With Leo, I stupidly trusted the medical community in believing that an induction was right for me. One intervention led to another and another, and soon I was being carted off to the OR for an emergency c-section. Thereafter, Leo somehow developed a fever and was sent to the high risk nursery for a round of intravenous antibiotics and heightened monitoring. No one would say he'd get better or give me any odds of his survival. So I cried and cried and cried and tried to nurse him while he had what seemed like thousands of wires and tubes attached to various parts of his little adorable body. Simply put, it was hell. And the hell continued after he was released. I'm fairly sure that the antibiotics he was given absolutely wrecked the healthy bacteria he had in his tummy. which in turn led to him having colic for the first three months of his life. And let me tell you, colic is a dirty rotten bitch. Nonstop crying for a good three months. Both grandmas were all, "You kids were fussy, but nothing like THIS." Strangely enough, those comments were good to hear because they provided validation that he was a difficult baby and that it wasn't just us being new and crappy parents. ANYWAY, long story short (too late!), I wanted my experience for #2 to be completely different than #1.
Have you ever heard of a VBAC? It stands for Vaginal Birth After Caesarian. And early on, it's what I decided I wanted. There can be problems with going for a VBAC, the most notable being rupture of your earlier cut, but it's becoming accepted as a good alternative if a momma is a good candidate. I was and so I began studying about what I could do to maximize my chances of having a successful VBAC. I hired a doula, I got chiropractic care to ensure my hips were in perfect alignment for birth and I undertook a daily walking regimen to keep my blood pressure in check. I read books about VBACing, I devoured successful VBAC stories on baby-related websites and I had several reiki sessions to prepare myself both physically and mentally. I wanted a VBAC. Bad.
At the end of my pregnancy, I got really antsy about having the baby. I was pregnant Jessica Simpson huge and exhausted. I was just ready to be done. So I did everything that I could to naturally get the ball rolling: I ate pineapple and eggplant parmesan, I ramped up the walking regimen, I had an acupuncture treatment and I even had sex (which, UGH, might've ruined it for me forever). Nothing really worked until I started using my pump to "stimulate" my nipples (more like "yank" and "chafe" my nipples), which got the contractions going.
Funny side story: after the contractions started, I decided to take a warm bath. Lying there submerged felt so good on my back and pelvis. When the water cooled off, I let it drain out while still sitting in the tub. It took a lot of effort to hoist my gigantic gut, so I took a couple minutes to ponder and gear up for it. As I started to lift my self up, a huge gush of water came flooding out from my crotchal area. I thought, "Yes! My water just broke! Baby's on her way!" And then, crestfallen, I realized that nope, my water hadn't actually broken, but rather, my massive ass had just created a dam of bath water that was breached when I began hoisting myself up. At that point, you have to laugh because otherwise you'd just cry.
After the bath, contractions sped up, and I was in the hospital by 3 that afternoon. They seemed to get really painful, really fast. I had planned on walking and being active throughout labor, but the contractions hurt so bad, all I could do was lie on my side. After a couple hours, the nurses told me that the baby's vitals weren't looking so good, so they ordered a biophysical profile test, which is basically an hour-long ultrasound. I found myself having to lay flat on my back and not move through contractions that were, at that point, about a minute apart. It was HELL.
The baby passed the test, so I was sent back up to my room to continue laboring. It still hurt like hell, so I asked for an epidural. The nurses told me the anesthesiologist wouldn't be able to make it for a couple hours because of a multi-car crash that was being routed to my hospital. I promptly threw up. I don't know if it was the pain or the thought of having to deal with the pain without meds for 2-3 more hours, but I just turned my head and vomited.
Lucky for me, the anesthesiologist decided he could "get me in" before the crash victims arrived, so I got my epi. Unlucky for me, it became clear very fast that he didn't get it in the right place and I got only about an hour's worth of relief.
They dosed me up again, and that one lasted even shorter. They refused to give me any more meds.
At that point, I had been in labor about 14 hours. And I was only dilated to four. FOUR. Out of TEN. WTF, cervix?
The doctor decided to then break my water, which usually speeds things up. My contractions did speed up to less than 30 seconds between, but I stayed at four for two more hours before the doc said I either needed to have pitocin to speed up labor or go for a c-section. Remember that whole thing about the earlier incision rupturing? It's a lot more common when pitocin is used. Plus, contractions get even worse with pitocin and I had already vomited from the pain, so I felt defeated. With all that in mind, and some significant doubt about my ability to give birth the good old fashioned way, I decided to go for a c-section. I thought it would go fast and my suffering would be over.
HARDLY. With Leo, I had taken some narcotics, so the time between when they made the decision to go for a c-section and when it actually happened felt like it flew by. It was a breeze. Not so with this one. Suffering through contractions, fully cognizant of every little bit of pain, while they prepped me and moved me from gurney to gurney and strapped me down, was unbearable. I was doing my damn breathing techniques so hard, I sounded like a rabid bull. They tried to give me a spinal med to just numb me from the waist down, but it didn't take. So without telling me what they were doing, they put a mask on my face and held it down. I got clausterphobic all of a sudden and started thrashing, and they then said they were putting me under. I didn't have time to say anything or do anything before I was out.
And then what seemed like 5 minutes later, I woke up in recovery. Baby out, all stitched up. It was over.
Even though general anesthesia was probably the worst case scenario, recovery from it was better than it had been when I just had a spinal med with Leo. I was able to go upstairs faster than before.
When I got back up to my room, I learned that they also tied my tubes (which I had requested) and removed a cyst that I didn't know I had while performing the c-section. So I killed three birds with one stone. That made me feel like maybe it was supposed to happen that way. Like I would've had to have surgery anyway to remove the cyst, so it was fate that it all worked out the way it did. So I was resolved, if still a little disappointed, about how it all went down.
And, of course, there's my baby, my sweet little Hadley Joy. Leo calls her Haddie (he can't really say Ls yet). She's such a good baby, so happy and fun and cute.
She's 4 months old today. And I feel so lucky to have her.
