I can honestly say that my childbirth experience was traumatic for me. I had worked my entire pregnancy toward a pain-med free, intervention-free, natural childbirth. I would have loved to give birth to my daughter in a Birth Center with a Midwife…but due to my lack of funding for better insurance, I was stuck with an OB at a Hosptial. These are two drastically different types of care. Now these are sweeping generalizations, but you will find them to be mostly true in all cases. OB’s are diagnostic surgeons who look for and fix problems–and they consider pregnancy and birth to be a ‘problem’. Midwives provide care for mothers going through the natural process of childbirth and take on a very humanistic approach toward being part of the experience. Watch the eye-opening documentary, The Business of Being Born, if you want to be schooled on the realities of the birthing industry.
So nothing went as planned. I thought my water might have broke so into L+D we went. After a inconclusive test to ensure it was really my water, I spent hours groppling with the overworked nurses as to whether or not it was my water that I thought had broke. If it was, I needed to start antibiotics because I was GBS+ (a common bacteria that simply requires the mother to have IV antibiotics during labor). If it wasn’t my water, then I wanted to get back to my home and go through early labor there instead of in the confines and timetable of the hospital. But then I stood up and went to the bathroom and let’s just say at that point I was 100% sure my water had broke!
The events that followed included, (in sequential order), continued crabbiness from my nurses, botched attempts at sticking my IV in my forearm arm which resulted in a busted valve and gushing blood, my baby’s heartrate dropping, nurses urgently jamming the IV into my hand, oxygen mask on my face and breathing like my baby’s and my life depended on it, baby’s heart rate fine, contractions every 3min, 3cm dilated, baby’s heart rate drops again, oxygen mask on, my OB comes in…and off to OR I go for an emergency cesarean.
The actual operation took a whole 3 minutes and out came my crying, healthy, perfect, and beautiful baby girl. I was so happy to see her, although “happy” is the most unworthy word to use to describe how I felt. No words actually do the experience justice…just know it was other-worldy. If you are a parent, then you know!
I’m not sure if they gave me morphine or what, but the events directly following my daughter’s birth are quite groggy. If it wasn’t for photos and my fiance’s rundown (who by the way looked really hot in his OR scrubs!), I wouldn’t remember much. But what I do remember is the feeling of meeting the most amazing creature I’ve ever seen for the first time and being amazed that she is what I was carrying for 9 months…had I known SHE was what I was growing, I would never have complained about things like how hard it was to get out of bed to pee for the fifth time in one night.
EDITED TO ADD: The description above was written just weeks after the delivery and at that point my dreams of wanting 3 or 4 children had completely deflated. It was so hard to be a mom the first week or so because of how sore I was from the c-section, and it was just a really bad experience for me. I was saddened that I no longer wanted to go through pregnancy and delivery again for fear of the same thing happening, or worse. However, it is now over 3 months after my experience and I am pleased to say I will do it again…watching a child bloom is worth anything, it is truly a blessing and I can’t wait to add to our family (in a few years!).
So began my journey of motherhood, I had no idea what I was in for…
Unwind My Mommy Mind... 