I haven't really thought about my horrific birthing experience in quite some time, but this month's PAIL Bloggers theme brought to light that I have a ton of unresolved issues around this subject.  In this post, I am going to focus mostly on the issues and complications that I had during B's birth and how they continue to haunt me.  Here goes...

I have written in great detail about my birth experience, which you can read about below if you are interested.  I'll also give some of the highlights if you'd rather not go back 6 months:

Suffice it to say that I basically had (almost) the worst birthing experience that I could have imagined and the birth plan, that I had so carefully drafted, may as well have been shredded on the spot.  I was scheduled to be induced at 40 weeks, 4 days due to a raging case of PUPPPs and borderline gestational diabetes.  I was forced given Cytotec to ripen my cervix, which had been stuck at 2cm for weeks.  I was in a Pitocin induced labor for almost 40 hours.  I had my water broken by the doctor with a coat hanger because it wouldn't break on its own.  I was given an epidural about 28 hours into labor, but that stopped working by the time that I had to push.  I finally got to 10 cm and then pushed for almost 3 hours.  The baby got stuck in my pelvis.  I had to have an unplanned, emergency(ish) c-section.  During my c-section the doctors could not get my uterus to contract so I lost a ton of blood during the surgery and kept passing out due to low blood pressure (my husband later told me it looked like a murder scene with blood squirting and spilling onto the floor).  I really thought I was going to die.  The doctors kept telling me to look to my baby and focus on my baby, but I was more concerned with my own well-being.  I had to have a blood transfusion (actually, 2 of them) because my hematocrit levels were so low.  I blew up like a water balloon from all of the drugs.  My PUPPPs got so bad after I delivered that they sent doctors over from other hospitals to try to help me, but nothing did end up helping me.  I had almost no interest in my child in the hours that followed his birth because I was so drugged up and so exhausted.  Breastfeeding also went terribly and he ended up losing 10% of his birth-weight and I had to supplement with formula, which was something I said that I would NEVER do.

I am now 6 months out from that horrifically wonderful day.  It is horrific because of what I had to go through, but wonderful because I have him to show for it.  The other day I was looking back at pictures of B from when he was just a few days old.  He has grown so much from then until now (born 9lb, 2 oz and 21.5in and at 6 months he is 19.1lbs, 28in!) and looking back at his pictures made me so sad.  I barely even remember the first few days that I spent with him.  I was so miserable the first few weeks that I feel like I didn't get to enjoy him.  I don't even remember what his baby smell was like.  I was so worried about whether we was getting enough calories from my milk and having enough wet/poopy diapers, that I didn't get to savor the time that we had together.  I was so exhausted and drained from the labor, surgery, and recovering from my rash that I couldn't focus my attention on my baby.  I am still angry about that.  I haven't been able to let it go.

When I hear mommies talking about how their perfect vaginal birth went exactly according to plan, I feel like a failure.  My body (once again) failed me in this instance.  I wanted to have an uncomplicated birth.  I didn't want major surgery.  Why did he get so big when I was so strict with my diet?  Why didn't they induce me sooner so that he may have had a chance to fit through my (apparently) narrow pelvis?  Why didn't my body do what it was supposed to, when it was supposed to?  If I had lived in more primitive times, B and I would have most certainly both died.  I wanted to decide how many kids I would want and when I would want them and not have to let my doctor make that decision.  Now, I am pretty much going to be forced into another c-section, if I can get pregnant again, but only after I have waited the recommended 18 months.

I have talked to a few people about my unresolved issues surrounding the birth of B.  Even the mommies that have had unplanned/emergency c-sections don't seem harbor the kind of anger and sadness that I have surrounding my childbirth experience.  I don't get the sense that they feel cheated, like me.  Usually I get the, "well look at the result!", and well, they would be right, I guess.  I have yet to come across anyone else who really feels the way that I do.  Maybe no one else feels like I do.  I should just be happy that I have a beautiful and healthy son.  I know that I need to move on, but I can't.  I'm still so sad.  I cry about it when no one is around.  I still mourn it like a loss.  I feel like, once again, I was denied another womanly right and had to have medical intervention.

My childbirth baggage has definitely clouded the outlook for subsequent births.  I am not sure that I could ever go through that kind of experience again.  My husband and I were talking about this other day... The process of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, being pregnant, and childbirth did not go well for me and at this point, neither of us can see it happening again.  I want to have a sibling for B, but I am terribly afraid of everything that surrounds that idea.  I am wondering if time will heal the wounds that I have sustained or if they will continue to taint my future.    

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I wasn't worried about the c-section surgery, itself.  I was more concerned with what would happen afterwards because I know that the recovery time is much longer than a vaginal birth.  I knew that I could not hold my baby afterwards.  I knew that I would have trouble breastfeeding.  I knew it would take longer for me to get back into shape.  As they wheeled me to the surgery room, I just cried.  I just didn't know what else to do.  More challenges I was not sure how I could deal with.

When I got to the room, I remember the bright lights, just like when I had my D&Cs.  They transferred me from the hospital bed to an operating table that was incredible uncomfortable.  Soon they shot me up with stronger epidural meds so that made the discomfort slightly less.  The had my arms stretched out to the sides of my body on planks and they put up a curtain right in front of my chest.  My husband sat beside me and held my hand.  Several doctors stood behind me and several more behind the curtain.  I am not sure exactly how many doctors were there in the room, but it was at least 5, if not more.  There were also several nurses.  The lead doctor performing the surgery was the doctor who I had the Cytotec run-in with.  Figures, right?

Once the epidural took effect, I started to relax a little.  Things started moving pretty fast.  They explained to me that I would feel some pressure, pulling, and tugging and that this was normal.  I felt all of those things.  Several minutes later, I heard the main operating doctor's tone of voice change from normal to slightly frantic.  Apparently the baby's head really was stuck in my pelvis (hence the pain).  It took one doctor pushing the baby from the bottom (yes from my vag) and another pulling the baby to dislodge him.  They did do the delayed clamping that I had requested and then cut the cord.  The baby then started crying, but it wasn't the robust cry that I had imagined, like waaaaaaaaah, waaaaaaaaaah, waaaaaaaaah.  It was more like a wah......wah......wah.  My husband and I both cried.  He was alive.  This was what I had waited more than 2 years for.  It made everything seem so worth it.  This was our baby.

They took him to clean him off, weigh and measure him, to do the Apgar test, and get his vitals.  He weighed 9 lb, 2 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long.  Quite the big boy.  He scored a 9 on the Apgar.  After they were done with this they brought him over to my husband and my husband brought him over to me.  I gave him a kiss, but it was at this time that I started feeling really bad.  I was shaking pretty uncontrollably and I started feeling really, really drowsy.  They shot my left shoulder with some clotting medicine and it made me really sick to my stomach.  I felt like I was going to throw up, but since my stomach was still out in the open, it was a very disturbing feeling and I never actually threw up.  The doctors started sounding really serious and rushing all around.  The blood pressure cuff on my right arm was going off every minute or 2.  I could see my blood pressure dropping with each check on the monitor screen and this made me seriously anxious.  I started hyperventilating and frantically turning my head from side to side and looking at the screen with my vital signs.  The my blood pressure was lower every time I looked.  They told me to focus on my baby, but I could not.  I was fixated on my dropping blood pressure and I knew something was wrong.  At one point it was 80/50.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  I tried so hard to keep my eyes open, but they kept closing.  I was going in and out.  I was so afraid to close my eyes because I was afraid they wouldn't open again. They ended up giving me oxygen and several more of the sickening clotting shots in various places on my body.

I came to find out that my uterus would not contract after they pulled the baby out and I was bleeding like crazy.  Apparently, due to the fact that I had labored and pushed for so long, my uterus was extremely irritated.  It took them a long time to get things under control.  To me it seemed like an eternity.  Once my organs were put back in and I was stapled together, They declared the surgery a "success" and moved me back to the hospital bed.  They wheeled me back to my room.  I was shaking so badly.  I could not control it.  I wasn't cold, either, it was very odd.  I was quite out of it and kept forgetting why I was there.  I was so doped up on morphine and other meds that I almost forgot about my perfect little miracle baby.

This is when I started the long recovery process.  I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

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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.

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I am splitting this up into several posts since his birth was a very long and arduous process.  On Monday, April 15, I went to my 40+ week appointment expecting to have at least some change from the past week.  Well, no luck.  I was still stuck in the same place that I had been for the past 3 weeks and, in-fact, this time my doctor said I was a "stretchy 2 cm" instead of 3 (50% effaced, 0 station).  Talk about a punch to the gut.

We discussed my PUPPPs rash, which at this point, had spread to my entire arm and sides of my stomach.  It was starting to keep me even more awake at night.  I was supposed to be induced on 4/18, but the doctor decided that the PUPPPs rash was enough to induce sooner, so we decided on the next morning, 4/16.  I was relieved and excited at the same time.  They told me to go home, pack and then rest up for the long "day" ahead.  I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

The rest of that day, I laid around and watched the terrible news about the Boston Marathon bombings. I have always wanted to run the Boston Marathon someday.  I laid glued to the TV for most of the afternoon, shocked and saddened that I was about to bring a baby into this kind of world.

The next day, April 16, we got up early and got all of our things together.  My husband's mother was coming to stay for the time that we were in the hospital to take care of the pets.  Such a relief for us.

We got to the hospital and checked in around 9:30 AM.  It was surreal.  I had been to the hospital so many times in the past year and a half and I have passed the obstetrical admitting area just as many times.  I never imagined that I would be actually going there to be admitted to have a baby.

Once we got checked in they helped us carry our things to the maternity ward.  I was greeted by a nurse who took my vitals, made me change into hospital gear, and then prepped me for an IV.  She was amazingly nice.  A resident came in as well and checked my "progress", which he stated was not a stretchy 2, but a solid 2.  Sigh.  He also told me that I was having a big baby and he counseled me on shoulder distocia.  That was a fun conversation.

Next it was time to be shown to the room where I "would" give birth.  It was a small and very warm room with a hospital bed, small, TV, and a fold out bed for my husband to sleep on.  I was almost immediately hooked up to a pitocin drip and there it was that we started the long induction process.  I was also hooked up to the NST monitor.  It was comforting to hear the baby's heart beat and see it on the screen.  The nurses and doctors all said that my baby was the "best behaved" on the floor and a definite overachiever because his heart rate and activity were so good.  :)

For the first few hours I felt nothing.  They let me order lunch and then dinner off of the GD menu.  No more than 70 carbs per meal.  Geeze.  That is way more carbs than I was used to!  I really felt nothing with the pitocin.  Some very minor contractions, but nothing painful.  I think I may have dilated to a full 3 cm.  Woohoo.

At around 9 PM the resident high-risk OB came in to discuss our options.  She mentioned Cytotec, Cervidil, and a balloon.  She strongly recommended the Cytotec, but I was dead set on never using that drug again since I had used it before my first D&C and I could not understand why they would give out a drug like that to induce labor.  It is not FDA approved for labor induction.  Out of all of the doctors that I had seen and would see, the doctor who was telling me to take the Cytotec was my least favorite.  When I told her my reservations and associations with it, she basically said that I could go another route, but that I would be potentially extending my labor out farther in kind of a snotty manner.  I told her that my husband and I needed time to think.  Once they left, I had my first of many hospital meltdowns.  I cried to my husband about the research that I had done around the drug and why I was so uncomfortable with it.  He told me that he would support me no matter which option I chose.

A few hours later, another doctor came in to check and see what my decision was.  She was one of my favorites that I met while I was there.  I explained to her again my hesitation and she gave me more information and answered all of my questions, very thoughtfully.  After talking with her for a while, I decided to go with the Cytotec after all.

They took me off the pitocin and and gave me one of the pills.  They told me that it would take 4 hours to do anything and that I would more than likely need at least one more dose after that one.  After taking the pill, my husband and I switched rooms because the heat in the room we had been in was unbearable and I could not imagine having a baby while being that hot.  Once we moved to a cooler room, I  slept for 4 hours until they came to wake me up to check my progress.  I made it to 4 cm, so they gave me another pill and I went 4 more hours until my next check.  Oh and I should mention that every 2 hours, someone would come in and test my blood sugar and check my vital signs.  I was constantly being awakened.

After my second Cytotec check, and around 8 AM the next morning, I had gotten to about 5 cm, 80%, 0 station.  The doctor on at that time came in and said that they were going to break my water and put me back on the pitocin to speed up the process.  Wow was that an odd feeling.  My water breaking was a huge gush, followed my many smaller gushes.  I felt immediately smaller and lighter.  They kept changing the pad that I was laying on because I kept soaking them.  Holy amniotic fluid!  Every time I would move more would gush out.  I think I had like 3 gallons in there!

Breaking my water and putting me back on pitocin made my contractions start to get more painful.  I had my husband give me some mini-massages on my lower back while sitting on the birthing ball for a while, but gradually the pain got really bad.  When it was to the point that I was crying during each contraction, I called for the epidural.  I didn't know how bad the pain would be, but so I wanted to see how far I could go and I definitely did.  I give serious credit to women who can go do it all without meds.

Once I got the epidural, I was feeling good for a while.  I even took a short nap.  It was great.  When I woke up I started to feel really itchy in the spots where my PUPPPs rash covered the upper part of my body, though.  It was itchy to the point of me wanting to scratch my skin off.  Not very much fun.  Then, not long after that, I started to feel pain in my mid-back on the left side.  The pain gradually started getting worse and pushing the button for a higher dose of meds did nothing so I talked to the anesthesiologist about it.  They confirmed that the pain was too high up to be relieved by the epidural, so basically I would have to suck it up and suffer, yay.

Doctors and nurses came and went over the next several hours while I laid on the table in partial pain.  The day turned into night and finally one of the doctors did a cervical check and I was finally 10 cm, 100% effaced, and zero station!  It was time to start pushing.  It was now 10 PM on 4/17.  What a long past 2 days.  

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So sorry for the delay in this post!  The last week has been a complete whirl-wind.  I will start documenting my long and crazy birth story soon, but I wanted to let you all know that Baby B has arrived!  He was born on April 18 at 1:23 AM via unplanned c-section.  He weighed 9 lb, 2 oz and was a whopping 21 1/2 inches long.  College football teams are already knocking on our door.  :)  Many other crazy things happened during our hospital stay that I can't really mention because this blog is anonymous, but suffice it to say that it was a crazy few days, but now we are finally home.

Mom and dad are in love with this cutie pie.  Never in our lives did we think, first of all that we would ever be lucky enough to have such a beautiful and healthy baby and second that we could love him so much.  We both cry at least once a day while looking at him and thinking of the true miracle that he really is.  We are so incredibly blessed.  We love him so much.  He was worth the wait and all of the difficult pregnancy and birth.

Thank you everyone for the pep talks in the weeks leading up to his birth.  I could never have gotten through the past 9 months had it not been for the AMAZING ladies that I have met through this blog.  I love you guys!! XOXO

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