My cesarean revisited

She's almost 3 years old and I still mourn my birth experience.

Every time I see or hear a friend or family member is being induced, I cringe. When an induction of a loved one fails, I weep inside because I know what that feels like. And when they're taken back for the ultimate sacrifice to meet their child, I pray ... that they heal quickly, are able to handle the pain and cope with the emotional turmoil many, like I, have encountered on the path to postpartum new mommy bliss.

Recently I linked a blog post from 2011 that a few of my friends had also linked to on Facebook. I tagged other c-section moms because I wanted them to know we all are courageous to have undergone major abdominal surgery to get our babies out. We are awesome because we risked everything to meet our children.

I didn't expect I would get so emotional after posting it and then reading their responses and what they wrote when relinking to the same blog post. Rarely do I open up in an open format to express, in part, a condensed version of my five-day hospital stay when Josephine was born. I often feel like the past should be just that; the past.



But, I opened up to them, to anyone on my friend list with the free will and desire to read my monologue:

"I remember not having the fight in me when they told me I had "stalled" at 4cm with Josie after a failed induction. That my uterus wasn't contracting on its own. I remember looking at my nurse and thinking my body failed me, that my CNM failed me by putting me in that situation and then bailed due to a family obligation leaving my surgery to a doctor I had never met. I hated not being able to move my arms, itch my nose, adjust my glasses, reach out to touch my husband and reassure him that everything would be OK. And then I heard Josie cry and saw Ron's eyes well up with tears when he held her for the very first time while they sewed and stapled me back together. And even though, to this day, I wish I had refused to be induced, had been more informed of my decisions since my induction really was not necessary, I know I'm brave for doing what I had to do to meet Josephine. *steps down from soapbox*"

I have tried to convince myself that it doesn't matter how she was brought to us, as long as she was safe, but it does matter because I was not emotionally ready to deal with everything that was happening; neither was my husband. When I agreed to the surgery, my life was not even a question — I didn't care what happened to me, but if they were going to cut me open, nothing had better happen to my child.

Coincidentally, I had a dream a couple months before Josie was due to arrive. The scene: a cold, sterile operating room. I was staunchly sitting on a bed, an anesthesiologist milling in the back, the male obstetrician from the practice I go to was pleading with me that the c-section was the best option ... and the deciding factor was my husband. Standing in a corner, begging me to go through with it because it was the only way to have our baby. It was a girl, all 6 pounds 10 ounces of her. Keep in mind, this was a dream (and we didn't find out the sex during our anatomy scan).

You know, dreams have no bearing on reality, right? That was something else I tried to convince myself. Everything about that dream was fairly accurate, only it was the OB who performed my surgery who tried to convince me this was the best option and Josie's weight was 6 pounds 5.9 ounces.

My female obstetrician told me I had nothing to worry about when I expressed my concerns during a regular appointment and told her about this dream. She felt it was highly unlikely I would need a c-section. Yet, she wasn't the one taking care of me at a majority of my appointments ... she wasn't the one who several weeks later sent me from their office in a wheelchair over to the connecting hospital for an induction because I was swollen, miserable and the child I was carrying didn't want to play nice with the fetal monitor.

Now would be a good time to mention I didn't have pre-eclampsia despite my blood pressure being pretty high, something that could have been taken care of with bedrest and a low sodium diet since there was very little educating happening in the early days of my pregnancy to inform me that Frank's Red Hot and pickled jalapenos were not intelligent food choices even if that's what I was craving. 

Back to the hospital ...

I was hooked up to monitors, put on IV fluids, scared of what might happen before my husband and parents could get to the hospital to help me through this and finally told the game plan was to, essentially, load my body up on drugs to make my cervix dilate and my uterus contract so violently I would cry. Oh, they forgot to tell me I wouldn't be allowed to get up and walk. Or that breaking my water at 2cm was going to automatically render me bedridden. Or that I would feel like most of my rights would be stripped from me.

She's almost 3. You'd think I would be less emotional about this. The anger is still raw. When I wash my belly in the shower, I can feel the smoothness of the scar, the depth of my sacrifice for my child.

The truth of the matter is I didn't picture my induction going like that. I didn't picture an induction at all. No one ever does. No one watches a pregnancy test turn positive and get excited because they're going to be strapped to an operating table in nine or so months and sliced open like a hog at the neighborhood pig roast. Most of us, the first time we conceive, paint a pretty picture of how it will go for the next 40 weeks.

Then the morning sickness and reality hit and we realize we truly are heroes. We're courageous. Not just those of us who have endured a cesarean, but all of us who have brought a child into this world, and we're part of a very special club.

We're moms.