On Thursday at 3 AM, my little one decided it was time to start making his entrance into this world. I woke up in labor, waited just long enough to make sure I wasn't crazy, and called my people. I went straight to big, long contractions, but they were in a weird pattern, so the nurses had me up and walking the halls and bouncing on the ball. I labored that way for 14 hours total before I made enough progress to get an epidural. 14 hours that I am extremely proud of.
I had the best anesthesiologist give me the world's easiest epidural, and waited. My progress was there, but was still just as slow. Add in my blood pressure tanking, and hours more of no progress, and things started to slide backward. After 22 hours, my very kind OB looked one more time, shook her head, and said, "You don't have to have the c-section, but I really don't think your body is going to let you go any further."
And she was right. She and I had both done everything in our power to get the labor as far as it could go. Turns out she was the perfect person to surrender to. She looked square at me and said, "I understand the anger and the disappointment. I'm an OB and I had c-sections, too. My job is to help women give birth and I couldn't do it the way my body was 'supposed' to. And you have to come to terms with it in your own time." I nodded and signed the forms and tuned out the world while I waited to be taken back.
In fact, I tuned out most of the time I was in surgery as well. My sister-in-law Michele gave me lots of space while it was going on, just close enough to let me know she was there but that she understood what I needed. 2.0 came into the world, we said hello, and he went off to the nursery. And instead of tagging along, Michele stayed with me. She had taken a few pictures and helped me email them to my husband while I was still on the operating table, which was just the distraction I needed at that point.
It went well. In fact, the whole thing went so well that I have had trouble feeling bad about it. The surgery was easy. I got tons of time afterward to pull myself together. The nurses settled me in, Michele went home to sleep, and three hours after his birth, the nurses brought me my son. All 8 pounds, 8 ounces of him.
See, once the doctor got in to take him out, she very bluntly said, "Your body could not have given birth to this baby. He is HUGE!" Apparently I grew a perfectly proportioned giant. Not at all chunky. My husband's family's genetics growing inside my teeny tiny frame.
I wish I could say it's been easy, but it hasn't. I still hurt. I'm still moving at a slow pace. We're still having feeding issues. But I'm ok. I actually got to try this time around, and I couldn't have asked for a better team to have around me. And my brand new son, who is laying here as I type, is the proof that God blessed me with what I needed.
Today's lesson: God doesn't always give you what you want. Then again, I think I got even better than I asked for: a wonderful family to support me, a truly kind set of doctors and nurses to get me through, and my beautiful little boy.
2 comments:
Welcome to the world 2.0!
And Congratulations to everyone in the family!
And if no one told you about them, my mommy board buddies who had cesarean births all laud the C-panty for post-cesarean recovery.
Kristen!!
So glad that it sounds like you are more at peace with how this birth went than with your first! A healthy baby and mom should be the only goal at the end of the day, no matter how the birth has to "happen". I applaude you for trying for a vbac, but I am ultimately excited that you made good choices for you and your son! Trust me...vaginal birth isn't all it is cracked up to be...It took me over a year to fully recover physically, and a year of extremely physically painful intimate moments with my husband before we figured out what was wrong. Then just when we are getting back to "normal" bam I get prego again! hahaha Noah was 8lbs 10 oz and it is no easy job puching large kids out and my frame is way bigger than yours! Congrats to you and that beautiful baby though! Get some rest and take care!
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