Tag: momblog

Coping With An Unplanned C-Section

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Fear. This is the first emotion you feel when your labor takes a turn for the worse. When your progression slows. When your baby’s heart stops beating. You feel fear. You fear for your life and the life of your unborn child. The fear takes over your body and survival mode kicks in. No amount of research done or books read prepares you for this. You don’t really think at all. You just focus on the fear, your mind goes blank, and your body goes numb. It’s extremely instinctual: fight or flight. If it wasn’t for the epidural turning my legs to Jell-O, I may have chosen flight. Run and pretend that nothing was wrong. Just rewind and go back to when everything was seemingly fine.

Then you feel failure. Why couldn’t your body do the one thing it is physiologically programmed to do? What does this say about the kind of mom you will be? If your body didn’t know how to have a baby, how will you know how to be a parent? What if I wasn’t meant to do this? You feel like your body failed you and like you have already failed your child. You spent 9 long months nurturing and growing this baby just to have things go wrong now. You wonder if you could have done something, anything, differently to prevent this.  You wonder if you did everything right. Or everything wrong. You blame yourself and you feel the failure to your core.

But then there’s a moment. And you pause. When you hear your baby cry for the first time after not knowing if he had a heartbeat. When they put him on your chest and you can feel him move. After dreaming of what he looked like for months, you can finally see him.  No longer the mysterious bump and squirming in your belly…you finally have your baby. It is the deepest feeling of relief and happiness I’ve ever known.

The emotional rollercoaster is tough. In the beginning, you will continue to feel fear and failure every day. The more people ask about your birth, the more failure you feel. Having to explain why a C-section was necessary, as if you’re trying to justify to yourself that it wasn’t your fault. You over explain and try to convince yourself, more than anyone else, that it was the only option.

People will say (over and over again) the one thing that should never be said to a woman who had an emergency C-section: “You are so lucky you didn’t have to push…” That feeling of failure will rush back every time.

You’ll be tempted to correct them (or yell at them.) That you aren’t lucky. You aren’t lucky that your baby’s heart stopped, that you couldn’t have the birth you wanted, that you didn’t get to experience what you’ve waited 9 months for, that you couldn’t do what your body is supposed to do. That you failed.

But instead, you’ll smile and nod.

It’s not easy to cope with an emergency delivery, but the feelings get better. You will come to accept the delivery for all that it is. The good and the bad all blend together, and you just remind yourself how amazing you are. The more you see your baby grow and thrive. Every ounce gained. Every inch grown. Every milestone reached. It all reassures that you did what was necessary to save your baby’s life. You made a decision that ensured your baby was safe. You kept your baby healthy. You did not fail. You did not run. You made the choice to fight. You’ll start to see your incision as proof of your strength and bravery. As the gateway that brought your baby safely into the world. As a beautiful battle scar.

Birth Plan

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During pregnancy, there are a million decisions we have to make. Everything from choosing our OB or Midwife, to finding out baby’s gender, to which birth classes to attend is all up to us. The important thing to note is that we have options, and we have a voice in how our pregnancy goes. So birth should be no different. Many women can feel overwhelmed with decisions and forget they have a say in what happens.

Birth Plans are a great way to very clearly and easily let your preferences be known and keep your voice. Obviously, nothing with birth goes exactly according to plan, but having your basic wants/needs or things you are very passionate about covered is a great place to start. It is a good idea to tour your hospital before writing your birth plan so you know standard hospital policies. This saved me a ton of time because I already knew what my hospital was set up for and what they routinely do. Therefore I was able to leave some parts out because I already agreed with their normal practices. With so many doctors and nurses cycling into your room, birth plans are a great way to keep everyone on the same page without having to keep repeating yourself during labor. Having your preferences written out also helps reinforce your voice and shows that you’ve done research into your options. It is best to keep these short and sweet. No one is going to read your 3-page essay style birth plan. One page and bullet points are best!

Things to include:

Labor

  1. Basic Personal Information

Include your name, due date, blood type, and any pregnancy complications you may have had (high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, etc)

  1. Continuous vs Intermittent monitoring
  2. Should visitors be allowed in?
  3. Different positions you may want to labor in
  4. Pain medication preferences
  5. Induction preferences (if necessary)

Delivery

  1. Pushing positions you want to try
  2. Perineum support/massage
  3. Delayed cord clamping
  4. Who cuts the cord?
  5. Are vacuum or forceps okay?
  6. Episiotomy vs natural tearing
  7. Include your “in case of emergency” preferences as well

C-Section: Who will be in the OR with you? Free arm movement? Skin to Skin in OR?

If NICU is required: Is formula okay? Pacifiers? Who stays with the baby?

Who makes your medical decisions if you are unable?

Post-Partum

  1. Golden Hour
  2. Vitamin K and Hep B shots?
  3. Eye ointment/gel
  4. When are visitors allowed?
  5. Breastfeeding vs formula
  6. Delayed bathing
  7. Pain management for tearing/stitches

Extras

  • Saving Placenta for Encapsulation
  • Cord Blood Banking
  • Birth Photographer

Even if you end up not using a birth plan or your experience goes nothing according to plan….like mine. It is a great tool to keep you informed about your options and encourages you to do some very important research before the big day.

Below is an easy, stress-free template to use! Just fill in the blanks and you are all set!

Add heading (2)

My Birth Story

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As a first time mom (and someone with a Type A personality), I was all about the idea of a Birth Plan. To me, having all of my preferences and how I wanted my birth experience to go in one easy place seemed great! While the process of writing My Birth Plan did get me to do some very important research and had me thinking about decisions I would have to make, I might as well have just tossed the whole “plan” out. Nothing (aside from actually having a baby) went to this long thought out plan. Originally I wanted a natural, uninduced, unmedicated labor with only my Doula (Rachel) and Hayden in the room with me. I was positive I was going to wake up in the middle of the night to contractions starting or have my water break during a busy shift at work. I never imagined I would be 41 weeks pregnant and still no signs of labor. But of course, that is exactly what happened.

My last appointment with my OB was on my due date. They started talking about inducing at 41 weeks due to some slowed down growth with the baby. I agreed kind of passively still convinced that I would magically go into labor before that would be necessary. But we agreed to start slow and go in for a cervical gel that would jumpstart the labor process since my body was taking its sweet time. I was pretty shocked that despite my every effort to go into labor, nothing was happening. I tried every trick that Pinterest and Doctor Google offered: spicy food, pineapple, raspberry leaf tea, massage, acupressure, squats, bouncing, nipple stimulation, walking, clary sage oil, sex, and even a bath bomb that was said to induce labor. NADA. So I woke up on the morning of my induction and was convinced that this would not work either. I was sure that even western medicine was no match for my stubborn uterus, and I was doomed to stay pregnant forever. If drowning myself in Clary Sage oil and swimming in Jasmine infused bath bombs didn’t work, how on Earth would this gel do anything? Clearly, rational thinking was completely out the window at this point.

We arrived at the hospital and were put into a triage room where they confirmed that I was still 0 cm dilated. UGH. We continued with the induction plan and they placed the cervical gel. I was feeling minor contractions but they too closely resembled the Braxton Hicks for me to think anything was actually happening. That is until our room was swarmed with nurses about 15 minutes later. Without saying much they immediately threw an oxygen mask on me and started rolling my body around into different positions. They finally explained that the baby’s heart rate had dropped lower than normal after my contractions and stayed down for too long. My OB was in the hospital minutes later discussing our options. We opted to be admitted and have continuous monitoring to see how the baby handles labor. About 10 minutes after being admitted my water broke naturally. Yay! Then the contractions really picked up. After a couple hours of intense but manageable contractions, I was still less than 1 cm dilated. They offered Pitocin to speed things up, but I asked for a Foley Bulb to try and start dilation a little more naturally which they agreed to. I needed to be constantly hooked up to oxygen and periodically our nurse would come in and adjust my positioning as the baby’s heart rate would still drop off after contractions. Rachel had an oil diffuser, was rubbing essential oils on me, and putting a cold cloth on my forehead. Hayden was rubbing my back and giving me counter pressure. We were watching the Game Show Network trying to distract myself by answering questions faster than the contestants. All of which was great….for a while. Around hour 10 I started to buckle under the pain. I was throwing up at the peak of contractions and basically passing out between them. They were coming about every 30 seconds and lasting about 2 minutes. I thought for sure we were nearing the end and I would be ready to push soon. When they told me I was only 5cm dilated I opted (begged) for the epidural. The medicine gave immediate relief but also caused the baby’s heart rate to drop significantly. They had lost the heart rate for 5 minutes and could not get it back up. They were ready to wheel me for an emergency C-section when my OB came in and decided to place an internal monitor and reassess. Thankfully it was climbing back up and I was able to continue labor.

After another 6 hours of much more comfortable labor, I was still only 5cm. I was feeling so frustrated and disappointed with my inability to handle the labor pains. I knew that if I had not taken the epidural, then my progression would most likely have not slowed down. But it was a little too late for that kind of thinking, and I knew that I needed to move forward. Around 10:30pm my baby’s heart rate started dropping again. This time it was down for 7 minutes and that was it. C-Section time. Before I could even blink, 6 nurses rushed into the room and were ripping wires off of the wall and detaching IVs to make me mobile. They were prepping me and rolling me to an OR before I could even comprehend what was going on. Everything was moving so fast. Hayden and I took a second to talk because we had to very quickly make a decision. Since we had lost his heart rate several times already, we agreed to the operation to make sure the baby was okay. I was pumped full of drugs and had a surgeon pulling my baby out all within what felt like seconds.

Grayson was born at 11:08pm. 7lbs 2oz 19 inches long and 100% perfect. It was the exact opposite of the labor and birth that I had envisioned for myself, but seeing that beautiful baby boy made it all worth it. I didn’t care that it wasn’t the perfect delivery I had wanted because in that moment I had a safe and healthy son.