to correct them and say, "No, I didn’t give birth.  My doctor delivered me from my pregnancy by cutting my baby out of me."  This is how I feel.  My birth did not empower me at all.  I became a helpless sideline observer.  I feel almost like I attended some magic show… but instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, they pulled a baby out of my belly from behind a magic curtain.  Also, I’m now fairly terrified of the birth process in general.  I’m afraid that any future labors will turn out the same way.  It’s such a drastic change from where I was (emotionally speaking) before the birth.

I love my son… but I feel so cheated.  I can’t figure out anything that would have changed the outcome.  I feel like I did everything right, and yet I still ended up with a 6 inch incision across my lower abdomen.  It just doesn’t seem fair.