Tara Pringle Jefferson is a freelance writer from Ohio, where she lives with her husband and two kids. Visit her blog, TheYoungMommyLife.com, for daily musings about the issues young moms face.
After having an emergency C-section with my first two years ago, the big question that was bugging me during the entire pregnancy with my second child was: vaginal birth or C-section? With my doctor predicting that this would be an 8.5 to 9 pound baby, the real question was: was I willing to have my vag stretched (possibly) beyond the point of no return, or was I willing to be sliced open and have them tug said fat baby through the incision? Hmm”...decisions, decisions.
In the end, I decided to schedule the C-section (or as the midwife put it, “have a baby by appointment”) for numerous reasons: the baby being large for its gestational age, the risk of uterine rupture, etc. Even though I’d already been through a C-section before, the memory of it was a blur, as the doctors and nurses were rushing against the clock to deliver the baby. The whole surgery took no more than 5 minutes.
So what’s it like to schedule a C-section and know the specific date and time (thereabouts anyway) that your child will be born? Keep reading”...
After I made the decision with my doctor, he scheduled me for a time in the OR. “The earlier the better,” he told me. With a scheduled C-section, you can’t eat or drink anything for eight hours beforehand – not even water. To ensure I wasn’t starving for the whole day, I was scheduled for an 8:30 a.m C-section. By 9 a.m., he told me, I should be a mommy of two.
The big day arrived and my husband and I checked in at the Labor and Delivery desk and they escorted us to the recovery room, which is normally where – duh! – recovering moms rest before being transferred to their postpartum rooms.
This is where they prepped me for surgery. A million and one questions came flying at me, questions I thought they should already know and have stored in a computer somewhere: Is this your first pregnancy? Any problems during pregnancy? Ever been diagnosed with diabetes? STDs? Asthma? Measles? Mumps? Eczema? Bad breath? After answering “No” to every question they threw at me, they hooked me up to a fetal monitor, where they kept track of the baby’s heart rate and movements. Sidenote: the kid hated the fetal monitor and kicked at it every thirty seconds or so.
I had to sign some forms saying I consented to the surgery and the use of anesthesia. The nurses went over the dos and don’ts of the OR, mostly for my husband to follow: don’t touch anything, sit close to your wife, you can take pictures after the baby is born.
When it was time for the surgery to begin, it was time for me to walk to the OR and get my spinal. I’ve never been scared of needles before, but having someone stick a needle in my back when I wasn’t in any other pain to distract me was scary. The anesthesiologist was amazing, though, and walked me through each step as she prepared to numb me from my boobs down.
It was a very relaxed experience, I have to admit, at least compared to the frenzied pace of my emergency c-section two years ago. Alicia Keys’ As I Am CD was playing in the background, and as I laid on the operating table, I was singing along in my head to “Like You’ll Never See Me Again,” “Teenage Love Affair,” and my new personal anthem, “Superwoman.” Felt more like I was at one of those “Grown and Sexy” clubs than strapped to a table in the hospital.
The spinal they gave me made me so drowsy. I was tempted to fall asleep, but knew I’d never forgive myself if I missed the big moment I’d been waiting for the past 39 weeks. (And my new son/daughter would never forgive me either. They’d ask me, “What was it like when you had me?” and I’d say, “I dunno, I was asleep”...” Not a good look.)
Once they made sure I was numb and couldn’t feel a thing, my husband was allowed to come in and sit by my head.
Then surgery began.
My doctor is a really mellow guy and even though they had a cloth draped up so I couldn’t see anything, I could hear him singing along to the CD as well. For a forty-ish Cuban guy, he sure knew his Alicia Keys!
Within a few minutes I heard them call out the time they made the incision to my abdomen, and then a few minutes later they called out the time of the uterine incision.
All of a sudden I felt this tremendous pressure – pressure, though, and not pain. It felt like someone parked a Buick on my chest. My husband kept asking, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” And I could barely answer him.
After what felt like twenty minutes of tugging and pulling and maneuvering, I heard it. The cry. The sound every new mom hopes to hear.
My son obviously had great lungs because once I heard it, I kept hearing it. The little guy cried from the time they pulled him out, until they whisked him away to the nursery. Although if I had been nice and comfy in a warm bath and food continuously fed to me, I’d be pissed too if someone came along and pulled me out with no type of warning. I seriously felt his pain.
Afterward, they pulled out my placenta, stitched up my incision, wiped me down and pronounced me good as new. Back in the recovery room, I was placed in the same bed I had been sitting in while I was in there earlier.
Now, I now a C-section is major surgery, but I’m telling you, the nurses sounded like drug lords. Every nurse within a thirty foot radius of my bed was asking me, “Want some drugs? I got that good stuff. Let me know if you want some drugs. I got it right here.” I was still numb from the spinal, so I said I was okay for the time being.
From there, I’d have to assume having a scheduled C-section is like having a regular, vaginal birth. Except you can’t move too far the first day. And your incision hurts like the dickens whenever it rubs up against something. And your stomach muscles are pretty much useless. The nurses keep asking you if you’ve farted or pooped yet. You can’t pick up anything heavier than the baby. And so on and so forth.
So there you have it. The complete rundown of a scheduled c-section. Scared? Relieved? Doesn’t sound like any C-section you’ve experienced? Let me know in the comments!
Courtney says
I still crack up when I think about your doctor singing that Alicia Keys, lol
ewok says
LOL! God bless us all.
I had an emergency C-Section. My baby girl came one day early and she is my first (probably only…lol.) child. I was nesting like crazy, so my naive tail decided to go the grocery store and Borders Books. I actually thought I was going to push her out, and have time to read when I got home. (i know I know…lol.)
I had to really “go” at 6:00 that morning…..barely made it…..since I had nothing to compare it to, I thought nothing of it. So, I sat on the couch while I felt pressure (not pain) all morning. I got up at 10:00 and headed to Borders….felt a squish…but since I had been “squirting” (you know, when you are at your bladder’s mercy the last month?)since being 8 months preggers; I thought nothing of it again. By the time my grocery shopping was done, I felt a HUGE SQUISH and proceeded to get nervous in the check out line. The lady checking me out knew what time it was from my face and said, “your water just broke huh?”, She said, “you’re okay…..just get to your hubby now!”
By the time I pulled up to my house, THE BIGGEST SQUISH happened in my car. I called my hubby from inside the car and he chuckled when he saw the sheer terror on my face. He knows I will “go there’ so he makes me laugh when I get too worked up.
We got to the hospital and Dr. T asked how long has this been going on? When I told him, he got to work on me. Apparently i was almost out of amniotic fluid….that’s when me pressure started going up worrying for my babygirl and praying to God that I did not do her harm while shopping.
The contractions got reeeaaally umm…interesting. I got an epidural at about 11:00 pm. I was able to withstand the contractions all day and night. But, my pressure kept shooting up very high and they had my baby out in 20 minutes after telling me att 1:45, that they were going to take her. The first thing I saw when I woke up in the delivery room was my hubby’s face….he saw the other side of the sheet and they were STUFFING my insides back in…LOL! The most beautiful thing to hear is your child’s first cry. Even though they were putting my guts back inside me….didn’t care. I cried a little and waited for daddy to say “she was okay” before another dose of morphine hit me.
It hurt like HECK!, But you will be amazed at your strength, your body, and your spirit once it is all said and done.
Lark is my angel, and I would do it all over again for her.
T of 3girls says
I was able to experince both sides of the fence and I can say either one is a walk through the park. My first child was vaginal and my other two was by c-section. No one knows how much a person uses their stomach muscles until you have an c-section. The first four days are the worst and after then it gets better. The only thing I hated to do is sneeze or cough. That would always send me to tears! I look back at the whole thing and I know I have three beautiful girls out of it in which I love so much. They each have something very different about them and I love them all the same!
Jonesi says
I was in the room with my mother when she had a c-section…and let me tell you, if you want to keep your 16 year old daughter from getting pregnant at a young age, show her the footage of a c-section! lmao
Sparing all the details, it was decided I be the person to be at my mothers side during this procedure. Having no idea what I was getting myself into, I just wanted to be there to keep my mother calm. It happened so fast. I saw the nurses pull out a little blanket up to block her view and next thing I know my mom is asking me if everything was going ok while her uterus is completely exposed! I knew at that moment if I passed out she would really panic so I just focused on the fact that her body was wide-open yet she was still talking to me. All I can say seven years later is WOW!
I still joke with my mom and say I may be your daughter but I know you better than anyone else on this earth…even your own mama has never seen your insides! lmao…
@Tara – you will never say you didn’t know if you wanted your vag stretched to a point of no return again! I died when I read that!!! haha 🙂
Constance says
I had 1 natural and 1 by emergency c-section. The cord was coming out ahead of him and they said that his air supply could get blocked so they decided to give me a c-section.
My husband was there with me with my 1st child. My mom and sister were on their way up there, but they didn’t get there in time so I was alone in the operating room. That’s the only part that I hated. I desparately wanted him there with me and he hated that he wasn’t able to share that moment with me, not that I really did anything.
I like having a baby natural more because you’re involved in the process. I don’t really feel like I “had” my son.
And like T of 3girls said you never notice how often you use your stomach muscles until you can’t really use them, and after you have a c-section they are definitely on vacation for a little while. lol
The only part that was crazy to me was when the nurses would come in to change my bandages and they would exclaim how good the incision looked and how well my doctor stitched me up. I was upset at having the cut there in the 1st place so I would always think, “It’s just a cut. How good can a cut look?”
Anna says
I have never had a C section. I know some are medically necessary but also wonder do celebs schedule them in order to not interupt a plannned event or to have a baby on a certain date? Scary Spice had Eddie Murphy’s baby on his bday. Was she trying to make him fall in love with the baby he denied was his?
Constance says
@Anna I didn’t know that about Scary Spice. It sounds like she was trying to give him a lil extra something to be thankful for every year his birthday rolls around. lol
lasttimeever says
Going in to my c-section I thought the scariest part was the surgery. I wanted my mom there but I had to give her father a chance to see her being born. The epidural worked so well all I felt was a little tugging. When they got me back to the room they put those compression boots on me. When the feeling started coming back I was about to throw something if they didn’t get them off of me. They were literally driving me nuts. It’s like have a blood pressure cuff putting the anaconda squeeze on the lower half of your body every 30 seconds or so. I was bloated beyond what I had ever seen a body be bloated before. For the first time in my pregnancy I couldn’t see my feet. I couldn’t lift them either. You are supposed to start walking around as soon as possible. I could barely breathe when I stood up the pain was so bad. The first shower I took was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. That includes contractions-the bad ones after they start the drip, you know when it hurts to hear. I couldn’t walk with out help and the nurses didn’t help much. I was trying to do it with as little pain meds as possible but in retrospect I should have taken them. My arms hurt so much it was as much a mental challenge as a physical one to lift my daughter so that I could feed her without dropping her on the floor as once again the nurses managed to make themselves scarce. They left the surgical tape on me way too long and now the most obvious scars I have are the two where the tape burned my skin and left two huge weeping blisters on my tummy. The epidural left my back hurting badly enough for the first two weeks that I couldn’t stand up straight. That is one they don’t tell you can happen, it’s also something that can affect some women for the rest of their lives. I felt like I was fooled out of the option of natural child birth and healing from the c-section didn’t make that any easier. Although I guess I kind of deserved it since my pregnancy was so agreeable and my baby has been every such a happy baby for the last nine months. I will wear that pain with pride. For anyone I may have scared – it’s all worth it.
cc says
When I had my C-section about 17 years ago I just could not belive the pain afterwards. It took me a least an half hour to get in and out of bed just to use the bathroom, ouch! I have 3 kids the last one
I gave birth to him in about hour.
LaNeitria says
Oooh ya’ll are not giving a good picture of c sections! My mom had an emergency c section with my sister because her cord was wrapped around her neck. Everyone says that a c section hurts…..What I want to know is (since I don’t have kids yet) after you have healed from your c section and are able to move without pain, how did your abdominal muscles end up? Were you able to get your tummy flat with diet and exercise, or do you still have a pudge that you just can’t seem to rid of? I know, I know, it sounds vain, but inquiring minds want to know! lol!
denise says
thank u for your story. Im in the same boat, I had an emergency c-section almost 2yrs ago. I wanted to have a vbac, but then he started measuring 2wks bigger,etc & my husband said I should save my vag if i could. lol. Well Im scheduled in 2 1/2 weeks to have a c section & your story kinda put me at ease, Ive been nervous. Can I ask how you managed recovery time with a 2yr old & newborn? Thats what scares me the most!