We discovered we were pregnant in the summer of 2005. We had moved the previous fall and were finally in a house with a yard where our 2 boys could play. I struggled to lose weight, but we decided it was time to have another baby. We were so excited to be pregnant again that we shared the news with everyone immediately!
Over that fall and winter, I continued to see our family practitioner for my ob visits. We were due at the end of February, and thankfully, I was not alone! My older sister was pregnant with her first baby, also with the same due date, my sister in law pregnant with her 4th, with the same date, and my cousin with her second, due just 2 weeks later! It was great to be able to commiserate over our pregnancy "ailments" and to have emotional support from one another. There were so many women around me pregnant and due around the same time!
At about 30 weeks, my doctor told me the baby was breech. I felt that there were no worries, he (at this point, unconfirmed) would turn and we would have a regular delivery. Well, the weeks kept ticking past and finally at 36 weeks, she sent me next door to consult with her mentor, Dr. A, the doctor who would perform the cesarean if the baby would not turn. She held out hope that he would turn, but stated clearly that with my history of delivering large babies, she would not let me try to deliver breech. Dr. A met with me and set an appointment for an inversion.
I tried everything to turn that baby. Hand stands in the pool, a bag of frozen peas at the height of the fundus while sitting in a warm bath (supposed to encourage the baby to turn toward the warmth?), dromedary drops... nothing seemed to work. I had heard about chiropractors who could turn babies, but my doctor advised against it and I didn't know of anyone locally who treated women at full term. Did I mention that my back had been screaming with pain my whole pregnancy?
The date of the inversion, I checked my self into the hospital, and the doctor administered the medication that would help make my uterus "palpable". Dr. A tried for 15 or 20 minutes to turn the baby, but to no avail. Finally, he brought in an ultrasound machine and did a scan to check on the baby's heart rate and position. Everything was fine, but he was definitely breech and according to the machine's measuring abilities, topping out at a whopping 9.8 lbs! Definitely no breech delivery for me....
With that failed attempt, we went ahead and scheduled the cesarean appointment for almost a week before my due date. I was upset. I was a mess. I was so worried about what could go wrong during a c-section that I could hardly sleep, especially with the back pain. I would wake up in the night to check the baby's position, hoping that he would turn. He would get side ways, and then flip back to breech. The day of the c-section did come though, and to the hospital my husband and I went, bright and early in the morning. Our other boys, then 2 and 4, stayed overnight with my mother. We checked in to the hospital and Dr. A came in to do paperwork with me and go through the typical procedure with me. I insisted he do one more ultrasound, and even though it irritated him, he did. The baby was still breech.
I have no idea what time I was rolled into the O.R. My family doctor was there along side Dr. A and there were 3 or 5 nurses in the room as well. The anesthesiologist asked me to sit up and roll forward over my round belly to expose my spine as well as possible. I have seen women get epidurals and knew what he was going to do. My husband watched as he inserted a VERY long needle into my spinal column, missing once or twice before finally getting it into the correct position. I'm a big girl, but when someone is sticking a needle into your SPINE, you would expect them not to miss! You can't exactly control the jerk that comes with the miss when nerves are hit! I lay back down, with my husband on my right and the anesthesiologist on my left. Up went the curtain over my belly and things went numb. I am so glad that I asked to stay awake.
The surgery seemed to go so quickly. They opened everything up, started to get the baby out and he didn't seem to want to budge! Dr. A said that his head was stuck up under my rib cage and gave my ribs a massage and a thump and with a loud "pop", the baby's head came free and he was out! He was crying before they got him cleaned up. I don't remember if they let me see him or hold him, I only remember that I looked over at the baby warming station, where a nurse was cleaning him up and weighing him, and marveled at how big he was! No wrinkles like the last one, no cone head like the first. He was perfect and round! He weighed an even 10 pounds, until he peed! His birth certificate actually says "9 lbs. 14.6 oz" because he peed as the nurse was weighing him. At 20 and 1/2 inches, he was a beautiful boy. My husband had plenty of time to hold him while I was stitched up and rolled out to a recovery room while my lower body was waking up. I was given pitocin to make my uterus contract and left in a dark quiet room with my sleeping newborn.
After I was moved to a regular ob recovery room, and my legs began to wake up, I was overjoyed to nurse my new son. My husband told me he had watched the surgery and that this baby had been wrapped with his umbilical cord to, and he thought maybe that prevented him from turning. At that point, I was thankful that I had not insisted on trying to deliver him breech. I felt that things had worked out how God had intended, not knowing how that cord would have hurt him or I during a vaginal delivery, but still very frustrated that I had to have a c-section. I had a rough night in recovery, moved again to the noisy wing! I let my anger fly at the nurse that day, letting her know that this was NOT conducive to resting after surgery or giving birth! Finally, after 2 days, they let me go home. So much of that time is hard to recall because of the drugs I was on.
The recovery process after the c-section was hell. I was in constant pain, trying to nurse a baby who was getting drugged by my breast milk, and trying to preserve my medication by taking half pills. My husband was able to stay home and take care of the other 2 boys and prepare all the meals, help me to the bathroom, do all the things that I normally do! My feet were so swollen that I could only get out of bed for a few minutes at a time before they would become painfully engorged. It turned out that I didn't leave my bed for almost 2 weeks, it was 2 months before my husband went back to work and it was 6 months before the pain subsided and I finally felt like I had just delivered a baby! It was terrible. The only upside is that I had plenty of time to bond with our new baby, holding him all the time and my husband got to be there for his first 2 months too. He was such an easy going baby, full of smiles and joy from the beginning.
Our little guy is now almost 5 and is still as laid back as ever. He has been a joy and is our boy who likes to cuddle. I couldn't be more thankful for him.
I came away from this birth feeling like a failure. I never wanted to go through another cesarean section again! I began to get chiropractic treatment for my still aching back and discovered that my sacrum was twisted more than 30 degrees! I wondered if that prevented our son from turning, blocking the head down position. I had heart palpitations, migraines, lost vision and high blood pressure, which I had never had before, that started after the delivery. I found out later these are some of the potential side affects of having a spinal block or epidural! Some of the fluid in the spine can be lost and create a strain on the heart and brain! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT BEFORE THE PROCEDURE!?! Even though the baby was healthy, I decided that would never happen again, and if it did, I was going to be sure to have my tubes tied because there was no way I was going through that 3 times! I didn't understand why a woman would choose to have every baby via c-section when a vaginal delivery was so much easier and healthier.
Only one more birth story to go...
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