A friend of mine is about to give birth again. Her daughter was born two days before my son and we were actually in the hospital at the same time. But, as she gets ready to go through all that again, I started thinking about the first time, when we were both pregnant and wondering what everything would be like.
As you get closer to the moment you get to meet baby, you start really thinking about your birth plan. So, what’s yours? Are you one of the women who has your birthing experience planned out to the millisecond? Do you already have your bags packed and a checklist to hand to the nurse when you arrive? CDs, movies, that one song you specifically want to play while you’re pushing a life into the world?
Or are you like me? I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have my bags packed.
I was honestly so terrified of giving birth that my only birth plan was to have my mom and husband in the room and that we all come out of it ok.
I did a lot of research on birth stories so I could have some semblance of an idea of what to expect. It was interesting to me that every woman’s story was different, and for most of the stories I read, a c-section was a traumatic way for them to bring their baby into the world. So I wanted to add my story to the list of stories you might read in preparation, just to give you one more, different perspective.
I did have a lot of worries about things that led up to the birth of my baby. Namely: when do I call my husband to come home from work? He works construction in the bay area, usually about two hours away. So at what point in my labor do I bring him home?
Turns out, I didn’t actually have to worry about that. My son took after me in his stubbornness to leave the womb.
On his due date my husband and I went to the annual rowing competition in Vallejo that he participates in every year and I walked up and down that river so many times I had to take my flip flops off because my feet were so swollen. I kept telling my son, ‘Look, if you don’t want to come out on your own, that’s fine. But if you do, I’d appreciate it if you did so on a weekend.’
He didn’t.
The week leading up to the date of my induction, I kept telling him, ‘if you could just wait until friday so your dad can have one more full paycheck before you come, that’d be great.’
That request panned out.
On Saturday, 12th of October, we went into Kaiser in the morning to be induced. I am overweight and so I was informed that I could not participate in outpatient induction. That was kind of okay with me because it would be comforting to be around women who saw all of this all the time and could assure me everything was perfectly normal. You know, because I’m an anxiety-ridden hypochondriac with a huge aversion to pain.
So we go in and get settled in and everything is fine. They just give me a little pitocin for now to help my body even want to start moving in the right direction. They asked about my birth plan and I tell them all I want is for me and Baby to be alive at the end of it. I also let them know that I have a pretty good amount of medical anxiety. They write it down and explain everything they are going to do and what I will be feeling in great detail. It was appreciated.
My husband is getting cranky because he hasn’t eaten, though, so I send him down the street to get some breakfast.
While he’s gone, the on-site anesthesiologist comes in to discuss my plan. I tell her my plan is to have an epidural.
This is probably the only part of the story where I have a terrible experience.
I cannot remember her precise words. But I know she asked me if I knew how much weight I had gained during the pregnancy. I said, I don’t know, 40?
“60. I’m looking at your chart and you gained 60 pounds. That’s too much.”
She then proceeds to tell me in that very disappointed, condescending, but straight to the point tone all the ways this could go horribly wrong because, essentially, I was too fat to be trying to have a baby. They weren’t going to be able to find the vertebrae to give the epidural because of back fat. I was going to aspirate on food during the C-section if it came to that. You know. All that fun ‘hate on the fat kid’ stuff.
Now, I can hear some of you saying, ‘well that all could happen and they have to tell you that’
I know. I have no problem with doctors and nurses telling me what the risks are, I appreciate that. For me it wasn’t about what she was telling me, it was how she was telling me. This wasn’t your typical, ‘look, I have to tell you this stuff so you can be prepared for it, or because it is a risk and you need to make an educated decision.’ This was more ‘you’re too fat to have a baby, why did you do this, you’re both going to die because you’re so fat’ kind of thing. And if you don’t think so, I do remember very clearly the thing she said to me before she left. She said, “you need to remember that when you’re breast feeding, you aren’t eating for two. You have more than enough fat stores.”
Yeah. Exactly what I want to hear when I already hate myself for my weight and am about to try to bring a baby into the world. She also tried to tell me I wasn’t allowed to eat once I was induced.
When the anesthesiologist left and my nurse came back in I was a sobbing mess trying to get my husband through the drive through of Burger King quicker so he could comfort me and my nurse was seriously pissed when I told her what happened. She called the midwife in so I could talk to her about it. I did and the midwife looked upset as well and told me I was actually encouraged to eat up until I get my epidural because we have no idea how long induction will take and I’m going to need strength to do one of the hardest workouts in the human experience.
Well, anyway. We were there for a full day and nothing really happened. My family came and went, Devins’ family came and went back to our house to take care of our animals. They inserted a foley balloon. Now. Let me tell you about this thing. It is, in essence, a balloon that they stick up into your cervix. It feels kind of like a pap smear. For me it hurt less than one of those, though. When it’s in the entrance of your cervix, they fill it with saline until you are forcefully dilated to 5 cm.
It is very uncomfortable, but no, like, painful. Until about a half an hour later. It’s like what I thought labor would probably be like, only constant. I’m pacing the floor, leaning over the bed, breathing deeply with Frozen on the tiny tv in the background. Then, about a half hour after it started, it stops. I go to bed and so does Devin on the little fold out couch they have for him. I go to the bathroom when a new nurse comes in and introduces herself and checks on me. She helps me get up and back into bed, tells me the blood in the toilet was completely normal.
Then, I’m not sure what wakes me, but I realize that I’m soaking wet. I start freaking out and have to calm myself down. See, this is what I’m used to, a coping mechanism. My brain immediately jumps to the worst case scenario: all of this wet is blood and the baby is in danger and so am I. And then I scale back: or my water just broke, or the foley balloon broke.
I still yell for Devin to wake up and call the nurse because it’s dark slippery and I can’t see what color the liquid is.
It’s clear and it was still dripping down my legs as I stand at the edge of the bed, shivering. The nurse comes in and gives the foley balloon a gentle tug and it slides right out. Yippee. I’m 5 cm dilated and my water has broken.
They change my sheets, put some towels under me, and I go back to sleep, maybe around 2. By 2:30 I have looked at the clock at least every 2 minutes to watch the seconds tick by as I feel what I assume are contractions. It really is like a massive period cramp and then release, and then again, and release. Every 60-90 seconds I feel discomfort and pain for about 60-90 seconds. Get a tiny break, and there it is again. Devin is still asleep. Finally I get up and go into the bathroom where I puke my guts up. From hands and knees in the bathroom I yell for Devin that I need him. He blearily gets up and soothes my back. The nurse comes in. I tell her I need to discuss pain management options because this is too much too soon. I’m not getting a break. The pain wasn’t too intense, really, it was more of the not getting a break to catch my breath in between that was the problem.
While she goes to fetch the midwife, Devin helps me take a shower. The shower has always been my safe place. It’s where I always go if I don’t feel good. Most of the time I just sit and let the hot water pour over me.
I had asked about fentanyl. The nurse comes back offering the epidural. We decide that if that’s the route I’m going to take eventually, better to get it in me when the pain isn’t so bad than when it’s excruciating. So she gave me fentanyl and called the anesthesiologist on call. I start freaking out. Are they going to be able to find the vertebrae? Is it going to hurt? Are they going to damage me? I call my mom. Yep. 2:30 or so in the morning I called my mommy because I was in pain and I was scared and even though my husband was there with me. I wanted my mom.
From the moment the anesthesiologist stepped in to the moment he stepped out is maybe five minutes total. I mean, I’ve heard it can take up to 30 to get this thing in place. We just so happened to get the best guy they had. He comes in, has me sit up and bend over, tells me exactly how to do it. I hold Devin’s hands and talk to him because I’m terrified. I feel a little pinch, but not even as bad as when they take blood or place an IV. Then I start to feel kind of warm in my toes. The guy says, ‘you should start to feel your toes go numb’ and that’s that. I lay back down and within ten minutes I can’t move anything below my waist. Kinda cool, kinda scary.
My mom gets there after the epidural is placed, but she stays all day after that. At some point I develope a fever and have to be given antibiotics to fight infection. (FYI this is completely normal if your water breaks). When I start to have massive, shooting back pain and I can’t roll or move to get rid of it, and it didn’t feel like it was just contraction pain breaking through, they give me a cocktail in my epidural.
Then, at like 9pm when my contractions haven’t moved and my fever is still there and it seems like baby boy is never going to decide to join us, the midwife gives me two options. We can wait and see (but that puts me and baby at higher risk because of the infection), or we can prep for a c-section. I tell her to just get him out.
So we prep for a c-section. I know this probably disappoints a lot of women. Women who were stronger than me and just wanted to have their baby completely naturally. Women who somehow feel that a c-section isn’t really a birthing experience. But, I didn’t care. I was a c-section. My brother was a c-section. I had actually gone into this kind of hoping and planning on him being a c-section. It was a lot less scary than going through pain and pushing and not knowing if something went wrong inside until it was dangerous.
It’s kind of surreal to be in there. They put a curtain up and the surgeon talks about what they will be doing, what they will not be doing. I can hear the nurses counting all the instruments. Then my husband comes in and they go to work.
Now, you don’t feel…pain…exactly. But it is a lot like the wind being repeatedly knocked out of you and you can’t catch your breath. I swear I can feel him scooping up into my lungs and down into my groin. They pull the curtain back for us to watch Dorian be pulled from me. And as soon as his umbilical cord is snipped, they put him on my chest. And I get to meet my Little Man.
I was shivering uncontrollably and they had to measure him, so they take him away and to a lighted, heated table in the corner. I distinctly remember them saying his head measurement and saying, “God, I’m glad I didn’t have to try to push that out” and the nurse saying, “yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen, sweetie.”
Then they wheel him away and my husband goes with him. After they sew me back up, the doctor does a little debrief of how the surgery went, the nurses chimed in with their information, the anesthesiologist tells them what drugs he’d pushed into me and what my temperature is, and I hear the nurses counting the instruments again to make sure everything had been taken out of me.
I was in recovery forever. My mom can attest. A nurse actually came by at one point and mentioned there was a group of people very anxious to see me. My mom was texting my husband and I had to tell him what to tell her because she wanted more than just ‘we’re fine’. My mom was convinced I wasn’t fine or the baby wasn’t fine. But I had to stay in recovery for them to massage my stomach and because my fever had spiked. Now, when they tell you it’s a gentle massage. That’s a damn lie. It’s like a deep tissue massage on your stomach. Granted, I couldn’t feel the pain from it at first, but there was a ton of pressure and then there was pain as the drugs started to wear off.
But we were all fine. And my birthing story wasn’t traumatic to me. I had great nurses, a great midwife, and then I had a great surgeon. That’s part of why it didn’t suck like so many other people I know. But I think a big reason is also that I didn’t have my heart set on anything. I had wishes. I wished I had been able to deal with the contractions longer. I wish, sometimes, that I had the opportunity to try to push him out. But I got exactly what I wanted out of my birth: We were both healthy and alive. And, really, what more can you ask for?
I’m not saying having a plan is a bad thing. But what I am saying is that your birth story is yours, whatever happens. And it kind of helps to prepare you for the way infancy and childhood go. You can have your plans, but baby is going to do what baby needs to do. Have a plan, but be flexible. Because as long as you are safe and Baby is safe, that’s all that really matters, right?
Cheers to the messiness of motherhood.
Boy Mom 