I started writing the story of the birth of my son soon after his birth. The past year has been an emotional ride of physical and mental recovery along with adapting to motherhood. In anticipation of our little guy’s first birthday, I’ve finally pushed myself to finish documenting our experience and decided it’s time to share. Below is a lengthy account of our story.

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I found out I was pregnant at 4 am on an early December morning (Word from the unwise: DON’T take a pregnancy test at 4AM! There’s no way you can possibly go back to sleep!). Our dog, Nado, knew before we did, leaving us suspicious until the test showed two pink lines. I starting taking my prenatal vitamins and eating healthier diligently which wasn’t easy over the holidays! While I had some nausea and a few food aversions, the pregnancy went relatively smoothly. While still in the first trimester, I’d have dreams about my baby’s birth. The handful of dreams I had throughout the pregnancy always had a smooth, low pain birth leaving me feeling prepared, relaxed, and ready for the big day. I had witnessed my brother’s birth when I was 10 years old and numerous animals’ births including goats, lambs, calves, and puppies throughout my years growing up on a farm. I thought I was as prepared as anyone could be before I even opened my first pregnancy book.

I wanted to have as natural of birth as possible. I have never liked taking medicine due to the reactions I have gotten the few times I’ve taken various medicines. I wanted as holistic approach to childbirth as I could afford. I knew my birth options were legally limited in Alabama but I was aware of the option to drive to Tennessee (thanks to a friend’s experience) and have a midwife attended home birth there. (See Alabama Birth Coalition for more on the fight to improve maternity care options in Alabama.) Due to my husband’s hesitation on driving while in labor, the limitations of coverage due to my student insurance during most of the pregnancy and constant concerns by family and friends, “What if something goes wrong?”, I choose to give birth in the hospital. A hospital that did not have a great record of intervention free births…

I should have hired a doula but I didn’t. It wasn’t necessarily the money. I was just stubborn. I thought everything would go smoothly like my dream.

I’m shorter (5′ 1″) so I thought my baby would run out of room and not wait until 40+ weeks. Boy was I wrong. My doctor checked me at 37 weeks as I was as curious as she was. Nothing. But that wasn’t surprising considering this was my first pregnancy. 40 weeks came and went with my sister having her baby a few days early on my due date and my baby staying cozy in my belly. I had Braxton Hicks contractions off and on since 29 weeks but nothing close to labor. I had tried almost every old wives tale in the book to help things along. At 41 weeks, my doctor checked me again and I still wasn’t even close. She couldn’t even swipe my membranes to help me along if I wanted! I agreed to a stress test and ultrasound to see how baby was doing to see if we’d let the pregnancy go longer though I was pushing up against a holiday weekend. Labor Day would be 42 weeks so I knew it would be difficult to convince her to let me continue to that point. Stress test came back so-so. I think partly because they had me hooked up for 20 minutes before they realized they weren’t even recording! The doctor and tech concluded from the ultrasound that I was low on amniotic fluid. I was told that average is between 5 and 25 cm for that stage of pregnancy and I was at 3. I asked them to show me on the monitor and it made sense based on their reasoning at the time. The concerned looks on their faces told me it would be hard to fight their advice of inducing the next day. (Since the birth, I’ve read an article that discussed whether or not the way doctors assess fluid levels has any real scientific backing and accuracy.)

The next 30 hours were filled with finishing last minute tasks and trying to rest which was near impossible knowing I’d be meeting the little one inside of me soon! At about 5:15 the following evening, Chris and I walked into the hospital for our medical induction. I did not want to be induced but I was told there was a medical reason so I reluctantly agreed for the health and safety of our baby. (Doctors like to make a mother second guess her gut by scaring her of what could happen to the baby.) By 7:10 pm, the nurse had inserted the Cervidil to help soften my cervix. We were preparing to get settled in for the night and hopefully be fully dilated by the morning and have a baby. I was told some women have contractions right away with Cervidil and with others it may take a bit. Chris went to the car to get his bag and by the time he got back I was in the middle of a 5 minute long titanic contraction. One of the main side effects listed for Cervidil is uterine hyperstimulation. I definitely experienced that. Lucky me! The contractions came down from 5 minutes but instead of being a 60-90 second contraction they could last up to 2 minutes or so and sometimes were bimodal with no break in between. Chris kept an eye on the monitor, “It looks like it’s decreasing.” But often it would crank up again. Definitely exhausting. Add that on to the fact it was the end of the day and neither of us had slept well the night before and we were getting tired quickly.

They finally let me get up after about 2 hours. I was tethered to the monitors with my requests for intermittent monitoring denied with the exception of my numerous bathroom trips. I would get so frustrated because I would have a contraction when I was detached to go to the bathroom so when I reconnected to the monitors, the sensors had moved. The nurses would come back in after a couple minutes saying how they were having a hard time getting measurements and tell me I needed to lie down. I just needed the sensors put back on the right spots, which kept changing when the little one would move! I went from standing to rocking on the birth ball to resting in bed when we both needed a break. I played music to relax. We tried to watch TV to distract us. I remember we couldn’t figure out how to turn the TV sound on. We, of course, had The Weather Channel on to watch the coverage of Hurricane Isaac as it made landfall. Had we not been pregnant we would have likely been deployed with our research group in the storm. Soon we were watching the sunrise over the mountain and the start of another long day.

The doctor’s plan was to monitor me all night and start Pitocin at 6am. (I learned they like having patients attached to the monitors because my doc could monitor me from her iPhone at home!) My plan was to pray that my body could get going on its own and we could avoid Pitocin. I slept for a couple minutes at a time during the night. They took the Cervidil out at one point so my body could try on its own. My contractions slowed for a couple minutes apart to about 8 minutes or so. This allowed me to get some rest but didn’t help towards our goal of the day: a baby. Morning came; however, there was little progress.

I managed to delay Pitocin until noon as I only got to 2 cm at best. I call Pitocin the drug from hell and I’m sure others agree with me. There is no other way to better describe it. They started me off on a low dose since I worried about my reaction to any medication. Within 10 minutes or so of starting the Pitocin IV drip I started throwing up. I was tired and felt like crap and frustrated beyond belief that nothing was going how I wanted it to. I told Chris I was done. I wanted off Pitocin and leave my body to do what it was supposed to know how to do. I wanted the wires and IVs off of me. He went to find a nurse and came back with my doctor. While I know now I had a choice, I was made to feel I had no choice and was forced to concede and continue. I gave in.

They upped the Pitocin every 45 minutes. I was getting nowhere fast. About 5pm, I was now at the basic dose of Pitocin. I had to go to the bathroom (again!) and in the process I threw up from the increased dosage (at least that’s my story). I lost my mucus plug at that point and made it to 5 cm. Progress! The doctor broke my water in hopes of speeding things along. They expected to see meconium but there was none. There was very little fluid which is the only physical support I have to hold on to that the doctors ultrasound observations were on target. Of course by that point, I had been in labor for 22 hours and was also likely dehydrated from throwing up and not drinking enough water. Since they were having issues getting the babies heart rate, they inserted an internal monitor. Check off another thing against my birth plan wishes.

About this time, a couple friends arrived to help my husband support me. They took turns coming in helping me work through each contraction. One of the great things my husband did initially was come up with a visualization to get me through the contractions. We walked almost every day of the pregnancy and as we would come back into the neighborhood from the greenway there is a slight hill. At the end of the pregnancy I would use mailboxes and driveways as a stepping stone to get back home. So he would walk me up the hill as I worked through the contractions making up random stories about our dog’s actions as we went. It was really sweet and really did help.

At 7 pm I just couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I was just going to burst open from the pain of the contractions that were never ended. I kept saying, “My uterus is just going to burst!” My friend encouraged me, “Let’s get through another hour. You can do this.” She had two pregnancies end in c-sections and she knew how much I didn’t want a c-section. I don’t know if she knows how much I appreciate her being there to help! At 8pm, I hadn’t progressed much and felt I couldn’t do it much longer. I wanted to avoid an epidural so they gave me Nubain to take the edge off. It helped for maybe 30 minutes but it allowed me a little rest. They gave me another dose about 930 or 10pm which did nothing. By 11pm, I knew my chances of a C-section were increasing every hour. I consented to the epidural in hopes it would help my body rest and allow me to have my child vaginally even though I had all the interventions I didn’t want. The epidural went smoothly and I was able to rest for several hours. I was checked at 4 or 5am and was told I was about 9cm. So close! My doctor was set to go off-shift for the Labor Day weekend at 7am. She came in and checked me and I was at 6cm, had a “fever” of 99.3 or something, and was told baby wasn’t handling the contractions as well anymore. I knew what that meant and I was crushed but exhausted and ready to be done. She said it was time to get baby out. As I started crying, Chris asked if we could have a couple minutes to talk about it. The doctor who was relieving my doc said,” No we need to get moving on this.” My doctor said we could have a moment but they would start getting things going to move forward with the c-section. I just cried which in turned stuffed me up. Chris cried. I laid there defeated as nurses bustled around prepping me for surgery. I felt like I had failed. I let my baby down. Almost everything I desired and wrote on my birth plan had been crossed out. I have yet to go back and look at the plan to see if anything stayed intact.

At 8:08am, as I lay on my back under the bright sterile lights, I looked into my hubby’s face with his green cap on top of his head as I felt the pressure on my ribs and then release on my abdomen as they pulled our little guy out. I had a brief moment of panic when I didn’t hear a cry. It was short lived as his cries filled the OR and they announced it was a boy! The new daddy went back to get our son and brought him so I could see. Someone had said he had a good head of hair. So when Chris held up by my face with his hat already on, all I could muster was, “He has hair? Can I see?” Before I knew it they were gone. A nurse helped me put my headphones on. While they were prepping me I had thought to ask if I could have my ipod because I DID NOT want to hear them while stitching me up. I don’t do blood and guts. I cranked the volume and starred at the ceiling and clock while listening to “Canon in D” on repeat for the next 30 minutes.

I was wheeled to recovery and told to cough every so many minutes which was annoying. My doctor came to see me and I asked to see my placenta. Before the induction, she had shared her worry that it was not looking as good. Having seen plenty of animal placentas in my time, it didn’t look bad but looked as if it had done its job. I didn’t even think at the time to keep it. I wish I would have. I was in recovery for what seemed like forever. Apparently, Chris kept asking the nurses upstairs where I was, how I was doing and when they could see me. He wasn’t getting answers and was worried. I think I finally made it upstairs just before 11am. They had just taken the little guy for I don’t even know what. They promised he’d be back shortly. At 11:08 am, exactly 3 hours after he was born, I finally held my little guy. He was nuzzling trying to feed and eat he did! In contrast to the frustration of labor, breastfeeding was a breeze. I know that isn’t often the case after a c-section and I am so thankful that something was in my favor that day. He fell asleep and it was my turn to eat. I was starving! I ignored them saying I needed to be on liquids and how they were worried about my getting sick. I promised, “I’ll eat slow but just let me eat or someone will bring me food.” An hour later I had a plate in front of me. The hospital’s chicken noodle soup was the best thing in the world that day!

My feet hadn’t swelled all pregnancy but afterwards, OH MY GOODNESS! They had the pump things on my feet which made the sleep they told me to get illusive. They kept the catheter in until the next morning. I failed to go to the bathroom until 3 hours after its removal and it took 20 minutes to get out of bed to head the 10 feet to the bathroom. That was almost more painful then contractions! The best food at the hospital was the fruit salad. I don’t know why they try to feed people recovering the other crap. I was so ready to go home and so happy when we left the hospital 2 days later because I refused to stay in that place any longer. I showed the doctor on call I could move so he let me go home. I’m not sure what I would have done had he not agreed. I definitely would not have stayed another night.

I guess I had a smooth physical recovery. The staples that were used hurt worse than just the incision. It was frustrating being sore but 10 days after his birth, on my birthday, I managed to walk, ever so slowly, a half mile on the greenway. It was frustrating and rewarding. 11 weeks after our little guy’s birth I ran a 5K after finally starting to jog at 7 weeks. I wasn’t going to let the c-section hold me back. Running has been my release for the anger I have against the c-section.

My mental recovery has been much slower. I love my son but it wasn’t until 2 months after the birth that I looked into his eyes and felt I had known him my whole life. For how difficult everything seemed to be, looking back, I feel really lucky. The little guy ate great every 3 hours or so. He woke up to eat and then went right back to sleep. He started sleeping around 7 hours at about 5 weeks. I wish I had more help right after he was born. Chris had to go back to work because he didn’t have any more leave. He was able to work from home for a couple days but didn’t want to push it since he had only been in his position for a couple months. Family didn’t visit right away which hurt me more than I thought it would. My sisters at least had excuses because one had a new baby and the other was in her third trimester. We managed though and had all our Alabama family bring us food and a few stopped by to visit.

After the birth, my biggest battle has been dealing with feeling like a failure. The birth wasn’t the only thing I felt I had failed at in the past few months. When I was about 14 weeks pregnant, I failed the first attempt at my PhD Qualifying Exam. At 23 weeks, I failed the 2nd attempt and thus was terminated from the PhD program. (Don’t take exams when pregnant! Wish my advisor would have advised me better. But what can you except from having a committee made up of middle aged men.) I had been working towards the goal of earning my PhD since I was 4 years old. I was crushed but pushed forward since I knew stress was not good for baby! 1 week before my due date, my contract as a Graduate Research Assistant was terminated and I had no job on paper, only loose promises as to, “We’ll see after the baby is born.” Finally, when our little guy was about 6-7 weeks old, I was offered a part-time position when some grant money became available.

Now a year later, I still have my breakdown moments of frustration with being “cut open” and having our little guy, “ripped out of me.” But these moments are less frequent. I am very thankful for how smooth breastfeeding has gone for the past year and how I have recovered physically. It wasn’t fast enough for me but I am back to feeling 100% most days. I plan to attempt a VBAC with our next child, whenever that may be. I continue to learn more to be better informed next time and mentally stronger. It comes with the help and knowledge of all the wonderful women I have met on this journey over the last year. Thank you!