My baby came into the world via Cesarean section after nearly 40 hours of labor! Not how I had planned. Not that anyone plans that.
I was so anti-c-section I was terrified of having one and did everything I could to prepare for a natural labor. I did yoga, drank red raspberry leaf tea, ate dates, hired a doula, took a natural birth course and still ended up with a cesarean.
Long story short, my beautiful 9lb 3oz baby wasn’t able to navigate my pelvis for me to dilate past 5cm, and that was after 12 hours on Pitocin and the aid of my fabulous Doula who is trained in spinning babies and did everything in her wheelhouse to help me.
Here’s the deal, you can do ALL THE THINGS, and still end up with a cesarean, it’s okay. Birth is unexpected.
So First Let’s Talk About The Ugly
Let’s talk about what people don’t tell you about C-sections. First, it’s bloody awful! While you don’t feel pain because of the epidural or for some, a spinal tap, you still feel. Imagine kneading bread…. If you’ve ever kneaded bread before and you push and pull the dough back and forth on the counter, that’s what it was like. But inside me. The ‘gentle pulling’ was like being kneaded like bread as the doctor had her hands inside my uterus getting my baby’s head out of my pelvis and bringing her safely to the outside. So while you don’t feel pain, you feel pressure and like you’re being kneaded like bread. It’s weird, unnerving and pretty much awful.
Unless you fully get put under, you’re VERY aware of what’s going on. After my baby hand been whisked away by her medical team to have her breathing worked on and ventilated due to meconium being in her amniotic fluid, I lay there while they closed me up. My husband was with the baby and I was just there. Listening to the medical team count rags to make sure they didn’t leave one inside me. Yep, that’s what they were doing. And they counted multiple times because one was missing. While they didn’t tell me this was what they were doing, I figured it out. They called down to another department that had taken away I’m guessing my placenta and other cleared out necessary items and found they had the last one rag.
All clear. No rags left inside me. Whew.
I spiked a fever, had to be given antibiotics and was wheeled off to recovery where I spent close to two hours. Two hours not getting to see or hold my baby or have any information on her. It ended up being almost four hours from when I gave birth to when I got to see her. Yeah. Pretty shitty.
The Good
I do want to take this moment to say, while she spent several days in NICU on a CPAP machine due to the meconium and a resultant air pocket, my baby girl is lusty, healthy and robust and I’m SO grateful. She did have a wonderful medical team. That the good. Cesareans do save lives, and 100 years ago, me and baby girl would have died in childbirth.
The Bad
Back to the real talk here….They’re going to ‘womp’ on your uterus.
Do you like that term, womp? It basically means pushing and prodding in a VERY uncomfortable way. Your toddler may run, jump and womp right on you if they’re being rambunctious and you’re lying on the floor. That’s womping.
So there I am in recovery and I get womped on. You may have heard they’ll push on your uterus to help get it to start shrinking and they’re checking you for clots as well. I had heard it’s a little painful and uncomfortable. But that’s the understatement of the year. It’s like saying childbirth is uncomfortable. You’re not escaping this whether you have a vaginal birth or a C-section.
The first time they pushed on my uterus, my epidural was still in effect. Silly me, I thought, “oh wow this isn’t bad at all. They said it’d hurt.” Yeah that was a stupid moment if I ever had one. Whew was I naive!
The next time they pushed on my uterus, no other term describes it as accurately as ‘womping.’ Oh, man did it hurt! Worse than any contraction I’d experienced. Plus post C-section you’re SO tender. You’ve had 5 layers of abdominal muscles cut through and then they’re pushing on you! I KNOW I cried and I definitely moaned.
This happened several more times. I also passed a clot the size of an orange! Super gross right? That’s part of it.
Then comes the recovery.
Once I got out of recovery and got to see my baby girl in NICU and spend several days in my hospital room. Can I just say, c- sections are not for wimps.
I’d gladly have stayed in bed with my catheter in and avoided having to get out of bed to use the bathroom. But they don’t let you do that. For the first several days, trying to get in and particularly out of bed is SO painful. You’re incredibly sore.
It’s the moving positions that kills you. Once I was up and walking, it wasn’t so bad. I walked like a slow hunched over old lady, but walk I did! I was motivated to get to NICU to see my baby every chance I could.
You’ll want to use your arms to pull yourself up, and even having the bed move into an upright position hurts. When my husband was around, we found the best way to get me up with the least amount of movement was swinging my legs to the side of the bed, and then he’d stand in front of me we’d cross our arms and grab hands for leverage and he’d hoist me up.
It’s Not All So Bad
So let’s talk about the scar. The dreaded c-sections car. It’s really not that bad.
The c-section scar is the better part of it. Your scar will heal. Nowadays most doctors do a bikini cut. You can’t see your scar in a bikini, hence the name. It’s a horizontal cut that sits below the top of your underwear, basically at the top of your pubic hairline.
I’m here 10 and ½ months post C-section and thanks to vitamin E, Trauma Oil and time, my scar is white and faint.
Your lochia is minimal. What is lochia? Well this is the bleeding that happens after giving birth. In a vaginal birth it can be quite heavy at first. When you have a c-section, so much of what would be heaving bleeding is cleaned out during your c-section operation. After the first week, I was able to get away with a panty liner to deal with my bleeding.
You’ll Want To Be Careful and Get Support
If you can, get support for the first two weeks, if not longer. My parents took turns coming to help. They cooked, cleaned, did laundry, even gardened for me. Having them there to help with and take care of baby, me, and my husband was so key to a good recovery.
Being able to give baby to someone at 6 or 7 am so I could then go back to bed for several hours was SO helpful. Sleep is vital to recovery. Have a babysitter who can come for several hours a day and just hold and take care of baby while you sleep.
Post C-section you also don’t want to go up and down the stairs holding baby. The weight of that 6, 7 or in our case, 9lb baby is actually a lot of strain on your abdomen and pelvic floor when you’re going up and downstairs. My husband or parents would come get baby and carry her up or down the stairs for me.
The more help you can get, the better your recovery will be.
I felt good pretty quickly, but would easily overdo it. How do I know this? My lochia would be a little heavier. Those first few weeks is the best time to just hang out on the couch and in bed. Sleep, bond, nurse, watch tv, read.
While I wish I could have had a vaginal birth, a live healthy baby was always the #1 goal. I didn’t get the birth I wanted, but I got a healthy baby and that’s what counts. So if you had a c-section or know you’re scheduled for one, just know that having that baby there will be worth it, pain and all.
Wishing you a successful and simple birth.
Kaitlyn