My Birth Experience

First, I'd like to apologize for the length of this post, but it's a long story, and I hope this helps any future mothers.

As women, most of us have dreams and expectations of what life has in store for us and how we want it to be. School, career, house, love, marriage, children, etc. The experience of giving birth is just a small notch on that long branch, but it's a big one. Now, some women don't want kids, and there's nothing wrong with that. Causing harm to a child, or any person, is worse than simply not wanting a child. But for those of us who do we dream of an easy, natural birth with a healthy baby, I did too. Unfortunately for me, that was not the case. The silver lining is that both my baby and I survived and are healthy.

Begining:

I went to my regular doctor's appointment at 36 weeks pregnant. My feet were so swollen that the only pairs of shoes I could wear were my house shoes or flip-flops; bending my foot to walk properly was next to impossible.. The swelling was in my ankles and my calves. At the appointment, they were checking my blood pressure, BP, and the nurse asked if I had called them back, which confused me. She tried to explain, but she couldn't remember what it was that they wanted. So I went and did my pee test, and she came back and said that it was something about high protein levels in my urine. Then I went back to the waiting room until I was called to the back.

When I got to sit with the doctor, I showed him my feet and told him about how I was having a hard time standing, doing a small amount of dishes, sweeping, or just swapping one load of laundry. My feet and body would ache so much. He looked at and felt my feet as I spoke. As soon as I was done talking, he said he didn't want me to do anything except sit and keep my feet up. Then he asked if I was still working, and I informed him I had quit my job. He seemed pleased by that and replied, "Good." Then he went on to say that I had pre-eclampsia and we were going to have to do a C-section. I wasn't exactly thrilled by that; the idea of a C-section always scared me, but I knew that it would be safer and a greater possibility of both of us surviving. Another reason why he was saying a C-section was the way to go is because my baby was in a breech position. Her head was in my upper stomach and feet down but at a 30-degree angle, and it didn't look like she wanted to rotate. He said he wanted to see me in a week and see how I was doing, but most likely we would do the C-section in a week. When we left, my stepdad and I agreed if I was still working, he would have put me on leave right then and there.

Getting to the Hospital:

The next day, my husband was at work, and I was at home doing my best to follow the doctor's orders. However, later that night I had this tight, hard feeling in my upper stomach, and I realized I hadn't eaten in about 7-8 hours at that point, but I wasn't really feeling hungry. I tried to eat something because I was pregnant and needed to feed my baby. Unfortunately, I didn't eat very much, and eventually, my spine began to hurt so much. I tried sitting and lying in different positions, but the pain just would not go away and kept making me feel so uncomfortable I wanted to cry. I eventually called my mother because I wanted my mother, and she's a nurse. After I told her how I was feeling, she said I probably needed to go to the ER but to call them first, then call her back. And sure enough, they said I needed to go to the ER. That's when I really began to panic.

Choking back tears, I called my mother back and told her what they said, and she asked who I wanted to come get me. I told her I didn't care, just someone. She said okay and hung up. Trying to keep myself calm and levelheaded, I got up and started getting myself ready to leave. As I was getting dressed, my mom came into the house, and my husband called me. I had texted him about what was going on after the call with my mom. I held back my tears as I talked to him because I didn't want to scare him or make him worry. After he and I hung up, I took a moment to cry. Then I finished packing.

Once I was ready, mom and I got in the car and left. In hindsight, I should have packed a little differently because I ended up staying overnight, and I didn't properly pack for that. My husband and I were going to get go bags ready the next day when he was off. During the drive, I probably talked my mother's ear off more than she would have liked, but I was trying to keep myself from freaking out and panicking and making things worse for me and the baby. I think she knew that, so she just let me ramble on.

Arriving at the Hospital:

It took about 30-45 minutes to get to the hospital, and by the time we got there, it was a little after 10 p.m. Mom dropped me off at the ER door and went to park the car. Mom got me checked in, and they pointed us in the direction of the delivery wing. I started to walk back there, but everyone agreed that I should ride in a wheelchair, so I did. After they got me into a room, in a hospital gown, and in the bed, the nurses started taking my vitals and whatnot. They tried to give me an I.V. and draw blood for some tests, but they couldn't find a vein or get to one. First, they tried the inside bend of my right arm, but it didn't work. Then they tried my right hand, which made me cry, and it kind of worked but not well enough. They couldn't find a vein in the bend of my left arm, so they tried my left hand. It didn't hurt as badly, so I was able to watch, but it also did not work. All these spots didn't work mostly because I was swollen with fluid.

They even tried one of those vein scanner thingies, which made my mother act like a little kid on Christmas morning when they brought it in. Guess what? That still didn't work! They had poked, flicked, tapped, and prodded at me for so long that by the time they brought the E.R. nurse in to get the IV, I was begging them not to prick me again if they couldn't get it. I wasn't throwing myself about or moving or anything; they were doing what they had to do, but boy, was I tired of being messed with. The E.R. nurse didn't even bother with my arms and went straight for my shoulder at that point, and by the time I finished telling her what I told the other nurses, she had gotten the IV. Mom thought it was hilarious that they had to stick the IV in my shoulder, partly because that's what she said would probably end up happening. She did feel bad for me but still took pictures of it for her coworkers. And I'm glad she did because I'll be able to share it with my daughter in the future. I found out later that they had put me on a magnesium drip because the blood pressure was in the triple digits, or high enough to have a stroke. During all of this, they had a band on my stomach to keep an eye on my baby and make sure she was okay. Either she would move, or I did and didn't realize I did, and they had to keep coming to adjust the band because they kept losing her on the monitors.

C-section time:

There wasn't a clock in the room, so I had no idea what time it was or how long we had been there, but eventually, the nurse let us know the doctor was going to do the c-section at 9 a.m. My mother called my husband and stepdad to let them know the update. Right after she finished calling them, the nurse came back and informed us the doctor wanted to do the c-section now. So she immediately called them back and told my husband to get to the hospital. While my mother was talking to my husband, the nurse began to fill me in on what was going to happen, the shaving and the catheter. I tried to stay calm, but I started to panic. C-sections scare me, and I did not want one. They had to give me a minute to process everything. It was all happening so fast, and I felt scared and confused. For anyone who has not been on a magnesium drip before, it made me feel very disoriented. Like when you doom scroll for so long that you feel your brain going numb, or as I described it at the time, a bad kind of high. I knew what was going on, and I understood it, but at the same time, none of it felt real. I was scared, terrified, my anxiety was building. I had never had surgery before. I had never been the one in the hospital bed before. It was all new to me, and it was scary.

At that point, my tears started, and my mother was trying to calm me down. I remember the lady shaving me and asking if my mother could go back with me. They told me she could later, but not right now. The idea of going alone really scared me. I looked at my mother and, through tears, told her I wasn't ready; I couldn't do this, and she tried to encourage me by telling me I got this and that I was strong. She was going to stay behind and wait for my husband, and when the doctor was ready, my mother and husband would be taken back to the room. She squeezed my hand and kissed my forehead before the nurses rolled me out of the room.

The operating room was small and looked weird to me, but I chalked that up to watching too much Grey's Anatomy. I was helped onto the operating table from the bed. I'm 4'11" and probably weighed around 270 lbs, give or take, so moving my big butt wasn't easy. I was 262-263 when I got home like 4-5 days later. I was asked to stay sitting up when I moved to the operating table, and when I was in position, a lady came up behind me and gave me an epidural. Thank goodness she knew what she was doing because I was just as scared of getting an epidural as I was about having a C-section. She was able to give me the epidural in one shot, and I barely felt it. While she did it, I looked up at the clock, and it said it was 2:44 am. After that, I laid down on the operating table so they could get everything set up while the epidural kicked in, and boy did it. Once the room was set up and ready, the doctor came in, and I think he said something about "let's have a baby." I can't really remember.

Then my mother and my husband were allowed in the room. I remember looking up at my husband and saying "Baby" in a cheery voice and smiling at him. I placed my hand on his cheek and rubbed it with my thumb. Then I immediately turned my head and said I was going to throw up. I blacked out for I don't know how long and regained consciousness with a barf bag in my face and choking on stomach acid. After that, I felt a lot better and was a little more alert and a lot more aware of my surroundings. It wasn't long after that the doctor said something, and the sheet was pulled down, and he was holding up my baby. In all honesty, I do not clearly remember what she looked like in that moment, like if she was blue or pink or covered in white stuff, and I don't remember if she cried in that moment. I remember no one was worried or scared about her being alive. I remember it happening, but I can't remember that moment as clearly as I would like. I do remember the clock saying it was 3:10 am after the nurses took my baby to check on her.

My mother went to check on our baby while my husband stayed with me. We just kept looking at each other, and I could see in his eyes how scared he had been. He later told me he made the mistake of looking over the sheet and seeing them cut me open. He also told me my mother is terrible at explaining things because, to him, the way she explained what was happening when she had called made it sound like both the baby and I were dying. After a couple of minutes, they brought our baby over to us, and we held her for a bit while the doctors put me back together. I did feel my body rock a bit while they were putting everything back in, but for the most part, I didn't feel a thing throughout the surgery.

Bonus story! (if you don't like puking stories don't read)

Funny story time! The day of my doctor appointment, my stepdad picked me up early to run some errands with him and to get me out of the house for a bit. I ate breakfast at home that morning just in case he decided to eat lunch while we were out; it was less money spent. We were driving down the interstate, and he was talking to me, and I was getting increasingly more nauseous as he was driving. As he was getting off the interstate, I asked him if he planned on stopping soon, and he replied yes. I said good because I think I'm gonna throw up. He stops at the red light, and I roll the window down and immediately throw up all over the side of the car.

Now, my parents have a Denali, and I am 4' 11" and 8 months pregnant. I could not get my head all the way out of the window in time. The light changed to green, and he turned left, and I threw up out the window, unsuccessfully, about 2 or 3 more times as he drove. Most of it ended up on me, the inside of the door, in the window, and all over the outside of the door. He pulled into the nearby Burger King, but by that time, I was done throwing up, and I spent a few minutes cleaning up as best I could in between taking pictures and laughing at how bad I am at throwing up out of a moving car window.