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Now that Darius is more than a month old, I’m finally ready to talk about this. It was quite a traumatic experience for me and I’ve had a hard time dealing with it, but I know that sharing my story always helps me make sense of my own feelings. It’ll probably be quite long so I’ll understand if no one wants to read the whole thing. The sharing alone helps me whether or not anyone actually reads it. ๐
I have been trying to have a baby for 7 years, so I have had plenty of time to plan the perfect birth. I had visions of a peaceful water birth at a birthing center with my midwife team and my husband there to support me. I’d be able to bring my baby home right away, recovery would be quick and easy and breastfeeding and cloth diapering would be a breeze.
It was such a sweet dream! And things were going so smoothly -I never even got morning sickness! But at the beginning of the third trimester my blood pressure went way up and they could no longer handle me at the birthing center because they were worried about preeclampsia. I had to transfer my care to a hospital so I started seeing the midwife team there. I was able to keep my blood pressure fairly low (in the borderline range instead of high) with lots of rest and a healthy diet. The midwives and I thought I’d still be able to do a natural birth. I had had two panic attacks just thinking about the possibility of an epidural or c-section, so I was thrilled!
But at 35 weeks my blood pressure went sky high again. They had to put me on medication to bring it down and they scheduled me for an induction at 37 weeks 5 days. The reason high blood pressure is so dangerous in pregnancy is because the blood flow isn’t able to get to the placenta and to the baby as well and it can lead to preeclampsia which causes problems with the mom’s liver and kidneys and can cause seizures which can be fatal for the mom. A little over a week before my induction my blood pressure rose again and my blood and urine test results were now showing more signs of preeclampsia. They decided it wouldn’t be safe to let me go home. They kept me at the hospital and started the process to induce me. My husband and kids were at a family reunion in Park City so I had to call them and tell them to come home early (I had driven myself to the hospital).
It was Sunday morning when I came in (36 weeks 4 days). They gave me Cytotec to soften my cervix since my body wasn’t quite ready for giving birth yet. After 4 doses, my cervix had softened but still was only dilated to a 1. Sunday night they put a balloon in my cervix to help it open up more-that was uncomfortable! By Monday morning the balloon came out and I was dilated to a 5 so they started me on Pitocin to get my contractions going. We had done a Hypnobabies home study course so I was using self hypnosis to stay relaxed and calm during labor and it was working great! Devan thought I was sleeping through the contractions.
Sometime on Monday my water broke. The nurses didn’t believe me until the midwife did the next cervical exam and confirmed that I was right. Contractions continued but I wasn’t really progressing. The midwife suggested I get up and sit on the birthing ball for a while and go for a walk as well. It was so nice to get out of bed! But when I came back, my blood pressure had gone sky high again. They were worried about seizures so they put me on Magnesium Sulfate through my IV. It was horrible! The second it started flowing into me I felt like my whole body was on fire -I was so hot! They also had to put in a catheter because they have to monitor the urine output closely when you’re on the mag.
At this point, they were still calling it an unmedicated birth, which I thought was hysterical because I had been given several medications. They talked to me about an epidural because they said it can lower blood pressure, but I told them no. I have a serious phobia of needles and was having a hard enough time with the IV and the frequent blood draws, I definitely couldn’t handle an epidural.ย The pain wasn’t bad for me, thanks to the self hypnosis, and I was sure it wouldn’t help my blood pressure unless it also numbed my brain. I told them the only thing that scared me more than a c-section was an epidural.
Labor continued, but I wasn’t progressing much and my baby’s heart rate started to drop after every contraction. They put me on oxygen to see if that would help and they kept moving me to different positions to see if they could get his heart rate to stay up. Nothing worked so they told me I would need a c-section for my baby’s safety. I was devastated and terrified! But I didn’t want to take any chances so I agreed to it.
They took me off the Pitocin to stop the labor so Darius’ heart rate could go back to normal before the surgery. About an hour and a half later, they came and got me for surgery prep. They had to give me an epidural first to numb me for surgery. It was awful! I could feel it going in and it hurt! Then everything went numb and I could no longer control my own body. They put me on the table for surgery and I felt like I was going to vomit so Devan had to hold a barf bag by my mouth and an alcohol wipe by my nose so I couldn’t smell anything. My upper body was shaking so bad through the whole surgery that my arms were falling off the table.
Darius was born at 12:18 Tuesday morning (July 28) at 37 weeks 6 days gestation. He was 4 lbs. 13 oz. and 19 inches long. He was beautiful and perfect and so small! We struggled with breastfeeding that first day because I was still so out of it from the magnesium (you have to stay on it for 24 hours after birth) and because he was so small. He wasn’t eating so his glucose levels were too low and he ended up in the NICU. The first time I went down to visit him, Devan pushed me in a wheelchair but he had to head home to take care of our other kids after that so I walked from then on rather than worrying about having a nurse wheel me down. And I wasn’t taking anything other than Motrin for the pain, so you can imagine how slow I had to walk.
Since nothing else had gone right, I was determined to make breastfeeding work. I walked down to the NICU every three hours (I skipped one feeding at night) and I breast fed even though he wasn’t eating and I pumped even though nothing was coming out. By the end of the week, I was producing milk, he was eating and had been taken off the IV and he only had to stay at the hospital for one day without me.
It’s been rough taking care of a newborn while recovering from a c-section, but it hasn’t been that bad. I have help from my wonderful husband, my kids, and friends and family. The hardest thing has been dealing with it emotionally. I’m definitely not less afraid of doctors and needles and surgery after my experience. If anything, I’m more scared. I haven’t even been able to look at my incision yet. I’m not worried about a scar, I just can’t stand to think of someone cutting into me and pulling things out of me. And I feel like a failure -I know that I’m not, but it feels like I am. I’d been looking forward to child birth and planning it for so long, but when it came right down to it, my body wasn’t able to do what it was supposed to do. I wonder if there is anything I could have done to prevent all the complications, I feel guilty that my baby is so small and that my body wasn’t able to give him what he needed, and I feel like it’s my fault that he ended up in the NICU.
I know that all of those thoughts are a bit irrational, but I just had a baby and it’s hard to be rational. But then I look at my sweet Darius and for at least a moment, none of that matters. I’m amazed that this perfect baby boy came from my body -and we both made it through. I’m so grateful to be a part of creating life! It is such a miracle no matter how it happens. And, at least the cloth diapering is going well. ๐