Things I Wish I Knew Before Getting A C-Section
It's Throwback Thursday! Sometimes I look at my toddler and think, "WHERE did the time go?"Well here's a look back to the day we had her.We didn’t plan on getting a c-section. In fact, we spent weeks going to a pre-natal class and creating our birth plan. It was scary but exciting. The doula talked to us about how to induce labor, breathe during contractions, how to save your plasma. You know, horrifying things.I mean of course, it’s beautiful. It’s carrying a human being for nine months and then pushing it out of your body. It’s beautiful but it’s not gentle. But I don’t know if it was hubris or naivete, but I thought I would be fine. I presented my birth plan to our doctor and she was very cool with it.
A BRIEF BACKGROUND
We found out we were pregnant right after our honeymoon. We were very excited but wanted to hear it from a doctor, so we looked someone up from Makati Medical Center and booked an appointment. She was unpleasant and rough. She said that it was too soon to tell and dismissed us. AND WE HAD TO PAY HER. Awesome.This was in January 2016, we thought we would be in Beijing by now. We were just waiting for a call from P’s company this whole time. It was good because he would be with me through this very difficult but still amazing pregnancy. So when the doctor prescribed all the pills and shots, it was comforting to have him by my side. And then, SURPRISE! The company sent him a ticket to fly to China on the week that I was supposed to deliver.We were absolutely crushed. I dropped him off at the airport and then waited a few hours to go to my doctor’s appointment. At 11AM, the doctor said my amniotic fluid was too low and the baby had to be delivered TODAY. So I was super excited to tell Paolo, and he was busy signing a contract while I was being wheeled into the delivery room.So some of the things NO ONE told me before I got a C-section:
Strangers will see you naked
I was just in a flimsy hospital nightgown when they wheeled me into this cold delivery room, put me on the cold delivery table, and STABBED the epidural into my back. And then I couldn’t feel any thing. There were at least eight people in that room who were not previously introduced to me.
You will stain your bed
Because the cadaver part of your body is still recovering, there will be a mess on whatever fabric you’re being a paperweight on. The worst is when the nice cleaning ladies come in with their whispery voices asking to change your sheets. They proceed to wrapped you up on either end like a burrito and then move to gurney so your crime scene hospital bed can be cleaned up. Bless my mom, she was there with me and didn’t even flinch as she was wiping my legs clean. I love you, mom!
Hospital food is not the best
Since I got a C-section, I’ll be staying in the hospital for almost a week instead of the 3 days of recovery for normal delivery. In those days, the hospital covered three meals a day, which sounds great. But it isn’t. It was soup, rice, some cold entree, and jello. I distinctly asking my in-laws to bring cheese pizza. AND THEY DID.
Spinal headaches
Here’s a surprise. Imagine the human you’ve been growing in your body has just left, and you’re in stitches (not laughing, but literally in stitches) trying to hold your body together, and you have the most painful, mushroom-cloud proportioned headache in your life? It’s like your head is floating while being hit with jackhammers every time you sit or stand. No one told me I would get this. And when I did, it seemed like no one was alarmed at all. No one was trying to calm me down, the doctor doing the rounds just said, “Oh it’s just because the spinal fluid leaked out of your back so that’s why you feel queasy.” LADY. I felt like I was going to DIE. I promise I’m not a weenie. Even two-time NBA champion and 2016 Coach of the Year Steve Kerr had them. But his reaction was, “I am doing better.” And mine was, “WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF MY BABY IF I DIE, MY HUSBAND IS IN BEIJING!”Remember when I told you they stabbed the epidural into my back? Well that created an exit for the spinal fluid from the membrane around the spinal cord and reduced pressure on my brain. Healthline says without treatment, the hole in the spinal membrane will naturally repair itself over the course of several weeks. Hey. I did not have weeks. I was breastfeeding and recovering at the same time. It got better SEVEN DAYS after my c-section. I was crying when I had to get up from the bed, whispering, “I’ve to do this for the baby” while in the bathroom. I tried to be calm and soothing so the baby would latch. But that was a treat too, and my nipples were bleeding from the gummy bites of this tiny human I loved so much. I was crying but I had to woman up.
You can’t carry anything but the baby
The doctors said I shouldn’t lift anything but the baby. That meant I needed so much help. Pregnancy and delivery is such a sensitive time for women, and we need all the help we can get. Before I would sneeze I’d have to need two of my hands to put pressure on my stitches so that nothing falls out. My gauze would need careful changing every time I showered, and because they got the adhesive kind, it kind of stuck to my skin so that hurt me too!Going through this one experience is life-changing and now I want to hug (or politely nod to, given the current germy climate) every pregnant woman I see. It’s a mind-blowing, miraculous time but also a very sensitive, stressful experience. I also talk about this with the women I work with, and transcending language, race, and culture, it’s the one thing we bond over.Now that I’ve shared this magical horrifying story, I’d love to hear yours too! Did anything crazy happen to you while giving birth?