Every pregnant woman reaches a point in her pregnancy where she is done. Just done. For most, that point is around 37 or 38 weeks -- the full 40 weeks if she is lucky. With Madelyn, I reached that point at about 34 weeks and then she ended up being eight excruciating days late. With Henry, I reached that point today. But Kimberlee! you say. You are not quite 23 weeks pregnant! Yes, I am quite aware of that fact. Rest assured, I am not wishing him out of my womb anytime soon. I want a nice, healthy, full-term baby and I am endlessly grateful that my kicking, somersaulting boy seems to be quite at home for now. I knew what I was getting myself into this second time around, but that still doesn't mean I have to like it. I am not a happy pregnant woman. I LOVE feeling my babies move around, and it's definitely empowering knowing that I'm literally sustaining life. There are other, ahem, physical benefits that are also quite lovely, but pretty much -- for me, anyway -- it's 9 months of nausea, random vomiting, light-headedness, fatigue, discomfort, and pain. This pregnancy has been much harder for me than my first one. Perhaps it really is harder, or perhaps I just know now how wonderful it is to be a Mommy, and this pregnancy business is simply a long, seemingly endless means to a joyful, so-much-better end.
Regardless, feeling "done" has started me thinking a lot lately about Henry's birth. I have some choices to make this time around in light of our experience with Madelyn's birth, and I am feeling very anxious about it, to say the least. Madelyn's birthday was simultaneously the most joyful and traumatic day of my life thus far. For certain, there are couples with far more painful and devastating birth stories. I don't wish to be superlative in any way, but I also just have to be honest about how sad we become remembering that day. In fact, I've never been able to share the story without crying, and it's been three years as of September 10 (birthday photos to come!).
The saddest thing for us is that neither Kurt nor I was present to hear Madelyn's first cry or see her enter the world or touch her brand new skin. I labored for over 24 hours through the whole night and the whole next day and was absolutely exhausted by the time it came time to push. I had gotten an epidural at one point, but it only really took to parts of my body and then totally wore off by pushing time. I pushed and pushed, but her little head was stuck sideways in my pelvis and wouldn't turn to make it through the birth canal. After four hours and fifteen minutes, I spiked a fever (although they didn't tell us that at the time) and they began to worry about infection for both me and Maddie. I vaguely remember consulting one of our favorite nurses and asking her what she would do, and she said -- sympathetically but factually -- that she would do a Cesarean. So that's what we did. They had me in the OR with a spinal epidural and all ready to go within fifteen minutes, but lying on the operating table with my arms stretched out and an oxygen mask over my face, I could still feel every contraction. I was frantically trying to get the nurse's attention with my eyes because I knew they were going to start cutting any minute and I was pretty sure if I'd had a spinal epidural, I shouldn't be feeling anything. That is truly the most panicked I've ever felt. She finally saw me and lifted my oxygen mask and I asked if I should be feeling contractions. She said "Are you?" with some degree of urgency and then went around my whole body poking me with a needle to see if I could feel it. I felt every poke. The last thing I remember hearing was someone -- presumably the surgeon -- yelling "Ok folks, we're going general," and then I was out.
They kicked Kurt out of the OR due to hospital policy that does not allow for family members to be with their loved ones when they are under general anesthesia. I guess my eyes were all taped up and there was a tube down my throat, which just doesn't look great. And there is always a risk of major complications, and they just don't want family members freaking out around them. Understandable, but that meant that he sat outside the OR, sobbing, filming the door with our newly purchased video camera not really knowing what was going on with me or what was happening with our baby. Good grief, we didn't even know if she was a boy or a girl at that point. At one point on the video footage, you can hear a faint cry through the door and then Kurt says with a shaky, wounded voice "That's my baby crying..."
Maddie was pretty limp and blue at first because she had gotten a hit of the general anesthesia before they got her out. She perked up right away, thank God, but they took her to the NICU just to make sure. After about twenty minutes, I think, they allowed Kurt to come back and see her. It took them a bit longer to get me all fixed up because I was kind of a mess. I had pushed so long and had gotten her far enough into the birth canal that they had to wrestle a bit and use some creative measures that I won't go into to get her out. I think it was about an hour and a half later before I finally woke up and met my baby, although I have very little memory of that. Mercifully, I do vividly remember Kurt asking me if I wanted to guess who was lying over in the little bassinet. I said our boy's name (because I was sure it was a boy the whole time I was pregnant), and he smiled and said "Madelyn Grace." He says that I started crying (shocker) and said "She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" as he brought her over to me.
So. Not exactly the birth story we had hoped for, planned for, or even remotely prepared for. I didn't even read the Cesarean chapters in my pregnancy books because I was young and healthy and determined and didn't at all think I would end up with one. My recovery was a nightmare. I was essentially recovering from two births, and because I was so totally exhausted, I just never quite caught up. It was nearly two months before I remember feeling like I could function somewhat normally again, and I also struggled a lot with breastfeeding because I had to hold her in all these weird positions to avoid pressure on my incision site.
I am terrified of experiencing something like that all over again. I am a candidate for a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), and my doctor has said she will support whatever decision I make. I would love to have the experience of giving birth naturally (meaning "vaginally," not without an epidural, necessarily), and I know that in general, the recovery from a vaginal delivery is much less traumatic and long than the recovery from a Cesarean. Nevertheless, I know that there are still risks associated with VBACs, and I'm not a risk-taking kind of person. A part of me feels idiotic for even considering an option with potentially lethal risks when it's primarily the "experience" that I want, but I worry that choosing an elective Cesarean is somehow a "cop out" and that I would someday regret not even trying to delivery naturally. Really, I don't want to have to make the decision. I want Henry to be breech or for there to be some other (not serious) complication that would necessitate a repeat Cesarean. Or I want a guarantee that if I try for a VBAC, it will be successful, but obviously, that's not going to happen.
Alas, this is what keeps me up at night, tossing and turning with anxiety.
One last little story before I stop rambling: my mom told me just a couple of months ago about an experience she had just a bit after Madelyn was born. Kurt had already come out and announced to my parents and his parents that they had a grand-daughter and that she was ok, but at that time, I was still in the OR. Time passed and no one was saying anything about me, and my mom began to worry. She went to the nurses' station and told them who she was and asked if anyone could give her an update on her daughter. One older lady from behind the counter perked up and said "I'm the surgeon who did your daughter's Cesarean." She walked around the counter to my mom and took her hands and said "Are you a praying family?" My mom said "Yes, we are," and the surgeon said "I could feel every prayer in that OR. Your daughter is just fine and she's going to be ok, but she took a little work. Thank you for praying -- I think we needed it." So. I think that's pretty cool.
There are moments when I truly doubt that Madelyn is, indeed, genetically my child. You know...like when a plate of delicious food is put in front her and she lollygags and fidgets and fabricates any reason to get down from the table. I typically have to give her a 3-count for nearly every bite as though eating were some kind of punishment. Trust me. No one has had to give me a 3-count for bites of food for a very long time, if ever. I get down to BUSINESS when a plate of yummy food is put in front of me.
(These last two photos are from Madelyn's actual birthday. Kurt left for China that day, so the best we could do was a pancake and egg breakfast with just the three of us. We stuck a candle in one of the pancakes and sang Happy Birthday and did our best to make her feel special. I think it worked out ok.)
