A Baby Story

Today is my middle daughter’s 9^th birthday, and the anniversary of an experience I wasn’t sure I was going to get to have. My first baby was born by emergency c-section, and I was afraid I would never get to have a “real” birth. I know, I know, all that matters is a healthy baby (and I am grateful that I got three of those) but how they come into the world is a monumental moment for mom, dad, and baby, and I wanted it to be as natural as possible. Now I don’t mean squatting in a field natural or even giving birth at home. I just wanted to allow labor to progress naturally and not have any drugs. That sounds simple enough, but is not always easy to achieve.

I went to my OB for a regular checkup on my due date for my first baby and was told that I was measuring small and needed an ultrasound. I felt fine, no contractions, cramping or anything at all, really. Baby was moving around and I felt fine. Back in the doctor’s office I was told that my amniotic fluid was a little low and they were going to “get me delivered today.” Huh? Um, ok. I guess we’re having a baby today! Yay!

I was hooked up to monitors and Pitocin and within 5 minutes (and no contractions, pain, or anything at all) doctors and nurses descended on me, flipping me this way and that in an attempt to find my baby’s heartbeat. It took them 11 minutes to find it. My husband had run home to get my bag and pillows and the music I wanted for labor. When he got back they were prepping me for a C-section. I was terrified. Why did I need a C-section? They said they thought my baby wouldn’t tolerate labor. What does that mean?

I was taken to a surgical suite, strapped to a table, IVs in each arm, numbed from the chest down, catheterized, bright lights in my eyes, a curtain hung between my face and my belly. My doctor stood over me, scalpel in hand, and said that this doesn’t mean I would need to have C-sections for future pregnancies, which was reassuring later, but at the time didn’t mean much since she was about to slice me open.

Then she began. No pain. No sensation, nothing. Then the “tugging” of my body being stretched apart and a tiny, perfect, healthy baby being pulled out. I couldn’t see her being born with the curtain between me and the doctors and I couldn’t see her when they took her across the room so the pediatricians could check her over. Once she was delivered, I was given “something to relax me” that nearly knocked me out. When they brought my swaddled daughter over to me and placed her on my chest, but I couldn’t touch her since my arms were strapped to the table. Then they took her off to the nursery. The doctors chatted with each other about their upcoming travel plans whilst they sewed and taped me back together. Then I was bandaged, dressed and taken to recovery.

About an hour later, they brought my baby to me, but I couldn’t sit up and I was shaking so violently from the drugs that I was afraid I would drop her if I tried to hold her. I managed to breastfeed her throughout the night with the help of my husband and the postpartum nurses, but instead of feeling elated, I felt battered and dopey from the drugs.

Then next day the flowers and visitors and gifts started coming, I had a constant supply of Percocet and I felt pretty good. My baby was healthy and perfect but I felt like I had surgery and someone gave me a baby. I didn’t feel like I had given birth, mostly because I didn’t feel anything. I expected birth to be difficult and intense and sweaty and painful and amazing, but instead it was cold and surgical and terrifying and left me feeling completely disconnected from how my child came into the world.

Two years later, I was pregnant again. I called my OB (who was on maternity leave herself) and she told me there was no reason I couldn’t have a natural birth. That was all I needed to hear. I found a midwife and learned everything I could about giving birth after a C-section. I had to sign a ton of papers saying that I understood the teeny tiny (1%) risk of uterine rupture that is possible during a “trial of labor” after a c-section.  I learned from the midwife and a ton of internet research, books, and endless episodes of A Baby Story that each medical intervention can lead to the need for more and as long as the baby is not in distress, labor should proceed on its own. For me, that meant, a lot of walking, hours and hours in a Jacuzzi eating popsicles between contractions and getting scented oil massages from the midwife. I joked later that it was like a spa day punctuated by moaning in pain every three minutes.

After 25 hours of unmedicated labor, attended by my husband, a nurse and the midwife, I gave birth to another perfect, healthy baby girl. Two years later, I did it again. That time it only took two hours to deliver a 9lb baby boy. That time, one of the nurses came in just to watch a natural birth because she had never seen one before.

For each of these babies, I had the choice to have a scheduled C-section, but I would never, ever have done that voluntarily. My c-section was much more difficult than a natural birth. After I delivered my second and third babies, I felt completely fine. Better than ever, actually. After the c-section, I couldn’t hold my baby, couldn’t sit up or go to the bathroom without assistance, and I couldn’t laugh or sneeze without feeling like all my insides would burst out of my incision.

For a while after my second child was born, I seriously considered becoming a doula or a massage therapist specializing in labor. I wanted to help other women have the kind of experience that I had. I felt like most doctors were trained to“medically manage” birth with drugs to ease pain or make labor speed up or slow down. It was one of those drugs that landed me in the surgical suite the first time around. With my second baby, I felt like because I had midwives attending the birth, I was able to trust them and my body to let nature take its course. At one point, my labor slowed down and I was less dilated than I had been an hour earlier. An OB would have administered Pitocin to speed labor up. The midwives put me back in the tub, and an hour later I was ready to deliver. Doctors are trained to fix medical problems, and sometimes with birth, those fixes can create new problems that weren’t there before. Natural birth isn’t for everyone, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. Happy birthing day to my baby girl.