Once the nurse told me that it was time to push, I got really excited.  Since they told me the baby was low and that they could see his head, I assumed that I would not be pushing for long and that I would get to see my little one before the end of the day.  The only bad thing they mentioned was that the baby was most likely "sunny side up", but they assured that they could most likely turn him as he was making his way out of the birth canal.

After the doctor came in and did one final check, I started pushing with the help of my husband and one of the nurses.  The nurse told me to take a deep breath in and then push out for 10 seconds like I was taking a bowel movement.  Taking a deep breath in was so painful that I would hesitate and not get enough air in to push.  The oxygen monitor on my finger kept beeping towards the end of each push because I was not taking in enough air to start the process.

One of the doctors that came in to check told me to imagine pushing my baby up towards the ceiling because the goal was to get him to go under my pelvic bone and then out.  The only thing that I really ended up expelling during the pushing was, well, you know.  At first I was embarrassed, but every time it happened they told me that was a great push so I just sucked it up and continued.  The nurse was discrete and I told my husband not to look.

About an hour into pushing, I started to feel less pain in my rib cage and more pain in my left pelvic area.  The pain hurt really bad when I pushed out.  The pushes that they told me were the most productive were the ones that hurt the most.  I started crying with each contraction because it hurt so bad.  I stopped pushing as productively.  I was so tired and irritated that I was making, what seemed like, no progress.

A little over 2 hours into pushing the doctor that I was not particularly fond of came in to assess the situation.  She did a very painful and long pelvic exam and when she finished, the look on her face said everything.  She told me that, the baby was going well overall, but that his head was starting to swell because he was stuck in my pelvis.  This explained the pain that I was feeling.  She said that they did not want to try the vacuum or forceps due to the risk of shoulder distocia in larger babies.  She said she would recommend a c-section, and sooner rather than later due to the fact that it was now past midnight and my body had been through enough.

I heard this news and I had a complete meltdown.  "Not my plan" and "this is so unfair" were the thoughts that were going through my head.  For some reason I felt the need to tell the nurse and several other doctors who came into the room that I had experienced multiple miscarriages and had a difficult pregnancy so it wasn't fair that this was now happening to me, too.  They were all very nice.  One doctor held my hand.  They tried to tell me that the baby was never going to fit out through my pelvis and that it was nothing that I did or could have done to prevent the situation.  I still felt like such a complete failure.  Why could I not birth my baby?  My mom had big babies.

I saw my husband getting on hospital scrubs while many doctors and nurses filed in about out of my room.  I just cried and cried.  I felt like taking that "birth plan" and ripping it to shreds as they locked my bed into position and started wheeling me to surgery.