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!