Emergency C-Sections

I went into my labour and delivery being afraid of the potential for a c-section. I had no plans on having one, but things don't always go as planned when you are trying to bring a small person into the world. So, as much as part of me feared the idea, the logical part of me embraced that it was a potential end to this sequence of events in my life.

I'd heard horror stories about c-sections. I knew people who had gone through them just fine, and others who had taken months to recover. That seemed like a dice roll that I didn't want to have to make. So, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

After 20 hours of labour, however, it seemed that the c-section was the only way to get my little boy to join the world. He seemed a little too content to stay in his warm womb. And I can't really blame him. It's March in Canada. It's cold outside.

But knowing that he couldn't stay in there forever to continue to kick me in the ribs, I agreed to have the c-section. I was scared. I've never had any kind of surgery before. I'd never taken any kind of pain killer stronger than Tylenol before I went into labour. And now there I was, being rolled down to an operating room.

I was given drugs to freeze me from the ribcage down as we rolled down the hallways, and knowing that I would be awake during the procedure freaked me out a little bit.

The operating room was as bright and sterile looking as anything I'd seen on television and there was a team of people ready to get this baby out of me and into the world.

It was intimidating. It was frightening. As are most things when you've never been through them before. But I have to say, it was not as scary as I thought it would be.

My hands shook as shock set in. I was aware of when they began to cut me open. Not because I felt any pain, but there is a pressure change. And when the doctors pulled the baby out of me, one pushing by my ribcage and the other pulling through the opening, there was this feeling of emptiness for a moment.

It is like there is this void inside of you, which I suppose there is since the baby is no longer occupying it. I have no clue if this feeling comes along with a vaginal birth, but it was something that I was very aware of with the c-section.

And then there was crying and my son had joined the world. It took a whole five minutes to get him out and three times that to repair the process. I was sewn up and stapled shut. I was given a nice cocktail of pain killers, and after I threw up before leaving the operating room, they added anti-nausea meds to the mix.

But I had my son. He had finally made it into the world and I had made it through the procedure. That was really all that was important to me.

I'm not going to say that recovering from a surgery like that is easy. It has been painful. It is taking time. It requires me to take things slower than I usually would. But it's not as scary as people make it out to be.

Whether you choose to have a c-section or it is deemed medically necessary, just remember that it is a means to an end. It does not make the birth of your child any less real. It does not make you any less of a mother.

The recovery time is difficult. The pain sucks. But it is all a small part of what you have to look forward to in life. Raising a child that you brought into this world. It's all worth it when you consider that.