This having been my first baby, i was entirely unsure of what to expect during labor. Sure, I had read What To Expect When You're Expecting and just about every article I could get my hands on from Fit Pregnancy. But honestly, no matter how much you read, you can never be "ready" for your unique birthing experience; you can only be a little more prepared.
That being said, my birthing plan was a killer playlist (curtosy of my ipod) and an epidural. Though I have a few tattoos, i'm not really one for pain (i hyperventalated during my IV insert). I would have loved to have had a no-drugs, natural child birth, preferably where the room was dark, lit only by a few candles, insense smoke puffing by my nose, while the nurses and doctors chanted meditation songs in my pimped out Tahitian birthing tent...seriously, that would be my ideal, thought maybe the Tahiti thing takes it too far...
Anyways, I would have loved to have had a natural birth and to all you women out there who have done it or are even considering doing it, kudos to you ladies! You are some super awesome, tough mamas! Even with all the birthing classes in the world, I know myself and my pain threshold and I know that the au-natural route just isn't right for me.
But hey!
There's the first step!
You gotta know you!
I went into labor knowing that my little guy had been "dropped" for over 3 weeks already and I had been told he would be small, around 7.5lbs (what a JOKE). When I first arrived at the hospital at 5am, they said since i wanted an epidural for labor and because Luke was so low, they were going to give me the injection right then and there. I told them I didn't think that I needed it just yet, I was not in terrible pain after all and I wanted to allow labor to progress naturally as long as possible.
So what happened?
They gave me the epidural anyway, which slowed down labor, bringing the total running time to 20 hours. Because labor slowed, they injected me with Pitocin to speed it up, which then made the contractions too fast and they were literally strangling my baby. When his heart rate dropped, they cut off the Pitocin and Luke's vitals stabalized. When I finally hit 10cm and was ready to push, (as only my luck would have it) the damn epidural wore off and they had to give me a triple dose for it to even work which of course, numbed me to hell (i couldn't have closed my legs if i wanted to!).
Three hours of pushing with little to no progress and I heard those dreadful words(dreadful to me at least): "We're going to have to do a c-section."
Ouch.
Shit.
No!
I cried and cried and swore up and down that I could do it, I would be the best pusher they'd ever seen. I wasn't so convincing I guess because a minuet later my temperture started rising and an anesthesiologist had shot me up to the moon on numbing drugs. Though I had cotton mouth and vertigo during my surgery, I ended up with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. A 9 POUND 10 OUNCE baby boy!
When I first heard I was having a c-section, i felt like i had failed in some way; there was something i hadn't done (i knew i should have gone to that lamaze class!). I felt like I had been robbed of my right of passage as a woman (but didn't hundreds of women get c-sections everyday?). In my hazed of hospital lights and drugs I didn't have much time to think. It was only after it was all over that I felt empty somehow. That is, until I looked into my son's eyes for the first time. There he was, this beautiful, perfect baby who had spent the last nine months swimming inside of my tummy. Here was the baby who had given me morning sickness, kicked me in the ribs, gave me cankels...and who from the moment I discovered him growing inside of me, gave me an undeniable happiness. Sure, I hated the side effects of pregnancy (no one out there like's being constipated and filled with enough acid to disolve a nail) but what pregnancy brings, what it brought me...was well worth the discomfort.
♥
Rae
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