kaygad70
06-03-2009, 09:32 AM
My son is nearly eight months old and I'm just now able to write this. I hear people talking about c-sections like it is routine. I also hear my friends talking about their home births and I can't help but hear the smug, condescending confidence even though it really isn't there. I'm still so bitter and sad, and terrified that this might be my last birth experience.
My first child (by the way, I have four) was induced at 42 weeks. After over 72 hours of laboring naturally, he just wasn't coming out. As they were discovering that he was a face presentation, they saw him on ultrasound releasing meconium, at the same time, his heart rate dropped and didn't recover very much. I wanted a natural birth,..but in the face of my baby dying, I came to terms with the cesarean almost immediately. Which, was good because he was out in about 3 minutes. Delirious from not really being numb, exhausted from labouring for three days, and suffering from the ob slicing through my bladder (on accident, she was rushing, I forgive her), I slept for the first several hours of my baby's life. When I woke up, I felt good. I was in pain, definitely, but my baby was alive. Other than looking like Rocky Balboa, he was good, healthy and strong. I felt like everything that happened was what should have happened.
My second and third babies were both vbacs (GO ME!!). The second one was supposed to be a section, but there was a hurricaine, so the ORs were back-to-back with emergency sections. The staff was so busy with the other women, that I delivered on the floor into my husband's arms. My third child I pushed out in twenty minutes, to the surprise of my high risk ob. My fourth baby,..well, I'm just now able to write about it, but I've spent the last three paragraphs writing about other stuff...
I was trying NOT to get pregnant. But, when you get an egg and a sperm together, you're going to have a baby. I was very happy about it, DH was very NOT happy about it. And, that's where the trouble began. From the beginning, I didn't feel right. My numbers were off from the beginning as well. At first, they were convinced that I had a blighted ovum so they did an ultrasound. Once they found a healthy embryo, they stopped looking. Family and friends kept saying that I shouldn't be having a baby at that point because of the financial turmoil we'd been going through. But, I was already pregnant, the birth control had failed. What were they suggesting, really?
I kept telling the OB I didn't feel right. I felt more than the typical exhaustion, morning sickness, and weepiness. I felt weak and shaky most of the time and my hips and lower back hurt a lot. She told me that these symptoms were not pregnancy related and to see my GP (who told me that they were pregnancy related and my OB should check into it). Brilliant, the medical version of "pass the buck."
I'm in the high risk clinic for several reasons. First, I have "advanced maternal age." Whatever, it gets me out of the regular clinic with the uber-fertile teenagers. Second, I had secondary infertility for about 8 years and 4 miscarriages (one at 14 weeks), along with infertility treatments that didn't work (my third was a surprise,..kind of like an "X-File."). Third, I have a bizarro metabolic disorder which makes it difficult for me to maintain folic acid levels. Mind you, even if you were only in the high risk clinic for advanced maternal age, they would still poke at you like you were a mythical creature.
At 15 weeks I got food poisoning. At 20 weeks I had my level 2 ultrasound. At 26 weeks my fundal height was 36. Suddenly, my OB was "very concerned." They ultrasound again, and discovered that my baby exploded to the 85 percentile in six weeks. They ran test after test and had me take the glucose test (four freaking times). Ironically, I failed all four before they even had me drink the nasty soda. Diagnosed with gestational diabetes, my doctor started the cesarean talks. Baby or mom dying is a good reason to do a section. Possibly big baby? Not a good enough reason. But they did scan after scan after scan. He stayed in the 85 percentile until 35 weeks when he suddenly ballooned to the 90th. These were all estimates, because the scan can be wrong plus or minus two pounds. They were estimating around 9-9.5 pounds. If they were light in their estimates, I could have an 11 pound baby. My OB wanted to do amnio to check the lungs, but I refused and went home.
At 35 weeks, my blood pressure went through the roof. I couldn't justify refusing the amnio this time. Although I was scared to death,...it didn't hurt at all. Seriously, when your fundal height is 44 cm (and you're only 5 feet tall), the skin is stretched so taut that you don't feel a thing. The lungs were "mature" so the section was scheduled for the following day.
I have to tell you, I wandered around my house most of the evening in shock. I was so sad. People I know were saying things like, "you should be happy, you don't have to labor." That only made it worse,..I'm a weirdo that loves the process of labor. Of course I don't "enjoy" the pain, but the contractions feel right, purposeful. Everything has meaning, the pressure, pain, highs and lows, even the throwing up -- how else would I ever know I was in transition? I was going to miss that completely. I wasn't going to get to hold my baby, for a long long time. I wasn't going to watch him crown. I wasn't going to touch his head as he emerged. I wasn't going to smell him and comfort him after his journey. My flora wasn't going to colonize and protect him. It would be a stranger's flora to colonize my baby. A stranger would comfort my baby. A stranger would pull him out of my body, whether he was ready or not. And not because of imminent danger. You might ask, then why the hell did I agree to the section in the first place? From the beginning, I knew something wasn't right. I knew something was wrong and that labor (no matter how much I wanted to labor) would be disastrous.
I went into the hospital, was monitored in triage for a few hours and then taken to my room. They shaved down my old c-section area, and made me drink this nasty stuff. I got my IV (in a terrible place, the side of my right wrist, and I'm right handed). I tried to make light of things, and laugh and be peaceful. That facade fell away when my nurse said two words, "its time." I burst into tears and didn't stop. I cried while walking down the hallway to the OR. I cried when I saw the room and the bed that look suspiciously like the one they use for lethal injections. I cried when the anesthesiologist got there, and through the spinal. I finally stopped crying when they draped me and I realized that, from that point forward, I wouldn't know what was happening to my body.
They had the table shifted head-down by 15 degrees, and to the left 15 degrees because they believed they had an 11 pound baby to deliver. This angle cause the spinal medication to drift, a very dangerous situation if the medication hits my chest. My hands and arms went numb. I told the anesthesiologist this, and he stopped the surgery so they could level the table. I knew this would happen. Spinal anesthesia is not recommended for people with claustrophobia, because if the medication drifts, the patient can be overcome with the feeling they are drowning. Not a good feeling at all.
After a time, they had my baby out. I was amazed at how big he looked. Still, he was only 8lb11oz. My second baby was larger and I pushed her out. I started to get very angry. I said, "why the hell did we do this? You're measurements were off by a lot!!" DH left with my baby so my SIL sat by my head. She started talking to me because my blood pressure started going up and I was crying again. I was angry because I thought I had punked out -- taken the easy route -- with no good reason and I was MAD!!!! Before I could get too worked up, my OB says, "Kay, we have a problem here. There is a massive cyst on your right ovary. I need your permission to remove it, but I'm not sure I can get it out without taking the ovary and fallopian tube." I had three seconds to consider the reality that, eventually the cyst would have to come out, either now while she's already there, or later, when I would have to be separated from my baby AGAIN. Now was better. So I told her to do her best to preserve my tube and ovary.
After another half an hour or so, she said, "I did it! I got it all, and your ovary and tube are intact." More crying. So that's what was wrong all along. I did have a blighted ovum, an ectopic blighted ovum that was just outside the fallopian tube, and attached itself to the ovary. My artery supplying the uterus had trunkated off and was supplying the ovum. That's why I had the diabetes, my body was flooded with pregnancy hormones (the same amount as if I were having multiples) and could process. That's why I felt so run down, why my hips and lower back hurt. That's why their measurements were off, my uterus was displaced. If I had tried to labor, the cyst could have ruptured and we both would have died from bleeding internally.
In recovery, we all learned why I can't have morphine. Despite my telling them several times before we even started that I can't have morphine, they refused to give me anything else. Here's what I experience with morphine: it gags and mutes me, but it doesn't take away any pain. My blood pressure wouldn't stabilize, I had the shakes (which is normal) but they didn't stop, and I was in blinding pain. I could only stutter, "nnnnnnnnnooooooooo" when they would hit the button again and again and again. Eventually, my SIL convinced a doctor making rounds to come in and look at me. He said if I drank and ate, they'd switch to torodol. So, delirious, I still remember her saying in the sternest voice I'd ever heard, "look, you gotta eat these crackers, now." So, I ate the crackers. After twenty minutes, they shut off the machine, and gave me torodol. Like magic, the shaking stopped and my blood pressure stabilized. Then that same doctor yelled at me that I needed to let them know that I can't have morphine. Um,...ok.
My baby was ok. Because he wasn't ready to come out, he didn't have the rooting reflex,...at all. You could stroke his cheeks all day, he'd just sit there. He didn't have a good sucking reflex. Thank GOD my toddler was still nursing, she helped bring the milk in which still took 6 days. Long enough for my baby to loose 13% of his mass, get severe jaundice and end up having to stay after I'd been discharged. When we were both finally at home, my husband left on a business trip he was unable to cancel. So, I was immediately at home, alone, with a toddler and a newborn and c-section. All the people I had made arrangements to come and help me were either unable to do so because they were sick and couldn't be around my 36 weeker, or they just chose not to help me. Therefore, I bled for 12 weeks. I had post-partum depression. I felt disconnected from my body, like my soul was pulled off-center, while the rest of me went the other way. As silly as it sounds, I still miss the birth I didn't get to have. Yes, my baby was born, but I feel like I wasn't even there.
My sister-in-law was one of the people who was supposed to help me. She never showed up. She just left me in my house, knowing I'd had surgery (she was there), knowing I had a toddler, knowing I was suffering from depression. She just left me there. She was pregnant and didn't want to tell anyone because she got pregnant from a guy she was no longer with and didn't want the pregnancy. She didn't tell anyone she was pregnant, didn't get any prenatal care, didn't take vitamins, kept right on smoking a pack a day. In April, she showed up at my house. It was still cold so her baggy clothes didn't stand out. She was 39 weeks pregnant. On May 1st, after 2 hours of labor, she pushed out a healthy baby boy. She'd asked me to be her doula, again (I was with her first kid). Because I always do the right thing, I did, and she knew I would.
I'm jealous of her experience, especially since she doesn't appreciate her blessings. I'm resentful that she had the support she needed, but, even in the face of knowing she was going to need me, she wasn't there for me at all. I'm angry that women I know and love are going through their third, fourth, seventh and twelfth IVF rounds. Angry that some woman, can carelessly and thoughtlessly have random sex with strange men, get pregnant and have babies that they don't even want. Angry that some people have these perfect deliveries, while others are denied the experience they want so much. I'm sad, as I watch her with her tiny newborn. I'm so very sad that I was suffering from depression so much, that I don't remember when my beautiful baby that I wanted so much, was little. I don't remember those early days and it just breaks my heart. Why does she get to have such precious memories that she doesn't even care about? Why did I have to fight for several months to build the bond with my baby that I loved from the beginning, even when his father didn't?
It just doesn't seem right...
My first child (by the way, I have four) was induced at 42 weeks. After over 72 hours of laboring naturally, he just wasn't coming out. As they were discovering that he was a face presentation, they saw him on ultrasound releasing meconium, at the same time, his heart rate dropped and didn't recover very much. I wanted a natural birth,..but in the face of my baby dying, I came to terms with the cesarean almost immediately. Which, was good because he was out in about 3 minutes. Delirious from not really being numb, exhausted from labouring for three days, and suffering from the ob slicing through my bladder (on accident, she was rushing, I forgive her), I slept for the first several hours of my baby's life. When I woke up, I felt good. I was in pain, definitely, but my baby was alive. Other than looking like Rocky Balboa, he was good, healthy and strong. I felt like everything that happened was what should have happened.
My second and third babies were both vbacs (GO ME!!). The second one was supposed to be a section, but there was a hurricaine, so the ORs were back-to-back with emergency sections. The staff was so busy with the other women, that I delivered on the floor into my husband's arms. My third child I pushed out in twenty minutes, to the surprise of my high risk ob. My fourth baby,..well, I'm just now able to write about it, but I've spent the last three paragraphs writing about other stuff...
I was trying NOT to get pregnant. But, when you get an egg and a sperm together, you're going to have a baby. I was very happy about it, DH was very NOT happy about it. And, that's where the trouble began. From the beginning, I didn't feel right. My numbers were off from the beginning as well. At first, they were convinced that I had a blighted ovum so they did an ultrasound. Once they found a healthy embryo, they stopped looking. Family and friends kept saying that I shouldn't be having a baby at that point because of the financial turmoil we'd been going through. But, I was already pregnant, the birth control had failed. What were they suggesting, really?
I kept telling the OB I didn't feel right. I felt more than the typical exhaustion, morning sickness, and weepiness. I felt weak and shaky most of the time and my hips and lower back hurt a lot. She told me that these symptoms were not pregnancy related and to see my GP (who told me that they were pregnancy related and my OB should check into it). Brilliant, the medical version of "pass the buck."
I'm in the high risk clinic for several reasons. First, I have "advanced maternal age." Whatever, it gets me out of the regular clinic with the uber-fertile teenagers. Second, I had secondary infertility for about 8 years and 4 miscarriages (one at 14 weeks), along with infertility treatments that didn't work (my third was a surprise,..kind of like an "X-File."). Third, I have a bizarro metabolic disorder which makes it difficult for me to maintain folic acid levels. Mind you, even if you were only in the high risk clinic for advanced maternal age, they would still poke at you like you were a mythical creature.
At 15 weeks I got food poisoning. At 20 weeks I had my level 2 ultrasound. At 26 weeks my fundal height was 36. Suddenly, my OB was "very concerned." They ultrasound again, and discovered that my baby exploded to the 85 percentile in six weeks. They ran test after test and had me take the glucose test (four freaking times). Ironically, I failed all four before they even had me drink the nasty soda. Diagnosed with gestational diabetes, my doctor started the cesarean talks. Baby or mom dying is a good reason to do a section. Possibly big baby? Not a good enough reason. But they did scan after scan after scan. He stayed in the 85 percentile until 35 weeks when he suddenly ballooned to the 90th. These were all estimates, because the scan can be wrong plus or minus two pounds. They were estimating around 9-9.5 pounds. If they were light in their estimates, I could have an 11 pound baby. My OB wanted to do amnio to check the lungs, but I refused and went home.
At 35 weeks, my blood pressure went through the roof. I couldn't justify refusing the amnio this time. Although I was scared to death,...it didn't hurt at all. Seriously, when your fundal height is 44 cm (and you're only 5 feet tall), the skin is stretched so taut that you don't feel a thing. The lungs were "mature" so the section was scheduled for the following day.
I have to tell you, I wandered around my house most of the evening in shock. I was so sad. People I know were saying things like, "you should be happy, you don't have to labor." That only made it worse,..I'm a weirdo that loves the process of labor. Of course I don't "enjoy" the pain, but the contractions feel right, purposeful. Everything has meaning, the pressure, pain, highs and lows, even the throwing up -- how else would I ever know I was in transition? I was going to miss that completely. I wasn't going to get to hold my baby, for a long long time. I wasn't going to watch him crown. I wasn't going to touch his head as he emerged. I wasn't going to smell him and comfort him after his journey. My flora wasn't going to colonize and protect him. It would be a stranger's flora to colonize my baby. A stranger would comfort my baby. A stranger would pull him out of my body, whether he was ready or not. And not because of imminent danger. You might ask, then why the hell did I agree to the section in the first place? From the beginning, I knew something wasn't right. I knew something was wrong and that labor (no matter how much I wanted to labor) would be disastrous.
I went into the hospital, was monitored in triage for a few hours and then taken to my room. They shaved down my old c-section area, and made me drink this nasty stuff. I got my IV (in a terrible place, the side of my right wrist, and I'm right handed). I tried to make light of things, and laugh and be peaceful. That facade fell away when my nurse said two words, "its time." I burst into tears and didn't stop. I cried while walking down the hallway to the OR. I cried when I saw the room and the bed that look suspiciously like the one they use for lethal injections. I cried when the anesthesiologist got there, and through the spinal. I finally stopped crying when they draped me and I realized that, from that point forward, I wouldn't know what was happening to my body.
They had the table shifted head-down by 15 degrees, and to the left 15 degrees because they believed they had an 11 pound baby to deliver. This angle cause the spinal medication to drift, a very dangerous situation if the medication hits my chest. My hands and arms went numb. I told the anesthesiologist this, and he stopped the surgery so they could level the table. I knew this would happen. Spinal anesthesia is not recommended for people with claustrophobia, because if the medication drifts, the patient can be overcome with the feeling they are drowning. Not a good feeling at all.
After a time, they had my baby out. I was amazed at how big he looked. Still, he was only 8lb11oz. My second baby was larger and I pushed her out. I started to get very angry. I said, "why the hell did we do this? You're measurements were off by a lot!!" DH left with my baby so my SIL sat by my head. She started talking to me because my blood pressure started going up and I was crying again. I was angry because I thought I had punked out -- taken the easy route -- with no good reason and I was MAD!!!! Before I could get too worked up, my OB says, "Kay, we have a problem here. There is a massive cyst on your right ovary. I need your permission to remove it, but I'm not sure I can get it out without taking the ovary and fallopian tube." I had three seconds to consider the reality that, eventually the cyst would have to come out, either now while she's already there, or later, when I would have to be separated from my baby AGAIN. Now was better. So I told her to do her best to preserve my tube and ovary.
After another half an hour or so, she said, "I did it! I got it all, and your ovary and tube are intact." More crying. So that's what was wrong all along. I did have a blighted ovum, an ectopic blighted ovum that was just outside the fallopian tube, and attached itself to the ovary. My artery supplying the uterus had trunkated off and was supplying the ovum. That's why I had the diabetes, my body was flooded with pregnancy hormones (the same amount as if I were having multiples) and could process. That's why I felt so run down, why my hips and lower back hurt. That's why their measurements were off, my uterus was displaced. If I had tried to labor, the cyst could have ruptured and we both would have died from bleeding internally.
In recovery, we all learned why I can't have morphine. Despite my telling them several times before we even started that I can't have morphine, they refused to give me anything else. Here's what I experience with morphine: it gags and mutes me, but it doesn't take away any pain. My blood pressure wouldn't stabilize, I had the shakes (which is normal) but they didn't stop, and I was in blinding pain. I could only stutter, "nnnnnnnnnooooooooo" when they would hit the button again and again and again. Eventually, my SIL convinced a doctor making rounds to come in and look at me. He said if I drank and ate, they'd switch to torodol. So, delirious, I still remember her saying in the sternest voice I'd ever heard, "look, you gotta eat these crackers, now." So, I ate the crackers. After twenty minutes, they shut off the machine, and gave me torodol. Like magic, the shaking stopped and my blood pressure stabilized. Then that same doctor yelled at me that I needed to let them know that I can't have morphine. Um,...ok.
My baby was ok. Because he wasn't ready to come out, he didn't have the rooting reflex,...at all. You could stroke his cheeks all day, he'd just sit there. He didn't have a good sucking reflex. Thank GOD my toddler was still nursing, she helped bring the milk in which still took 6 days. Long enough for my baby to loose 13% of his mass, get severe jaundice and end up having to stay after I'd been discharged. When we were both finally at home, my husband left on a business trip he was unable to cancel. So, I was immediately at home, alone, with a toddler and a newborn and c-section. All the people I had made arrangements to come and help me were either unable to do so because they were sick and couldn't be around my 36 weeker, or they just chose not to help me. Therefore, I bled for 12 weeks. I had post-partum depression. I felt disconnected from my body, like my soul was pulled off-center, while the rest of me went the other way. As silly as it sounds, I still miss the birth I didn't get to have. Yes, my baby was born, but I feel like I wasn't even there.
My sister-in-law was one of the people who was supposed to help me. She never showed up. She just left me in my house, knowing I'd had surgery (she was there), knowing I had a toddler, knowing I was suffering from depression. She just left me there. She was pregnant and didn't want to tell anyone because she got pregnant from a guy she was no longer with and didn't want the pregnancy. She didn't tell anyone she was pregnant, didn't get any prenatal care, didn't take vitamins, kept right on smoking a pack a day. In April, she showed up at my house. It was still cold so her baggy clothes didn't stand out. She was 39 weeks pregnant. On May 1st, after 2 hours of labor, she pushed out a healthy baby boy. She'd asked me to be her doula, again (I was with her first kid). Because I always do the right thing, I did, and she knew I would.
I'm jealous of her experience, especially since she doesn't appreciate her blessings. I'm resentful that she had the support she needed, but, even in the face of knowing she was going to need me, she wasn't there for me at all. I'm angry that women I know and love are going through their third, fourth, seventh and twelfth IVF rounds. Angry that some woman, can carelessly and thoughtlessly have random sex with strange men, get pregnant and have babies that they don't even want. Angry that some people have these perfect deliveries, while others are denied the experience they want so much. I'm sad, as I watch her with her tiny newborn. I'm so very sad that I was suffering from depression so much, that I don't remember when my beautiful baby that I wanted so much, was little. I don't remember those early days and it just breaks my heart. Why does she get to have such precious memories that she doesn't even care about? Why did I have to fight for several months to build the bond with my baby that I loved from the beginning, even when his father didn't?
It just doesn't seem right...