Birth Story (belated...sorry)

Since the birth wasn't particulary eventful, this is more like a "birth and hospital stay story." I warn you, it's on the long side.

The c-section was a piece of cake. I had fretted about it a little in the couple days before, I started ruminating and panicking about the epidural and the looming recovery process, but it was seriously nothing. It hurt when they put the IV in during prep but that was the worst of it by far. The rest was just weird. The numbing agent before the spinal felt like a tiny pinch, I didn't feel the spinal at all, and I had an anesthesiologist with an awesome, bubbly personality, he really made me and DH feel comfortable and excited. DH was offered the chance to watch the baby being pulled out and to cut the cord and to my surprise he said yes to both. He said it was like something out of the discovery channel. I'm not sure how he didn't pass out. The only other unpleasant part, after the IV, was feeling the pressure of them pushing the baby out from the top of my ute. I felt like I might break in half. I couldn't feel any pain at all but it still took my breath away to be manipulated like that - there were bruises on my stomach from the ordeal. They held the baby up for me to see once he was out. He wasn't crying, he was all blue, he looked like an avatar baby. No one was acting like anything was out of the ordinary but I needed to hear that cry. "Why isn't he crying?" I asked after what seemed like an eternity of patience. "It takes time, this is a big transition, blah blah blah" came the answer. I was asked to have faith once again. Every minute felt like an eternity. This is it, this is when we find out, after four months of this CPC occupying at least a fraction of every thought that passed through my head, this is when the truth becomes known.... He did cry eventually, they had to get a lot of fluid out of him before he could. And his cry sounded healthy. I knew the doctors would be quickly examining him as I lay there on the table and I didn't hear anything alarming coming from the other side of the drapes...only happy sounds. They finished me up, brought the baby closer to my face momentarily so I could see that he had turned from blue to pink, I gave him a kiss, and then they promptly sent the baby and DH to the nursery while I was wheeled into recovery. The whole thing lasted about 40 minutes. 9:30 appointment, baby was technically born at 9:58.

All along, at birth classes and even in the surgery prep room I was told that in the event of a c/s, "if everything was ok" the baby would be brought to me in recovery after a brief trip to the nursery for a bath and a quick check, that we could start breastfeeding and bonding, etc. I lay there in recovery - stunned at what had just happened. A little life had been pulled out of a 6 inch incision in my belly. DH had seen it all. I heard him cry. He was 7.2 lbs. We had a child. And the most exciting thought, he seemed healthy.

The wait was long and as I lay there, marveling at how pregnant I still looked and trying not to freak out that I couldn't move my legs, I resolved to be more positive going forward. I resolved not to worry as much, to enjoy every moment despite there never being a guarantee. And to definitely not worry that the nursery was taking so long to return my baby. He was in good hands, I told myself (more on the nursery later). My parents and sister arrived and they and DH kept shuttling back and forth from my bed to the nursery reporting that he looked fine, that now they were bathing him, now they were weighing him, etc. etc....but they were keeping him for some inexplicable reason - where was my baby? Don't freak out, these things take time, no more obsessive worrying, have some faith for once Astrid. I was keeping it together pretty well 20 minutes into this waiting game but then the surgery nurse tending to me mentioned, "It never takes this long." My heart sank. Something was wrong. And no one was telling me what. Once again my hard-won inspiration to be more positive was met with a slap in the face. I felt so stupid for having mustered some actual faith for those few minutes.

Finally the word came. There were a couple problems - rapid breathing that wasn't normalizing and low blood sugar. For all I knew these were signs of impending doom and when they told me they were both pretty common, particularly in c/s babies, it was hard for me to believe. But it turns out, once again, I should have listened. The baby did spend a good 2.5 days in the NICU but his 'issues' were easily and completely resolved. Every nurse and doctor I've talked to since has been reassuring that they are nothing to worry about, he needed a boost of glucose and some monitoring, his breathing stabilized on its own, and now it's all in the past. He's a healthy baby. I cry every time I really stop to think about it and every time someone reminds me that he's healthy and strong. This is all I've ever wanted.

Once he was released from the NICU and I got familiar with the operations of the nursery staff I kind of wanted to send him back to the NICU just for the level of care and attention he was paid there. The regular nursery was a nightmare. I had heard such good things about this particular maternity unit and maybe I caught them in a bad week but it was seriously a problem. I opted to do 'demand' feeding during the nights which means that I would send the baby to the nursery in the evening and they would call me when he wanted to eat during the night and bring him to my room for a half hour or so and then bring him back to the nursery when the feeding was over. DH had to stay at the house with the dogs during the nights and I needed to rest and recover and was not very mobile so this was the best option. Anyway, during the first night the first feeding went fine, but after the second feeding I called for the nursery nurse to pick him up and nobody came. I waited 20 minutes and then called again. Frustrated because I got SO little sleep in that hospital (if it wasn't a nurse stopping in to wake me up it was the food service or the janitors or the doctors or the photo company or the baby's doctors or the baby's nurses or the lactation consultants or administrators...I could go on. The nurses kept telling me to 'get some rest' because I would have a better chance to rest at the hospital than I would at home. That was a fat lie) that I resented them eating into the next shift by taking their sweet time. Turns out my nurse was on break so they told another nurse to pick him up. Then another 20 minutes went by with no nursery staff. I didn't want to call again, because if I had to call a third time, what kind of people was I sending my baby back to? What disasters could befall us at the hands of this kind of incompetence. Three times I had to call? Seriously? I did call though, I didn't really feel like I had much of a choice. I still didn't feel confident taking care of him by myself - I could barely stand, I didn't know how their particular blankets swaddled, I was terrified of hurting him - dropping him, wrapping him wrong, terrified of suffocation, etc. while I was sleeping. But I knew I had to sleep if for no other reason than to keep myself from getting sick and to make sure my milk production stayed on track. These are all the rationalizations that went through my head as I dialed a third time. I also considered chewing them out on the phone but decided to wait until after we were discharged. I didn't want to upset the people handling my newborn. Once they picked up:

Me: "I've called a couple times now to get my baby picked up, I was just wondering what was going on."

Instead of apologizing, the girl at the other end got defensive and blamed the nurse - it was so unprofessional.

Nursery Girl: "Hmm, I don't know why, the nurse I told is standing right here, I'll tell her again [I could hear her eyes roll over the phone, like this wasn't her problem at all]."

The nurse that arrived didn't speak much english and could not recall from one second to the next what I had told her about "how long on each breast" and whether his diaper needed changing. "20 minutes on each breast?" she asked, after I had slowly and distinctly told her it was 15. Then she picked him up by the armpits without supporting his head and I almost lost it. I actually had to say "Watch his head!" I wanted to run down the hall after them, what kind of mother was I? Fortunately the night ended a few hours later and the baby was returned to me unharmed.

And then the next night, our last at the hospital, the situation repeated itself. I called twice and no one came. Before I had a chance to call a third time my nurse offered to bring him to the nursery. I hesitated but then allowed it on the condition that she make sure they know he's there, that she leave him with someone. I liked my nurse and I trusted her and away they went. That was around 4:30am. At about 7 am I got a call that set my entire body into a panic:

"This is the nursery [awesome, I thought, right on schedule, they're sending him back for a feeding and I'm just going to hang onto him this time], we were just wondering if you could send M back to the nursery, the doctors are making their rounds."

FUCKERS YOU HAVE HIM! Is what I wanted to scream into the phone. I can't even remember what I actually said, it must have been something close. They said they'd check again, great. I asked them to kindly call back when they found him. And they did find him. Again no apology. Their excuse was that part of one name tag was covering part of another name tag, I couldn't believe the incompetence. And all was well with the world again. I asked them to send him back as soon as the doctors were done because he was due for a feeding and they said it would be about 20 minutes. Then nine o'clock passed and I called again. "Sure right away," was the response. Then ten o'clock. And I called again. This was getting ridiculous. It had been almost six hours since his last feeding. They kept assuring me that he was sleeping soundly so I tried not to worry but I was pretty firm about wanting him NOW during this last phone conversation. Sleeping or not, six hours was pushing it - call it maternal instinct. When they arrived with him they mentioned he was slightly jaundiced, not badly, not anything to really worry about. "What should I do?" I asked, knowing next to nothing about jaundice except how common it is. "Just feed him more often," was the answer. HATE !!!! I hated them. All of them. Fucking Idiots. I had been trying to feed him for the last three hours. What. the. fuck. I am still contemplating writing a scathing letter. The comment card I got doesn't have room for all the above colorful stories of incompetence and the resulting "maternal stress."

Anyway, it's been two weeks and I am recovering well. I could stand upright and walk a few steps by the night of the c/s. I stopped pain meds at one week. I could function pretty normally as soon as I got home - doing laundry, getting around fine, just no lifting or bending. By two weeks I feel pretty much back to normal, I pick stuff up off the floor, I go on long walks, but I'm still afraid to lift things like the carseat and stroller - anything in the 20-30lb range still seems scary - I've heard some horror stories about c/s incisions opening up, getting infected, milk drying up, etc. and I don't want to risk it. So I feel fine but am being cautious. My dr said I could lift any weight I want as long as I just use arm strength and don't strain my core muscles. Stooping over to disloge the carseat from the base and lifting it up and out I think definitely strains the core muscles, at least a little. So I'm waiting on that one. I might try the baby bjorn soon because not being able to run errands is a pain. I need more onesies! And some sleep sacks. The LO has already decided that swaddling isn't really for him.

I've decided that for me, c-sections are easy. I would definitely do it again. Labor seems so incredibly challenging and scary and daunting in comparison, I do sometimes feel like I took the 'easy' way out. But I have no guilt about it - it's just the way things went for me.

Most importantly, I am so in love. Every moment of every day. I've gotten no more than 4 hrs of sleep at a time since we left the hospital - and usually it's more like 2 - but I don't care. I have no complaints. I have plenty of worries as a new mom of a tiny fragile infant, but I'm refusing to let them rob me of the moment, so to speak. Come what may I am going to enjoy every moment with my son as many or as few as those moments may be. I haven't had a touch of the baby blues or anything close to PPD (knocking on wood now). I think my gut feeling about all of that is proving true - my relief and heightened appreciation of how miraculous a healthy baby really is has vaulted my mood into the heavens, I am full of awe and appreciation and humility and there just isn't any edge of depression. Like I said, there's plenty of anxiety about whether this breathing pattern is normal, whether I'm doing everything I can to avoid SIDS, how to dress him in this heat wave, whether or not to take him into public this young, how to politely protect him from kids for the first month when we have a seemingly never-ending stream of people wanting to visit. I'm dealing with this aspect of myself the best I can, unfortunately I feel most comfortable when I can control all these elements and I have no doubt that it's irritating DH but he appreciates what I've been through and is being heroic about the whole situation. But like I said, these are not things I internalize. I do everything I can do to protect him and I let go of the things I can't control. And I don't feel the least bit depressed so far. It helps that feeding is going perfectly and has from day one. And that he sleeps according to a pretty reliable schedule. And that DH and I were pretty much home bodies from the beginning so we don't see our lifestyle as cramped by this new addition - I always wondered whether I would be able to sympathise with my friends who insist that "you can't do anything when you have a baby." I'm happy to report that I still find that remark incredibly naive, ignorant, and irritating. I know how lucky I am. I don't take any aspect of this for granted. I am soaking it all in. It's a really refreshing side of myself and I love how it makes me feel. I love having something more important than myself to occupy my thoughts and actions. I love being a mom.