My biggest fear with having a c-section was being able to feel it. As the nurses were wheeling me into the operating room, I was rubbing my hand along my lower belly where I knew they would make the incision.
"Ummm, I can still feel this!" Maybe we needed to give the spinal block more time.
"Oh you'll feel touch," the nurse explained, "you just won't feel sharp."
WHAT!? But I didn't want to feel anything. I had felt so many different types of pain and discomfort the past 48 hours, it felt like it would never end. That's one reason I'm glad we planned for a natural birth going into this. I can't imagine expecting a painless, epidural delivery, only to end up with hours and hours of the worst pain of my life. If there's (another) piece of advice I could give anyone about to have a baby, it's to expect and prepare for some sort of pain. If you end up feeling nothing and sneezing your baby out, you're one of the lucky ones and more power to you. I feel like I experienced 3 births in 1: home/natural birth, epidural birth/pushing, and a c-section. There was pain with all three.
I was alone at first in the operating room. It was bright, white, cold, loud, and full of people. A far cry from the soft and sweet atmosphere I left at home. On the count of three they slid my heavy, numb body onto the skinny operating table.
"My butt is wider than that!" I exclaimed. Everyone laughed, but I wasn't joking. Like busy bees they buzzed around getting me prepped and everything ready. I don't remember the blue curtain going up, all I remember is that it was much, much closer to my face than I thought it would be. Someone put oxygen in my nose, someone else strapped my arms down. How fitting that that I was a replica of Jesus on the cross. He sacrificed his body for me, I was sacrificing my body for my baby.
"We're cutting!" The doctor announced.
"Where's Brad!?" I asked frantically. I couldn't do this without him.
"I'm right here baby," he said as he grabbed my hand out of nowhere. This was it. FOR REAL this time. I had never heard of anyone not being able to get a baby out with a c-section. As much as I didn't want to give birth like this, there was a twinge of relief it was going to be over.
It wasn't long before Dr. H was yelling, "Thick meconium! Thick meconium! Did anybody know about this!?" The staff all mumbled no, not me. After all, the amniotic fluid was clear both times my water broke. Sometime between Dr. J "breaking" my water and the c-section, the baby had passed it's first bowel movement and I was losing a lot of blood. The tension began to rise and what started out as a routine c-section, seemed to be heading into a medical emergency. Dr. H started barking orders like a sergeant and everyone started running, literally running to grab suction, medications, and who knows what else. It was the first time during this whole thing that I began to feel scared. At one point I had a young girl drawing blood from my left arm, and someone else giving me a shot in the other. I was like one of those frogs you dissect in science class, all splayed out, being poked and prodded. Except I was alive, and awake.
"I need someone to push the head up, now!" Dr. H ordered. The baby's head was so stuck I felt everything as the nurse shoved her hand up my birth canal to push the baby out of my pelvis. Within a few minutes we heard a baby's cry. I listened carefully to see if I had some sort of visceral reaction to my baby's voice, but it just sounded like any other baby.
"What is it? What is it?" I asked Brad. This was the moment we waited 9 long months for. The one and only wish we could still fulfill of our birth plan. Brad stood up and peeked over the curtain. He was taking his sweet time, trying to see between the baby's legs while avoiding the open bloody hole that was once my stomach.
"IT'S A BOY!" He smiled down at me through the surgical mask and we squeezed each other's hands. We had a boy. A son. It's Roman. We had a couple girl names picked out, but only one boy name for sure. Roman James. We were so happy, we had thought (and secretly hoped) it was a boy. They immediately took him to the warmer and started suctioning his nose and mouth since he had aspirated the meconium. The warmer was to the left of me, and just out of sight behind that stupid blue curtain. I was bombarding Brad and the nurses with questions as I waited to see my baby for the very first time. Is he ok? Is he healthy? What does he look like? The wait felt like hours, but was probably about 10-15 minutes. Meagan finally brought him around the curtain and I had 3 distinct thoughts when I laid eyes on him:
1. He's huge! How did he fit in there?
2. His balls are huge! (Sorry, they were really swollen and I couldn't help but notice.)
3. He looks just like Brad.
"He looks just like you," I smiled at Brad as Meagan laid him on my chest. My whole life, and especially pregnant, I imagined what that moment would be like when my first baby was in my arms and I could smell him, kiss him, look at him. I always thought I would "ugly cry", as me and my sister called it. On a scale from 1 to Kim Kardashian, I would be Kim Kardashian. But I didn't cry. Maybe it was because I was so frazzled by that point, but it was like looking at a stranger. Who are you? What are you like? He was crying when they placed him on my chest, but I started talking to him and he immediately stopped and looked up at me.
"Hi baby," I said as I gave him his first kiss. He tasted and smelled horrible from the meconium, and he still had a few little chunks on him. Not exactly how I imagined this going. I was trying to look at his whole body, and kiss him all over, but it was difficult being flat on my back. I started to shake again, and I knew I had to hand him off. I wanted to see Brad hold our baby, anyway. As soon as he was in Brad's arms, he looked up at his daddy and daddy looked down at him and I witnessed the beginning of a father-son love affair. Brad got his moment.
Nothing good lasts forever and the bliss was short-lived as my tremors increased and I began to feel much more pressure as they were finishing up the c-section. I knew getting the baby out was the quick part. Stitching me up would take awhile, but I asked anyway.
"Are they almost done?" I looked up at Meagan.
"Umm," I could see on her face they weren't even close, "they're going as fast as they can."
"I'm really uncomfortable," I started whining. I knew I was whining but I couldn't help it. "I think I'm going to throw up. I'm going to throw up!" Someone stuck one of those dentist mouth-vacuums in my mouth as I tried to turn my head to the side. My whole body was heaving and my sister later told me everyone in the observatory thought I was having a seizure. I was getting more and more uncomfortable as it felt like there was an elephant on my diaphragm. I kept asking if it was almost over, shaking and puking.
"Do you want something for the shaking? Demerol will help with that," someone asked me.
"Yes," I consented. What the heck, the baby was out and I couldn't take this anymore. What was the point anyway. My all natural non-medicated hippie home-birth had ended up with hours of antibiotics, Pitocin, an epidural, and ultimately a major abdominal surgery. They put the Demerol in my IV, but it must not have done much because I was still getting more and more agitated. Brad swears they asked me if I wanted something else, but I don't remember and the next thing I know I was staring up at the bright lights and Brad was joking that he knows I'm really asleep when my eyes are open.
"I just couldn't take her asking when it was going to be over anymore," Dr. H said. They had ended up giving me Versed, which is the medication they give you during a colonoscopy. It all but knocks you out, and I was a drooling, snoring zombie.
"Do you want me to take him to the nursery or stay with you?" Brad's voice penetrated the fog. I remember thinking so hard about that question. I was trying to make my mouth move, but it must not have worked because Brad said, "I'll just take him to the nursery really quick," and he was gone.
One of the worst parts about having a c-section is that you miss all the first newborn-y things they do with your baby. The weight, the length, the bath. I wasn't even sure if he had 10 fingers and 10 toes yet. I have no recollection of them finishing the surgery and wheeling me to the recovery room. All I remember is suddenly my family was around me and I was saying, "I'm so drugged up right now, I'm so drugged up." I wanted them to know just in case I said or did something weird. "Where is he? I need to nurse him." How long had it been since he was out? A few hours? Was he starving? Someone handed him to me and I focused all my energy into nursing him for the first time. My whole body was so sore I had to put him in the "football" position and he latched on right away. Thank you Jesus, I thought. Maybe one thing would go right. It ended up being about 45 minutes from when he was born to when I started nursing, so I was happy to be within the "golden hour".
My memory is still a little foggy surrounding the birth, probably a side effect of the Versed. It makes me all the more grateful to my family, and the nurse anesthetist who took pictures on my camera. Roman James was born at 4:47 am on Thanksgiving Day, November 26th 2015 at exactly 42 weeks gestation. He weighed 8 lbs, 13 (12.9) oz and was 21 inches long with a full head of hair. Our birth story is crazier than I ever imagined, but it's ours and it's a beautiful disaster. Maybe more of a disaster with bits of beautiful sprinkled here and there, but we have a healthy baby boy and for that we are thankful.
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