My c-section
I wanted to re-visit the intense emotions I was having one week after I had Lincoln. I wanted to type out what I had written in my own personal journal one week after having Lincoln..... here it is..... May 3, 2008
WOW!!! I mean....... wow. I dont even know where to start. Ok, so I will start w/one week ago.
on April 26th-
I worked all day, it was Saturday & my feet were getting so swollen. I sat down at the tapas bar for a while - put my feet up cause I was exhausted! I left at 3 - an hour early. Got home and took a shower cause Kate was coming over!! Yeah!! She took us out to Mariachi Loco's. Came back and had orange sherbert smooties and she left at like 10 pm or so, We layed down- so tired, to watch tv in bed and turned on Saturday Night Live-The Best of Chris Farley.... heheh and the sloppy joe lunch lady skit came on and I was laughing so hard!
All of the sudden I felt this pop. And i thought I had farted or something lol- but I reached down and started feeling my water break. So I go sit in the bathroom while my water is gushing out, and call the docs office. Dr. Drake was on call and he said to head on to the hospital. Zack was playing it real cool but he started packing all the extra stuff and took the dogs out and we left!
At this point I was so scared, and excited, already shaking. The triage unit checked my cervix when I got there.... only 1 CM DIALATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so dissapointing. So they sent us to our delivery room and I got my IV, OUCH! and they put me on pitocin to start my contractions.
My mom was there and she was awesome thru the night helping me with contractions as they got more and more. I got the epidural at 3 cm and I think it was WAY WAY too early.
I keep thinking how that was a bad decision. I get really upset thinking bout it! Cause from then on I felt so powerless and out of control! My contractions got more but my cervix would not budge. At this point, Zack, Kate, and my mom were in the room. It had been almost a whole day in there. 21 hours.
Then they said his heart rate was dropping and they had to do a C-SEC!!!!!!!! I was..............
FIGHTING TEARS SO BAD when he said this. I wanted to deliver naturally more than anything!!
So after this, things get blurry.
The epidural man came back in and gave me morphine, they were gonna CUT me open. Zack put on his space suit and they wheeled me into the operating room. I could not move anything. My neck hurt. My lips were more dry then they had ever been in my entire life, and all I could see was a white room with these bright lights above me.
I was seriously convulsing. Shaking harder than I ever have in my life. Zack wasnt there yet. I was so scared I couldnt breathe, they gave me oxygen tubes. Dr. Drake came in and asked if I had any questions. There was this lump in my throat, and I cried, " WHERE IS MY HUSBAND"... they said he was on his way in. God, when he walked in that room I have never felt so much love for him in my entire life. This was real, and happening right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HOLY SHIT!
He held my hand and looked into my eyes. Wow. He helped me stop shaking as much.
They started. I couldnt see anything but there was this blue curtain up from my head down - arms out to my side like on a cross. Dr. Drake put this pressure on me, I could feel it, then asked if I wanted to see, then started lifting a baby out of me. and i literally. could. not. breathe. life stopped as he said it was a BOY!!!! O wow, it was so intense. I have NEVER felt so much emotion and anticipation as when they showed him to me.
Zack went over to cut the cord and take some pictures, as I lay there struggling to stay awake because of the drugs. I remember next they took me into a room w/lots of curtains and Kate and Mom came in, and they loved him. I had him in my arms when they wheeled my bed into the room. I tried to breast feed right away, he was sucking at the air when he was born.
As they wheeled me into the room where I stayed for the next three day, I text everyone with the baby news. Then threw up again.
Those next few days went by so blurry. Zack stayed with me and slept in his little coffin bed. I mostly remember the shower- it was so hard, but Zack helped me so much. Washing my staples as I sat in this chair in the shower in complete pain unable to move.
It was crazy , but Lincoln did so well breastfeeding in the hospital. We were discharged after a very long day on April 30th. Dad and Katie were there at this point. Dad was a big help and it was great to see him hold his new grandson. ................................
*Now, looking back at this experience, I knew right away the c-section was hard, but did not feel the traumatizing repercussions until months later. I watched the documentary A Business of Being Born and it opened my eyes to all that I had missed. How naive I was, and how uneducated about birth I was. It spurred a passion and a fire for natural birth that has completely changed my entire life.
