Unplanned C-Section | Chris the Lion Kids

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Unplanned C-Section

Unplanned C-Section

You’ve spent the past hand­ful of months plan­ning for your baby’s birth day. You’ve read about the advan­tages of a nat­ur­al deliv­ery. Your preg­nan­cy class rec­om­mend­ed to avoid hav­ing a C‑section because of 10 – 20 con­se­quences for you and your baby. You’re also read to not take any pain med­ica­tion nor to get an epidural. 

And when the big day arrives you find out that: The baby doesn’t have enough amni­ot­ic liq­uid. That birth will have to be induced.

So far this had all been bear­able. At least, I was still going to try hav­ing a nat­ur­al birth. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I wasn’t aware of all the ups and downs that hav­ing labor induced meant.

After more than 24 hours of labor, I remem­ber break­ing apart in my husband’s arms when the doc­tors told us that a C‑section was now inevitable. 

My water had bro­ken 10 hours before, so it was obvi­ous that there were no oth­er way. But still I couldn’t accept it. 

I felt so betrayed and dis­ap­point­ed with myself.

In this post I will share with you all the wrong deci­sions and beliefs that I had; because trust me, try­ing to pre­pare emo­tion­al­ly & phys­i­cal­ly for a last minute C‑section is not fun at all.

1. Believ­ing that a C‑section is a mis­take. #

Giv­ing birth through C‑section can be as beau­ti­ful as a nor­mal deliv­ery, but it can turn into a night­mare if you are against a C‑section with beliefs like:

  • C‑sections are only a bet­ter pay­check for the hos­pi­tal and doc­tors. While it’s true that a C‑section is more expen­sive than a vagi­nal deliv­ery. They’re designed to help your baby come to this world with the least pos­si­ble trau­ma in a very dif­fi­cult situation.

  • I will be less brave than the oth­er moth­ers. Com­plete­ly wrong! You’ve been car­ry­ing your baby for 9 months. And now you are going to be cut open and will have to deal with not only your recov­ery but also care for your new baby. This is not the sign of a weak person.

  • The recov­ery will be longer than for a vagi­nal deliv­ery. Recov­er­ing from a C‑section can be as fast as a vagi­nal deliv­ery or even faster; if you lis­ten to your body and don’t overex­ert yourself. 

  • I will nev­er be able to use a biki­ni because of the scar. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it’s more like­ly that you’ll nev­er use a biki­ni due to those extra pounds gained or stretch marks than a C‑section scar. In most of the cas­es, the cut will be done low enough that it won’t be vis­i­ble when you use a bikini.

2. Not being aware that a C‑section may be nec­es­sary: #

A C‑section is nec­es­sary if your baby is not get­ting enough oxy­gen, or you are not dilat­ing, or many oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties. You can find fur­ther infor­ma­tion here.

3. Mak­ing deci­sions with­out con­sid­er­ing the pros and cons. #

After a few hours of being induced with­out much progress, the nurse asked me if I want­ed to stop and try again the next day or if I’d pre­fer to keep going. 

I was so eager to meet my son that I didn’t even ask which option was bet­ter for me and the baby. I just said I want­ed to keep going. Thank­ful­ly, my son was strong enough to with­stand the whole process with­out stress, heart or oxy­gen issues. Just to men­tion some of the sce­nar­ios that could’ve led to complications.

4. Tak­ing pain med­ica­tion instead of an epidur­al. #

My son was fac­ing side­ways instead of fac­ing down. This slows the deliv­ery and makes it more painful. 

Though I wasn’t feel­ing too much pain until my water broke after at least 12 hours of wait­ing for bet­ter dilata­tion. Then the pain increased enough to make me ask for pain med­ica­tion. BIG MIS­TAKE!

I don’t remem­ber any of the pain that I felt because I was under the effect of pain med­ica­tion and also exhaust­ed. But I can tell that I was still in pain for two reasons:

1) My hus­band was suf­fer­ing with each painful con­trac­tion that I had.

2) When it was time for the C‑section, the anes­the­sia was like a switch off but­ton. I then start­ed to enjoy my son’s birth again.

Due to some wrong beliefs that led me to keep try­ing to be as strong as oth­er moms. I end­ed hav­ing an emer­gency C‑section. My son was with­out amni­ot­ic liq­uid which made the surgery more dif­fi­cult because now my son was very low and close to my pubic bone. There also wasn’t any­thing sep­a­rat­ing my lit­tle boy from the sur­gi­cal blade.

He end­ed with a scar in his right cheek. But thank­ful­ly he’s very healthy and strong.

cheek-scar

Now after five years, I’m ready to go through a C‑section again. This time it’s a planned one. And I know it’s going to be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent and prob­a­bly even scari­er than the first. But this time I won’t feel bad with myself because I wasn’t pre­pared nor aware that hav­ing a baby via C‑section or a vagi­nal deliv­ery isn’t the point. 

What mat­ters is that you’re going to expe­ri­ence the mir­a­cle of bring­ing anoth­er being into this world. And the amaz­ing feel­ing of uncon­di­tion­al love that will fill your heart when you hear them cry for the first time.

Claudia Aguilar, Partner, Software Engineer

Claudia Aguilar

Family time lover! Wife. Mom. Software Engineer. Cat Fanatic.