C-sections are not for pussies

We've probably all heard someone somewhere presume that a woman who has a c-section is taking the "easy way out" of birthing a baby and that it's so much easier than laboring and delivering a baby out the vag. Maybe we have even thought this ourselves. I know I did way back when I was childless, ignorant, well-rested, youthful-looking, didn't have permanent dark circles under my eyes, spent money on myself....huh what? Sorry, what was I talking about again? Oh that's right, ok well I, along with any other woman who's gone through a c-section, am here to tell you that c-sections are fucking awful in their own special way and are not to be taken lightly.

One of the first things I thought about when I felt comfortable in assuming that this baby would make it was the method of delivery. Because I have no hips, would I automatically be recommended for a c-section? Would I even have a say in the matter? How long would traditional labor and delivery take for me? Will my vagina survive the blowout if I birth him vaginally? If I do give birth vaginally, do I want an epidural? Why would I even question the epidural, of course I'll want it...right? Lots of questions.

The birthing class the doc recommended we take solidified two things:
1) yes, I want the epidural. In fact, I'll take two, please.
2) vaginal births look intimidating as fuck but appears to be the more desired, "organic" option

While I was not thrilled at the idea of pooping on the table while pushing out my son during active labor, and the thought of splitting open my business made my butt pucker, I did see the upside to a vaginal delivery and sort of relished in the processional "drama" that comes along with it. Turns out, I wouldn't really have much of a choice because Remy was breech in the last trimester of my pregnancy and didn't appear to be wanting to turn anytime soon. Actually, that's a lie, I did have a choice: schedule a c-section or roll the dice and possibly end up having an emergency c-section, which sounded way worse. I also opted not to do the version (where they try to turn the baby from the outside).

Since my only concern was the successful delivery of a healthy baby by whatever means necessary, I was happy to schedule the c-section at 39 weeks. Those of my friends who were unfortunate enough to have gone through emergency c-sections (along with those that had scheduled ones) assured me that a scheduled one was WAY better and not as traumatic. Hey man, I'm no hero...sold. 

A word of advice: if you eat or drink anything, and I mean ANYTHING, prior to your surgery, they will delay it. They are not fucking around. I had less than an ounce of OJ the morning of my c-section to take the edge off because I started to feel jittery before we left for the hospital. I had also not eaten in the previous 12 hours as per doc's orders, so my blood sugar was low. When I told them during my pre-surgery prep, you would've thought I stopped and had a steak dinner on my way to the hospital. The fear was that I would aspirate during the surgery and die or something and then the hospital would be liable. Seriously? Yep. I was supposed to go in at 8am, and they made me wait until 11am. That doesn't sound like a big stretch, but when you're all amped up to give birth and you're hungry as fuck, the extra time felt like forever. The kicker: during my extra wait time, they gave me something in my IV to get my blood sugar up...twice. *eye roll* *face palm* *irritated sigh*

I'm a pretty chill person when it comes to medical procedures. I haven't had many, but when I have, I'm usually pretty calm and docile. I just do what I'm supposed to and go home. When it was time to get ready to have a baby, I was taken to the OR and got set up on the table. I've been on the operating table before when I had the two D&Cs done, so I was feeling pretty ok. Sidenote: operating rooms are fucking freezing. But they give you these nice warm blankets to cover up with. I had to get the spinal done, though, and I was a little nervous about that; though my sister in law had told me it wasn't bad at all, pain-wise. I got through it just fine, even after they had to do it a second time because I twitched during the first stick. 

They gave me some time to let the spinal work its magic, and then they did a little test to make sure I was numb from the waist down. My doc poked me with an instrument and asked me if it hurt. I told her that while I could feel the poke, it didn't hurt. She did this several more times, and I answered the same: it didn't hurt, but I could feel that it was being done. I was worried because I could feel the poke and I was pretty sure she wasn't poking hard enough to elicit pain...when she goes to slice me open, that will definitely elicit pain, and would I feel it then? Did the spinal not work correctly? When they indicated they were going to start, I kind of freaked out because I wasn't sure if I was as numb as I was supposed to be, so she said they would wait a few more minutes. I kept saying, like a psycho, "I can feel it but it doesn't hurt. But I can feel it because I know you're doing it. Am I supposed to be able to feel the pressure, just no pain? Please don't cut me open if I'll be able to feel it!!" Obviously, my cool, calm exterior was starting to melt away.

I'm happy to report that when she started the c-section a few minutes later, I couldn't feel shit. I knew it was happening but I didn't even feel the actual incision being made. Plus there was the drape in front of my face, so I couldn't see anything either. In retrospect, I kind of wish I had asked for a clear drape (assuming that was an option), because as the procedure progressed, I started to feel anxious about not being able to see what was happening down there. As much as it might've freaked me out initially, I think I would've felt calmer overall if I could see what was being done to me.

The hubs was up near my head holding my hand and talking to me, and I don't think he had any desire to watch the surgery. My nurse anesthetist was super sweet and gave me a play-by-play of what they were doing and how things were progressing. Periodically, she would tell me I'd feel some pressure, and let me just tell you that during a c-section, "pressure" sometimes equals "pain." It just does. When my doc got to the point of pulling the baby out, there was a lot of fucking "pressure," and the nurse anesthetist took some pictures with Bob's phone, which were really fascinating to see later. 

Like I said before, I was pretty calm overall, considering what was happening to me. But when I heard my baby cry for the first time, I broke and started bawling myself. A fucking tidal wave of emotion and pregnancy hormones washed over me to the point that it was palpable. I felt joy, pain (pressure!), relief, anxiety and terror all at once, all for different reasons. But I have to say, relief was probably the most prevalent feeling I had, as soon as I laid eyes on my gooey little boy. It was so amazing to see him in living color, a person I had created and grown and how in the hell did this little nugget fit inside my uterus at full term?? Even recalling it now is making me feel weepy again. Giving birth truly is the most amazing thing I've ever done (I'm an underachiever :P), and I am so grateful to have been able to experience it.

The next part, not so great. Now that the baby was out and being tended to, it was time for the rest of the party to vacate the premises; namely the placenta and all the amniotic fluid and what not. We will affectionately refer to it as "the goo." I thought the hard part was the baby coming out. NOPE. That was cake. The goo was the hard part. The goo was the truly painful part of the process. Because in order to get all the goo out, the nurses and doc had to knead and press and massage down on my stomach like they were making fucking biscuits. HOL. LEE. SHIT. There's really no other way I can describe it. The nurse anesthetist informed me I was going to feel a whole lot of "pressure." That bitch lied; it was a whole lot of PAIN. 

After the worst massage in the world, my doc had to stitch everything back up that was cut open. This took awhile. A lot longer than I thought it would or should (I have no idea why I thought it would get done quickly), and at this point in time I was right on the edge of losing my shit, jumping up and murdering everyone in the room (except my precious baby, of course). Maybe it was because up until the birth of my son, I was calm, yielding and pleasant. Maybe it was because I was promised sweet, sweet numb oblivion from the waist down and instead felt like my lower body had just been crushed by a steam roller. Maybe because we put a man on the moon but I couldn't get my shit stitched up in ten minutes, really?? Hey man, I saw 'Prometheus;' that little medical pod thing opened her up, sucked out the alien and stitched her back up in less than 7 minutes! Unfair!

Even now, I don't even remember if I got to do skin-to-skin with the baby right after the surgery. I don't remember if he rode back to my hospital room with me on the bed or if someone else transported him back. I have no idea, it's all a blank. Even my husband doesn't remember exactly. Crazy. But back in the room, I know they started me on some pain meds. (thank the gods for pain meds, though they didn't do much but make me feel sleepy and woozy) I also had a catheter put in before the c-section, and being able to just pee (and not even know it!) without getting out of bed after weeks of getting up to pee every ten minutes in the last trimester of my pregnancy was fucking gold. 

For some reason, I didn't think I'd do a lot of bleeding out the vag after the surgery. I just assumed that since he came out a different way, there wouldn't be as much happening in the crotchal region. Wrong. I bled just like I probably would have if I had pushed him out my vagina. Fortunately, we lucky ladies get outfitted with these ENORMOUS pads held up by some very sexy disposable mesh boy short underwear. I mean, the pads could double as floor mats in your fucking car, that's how big they were. But the mesh underwear, now those were a dream come true. They kept the phone book pads in place but were high-waisted and loose enough so that there was no painful pressure on my incision, which was crucial, obviously. Ladies, take heed: STEAL AS MANY OF THE MESH UNDERWEAR AS POSSIBLE when you leave the hospital. Doesn't matter if you have a c-section or a vaginal birth. They are AMAZING.

The c-section/hospital bed situation was a practice in bullshit. You have a very new and painful incision running across your middle, pretty much right where you bend in half. The hospital beds recline and sit up, which is fine, but when you do want to sit up in bed, you end up getting stuck in the bottom of the angle that the bed makes, and in order to move around, adjust, sit up, lay back, etc. you have to bend your body where? Yes, in the middle, conveniently right where you were just cut open and hemmed back up. As a result, I think I had like fourteen pillows on my bed in an attempt to boost me up and make it as painless as possible to get in and out of. It was annoying as fuck. Eventually on my last night in the hospital, I slept in the recliner that was in the room because it was way easier for me to get in and out of that. 

Again, because I had never gone through a c-section (or any major surgery) before, I didn't realize that when you get cut open, the nerves running along that stretch of skin also get severed. So you end up feeling numb in the area about an inch above the incision, which is a strange feeling. I've been told by some moms who had c-sections that years later, they're still numb right there because the nerves never grew back. At five months postpartum, I still have some slight numbness but not as much as I did right after the surgery. And even though I've been able to touch and wash the incision since six weeks postpartum, it still hurts every now and then, it itches frequently and I'll get a flash of burning pain at the site here and there. Great.  

Also, that incision creates a sort of chasm or indent along your pubic area that will probably always be there. Meaning, the little belly pooch it creates directly above it will be that much harder to get rid of. I'm assuming that's why mom jeans were created. Awesome. Oh, and unless you wear higher-waisted underwear, the top of your regular underwear (which you'll go back to once you bid farewell to the blessed mesh underwear of the gods) will probably lie perfectly nested right on top of your incision, which hurts like hell. A couple of weeks postpartum, I had to send my husband to Target to buy me some boxer-briefs from the boys section because my regular underwear hurt too much, and like the idiot that I am, I had forgotten to steal the glorious mesh underwear from the hospital before I left. (I did consider buying some Depends because I figured it would take care of both the need for blood absorption and be higher-waisted, but those are kind of expensive. And the volume of bleeding went down significantly even just a week postpartum, so Depends would've probably been overkill for my situation.)

I won't go on and on about every single little detail (well, I guess I kind of just did), but here's what I really want to emphasize about c-sections, that I didn't really understand until I had one: that shit is major surgery. You are sliced open across the middle, a baby and the goo are pulled out, and you are stitched back up. Sometimes this can fuck up other things, like your bladder. While I suffered no actual trauma to my bladder, it still feels a little weird when I pee, even now. It also makes caring for a newborn, once you're home from the hospital, that much more difficult. Yes, you can probably carry them around still since they're so little, but walking up and down stairs sucks. Moving heavier things around, like a case of baby wipes from Costco, is tedious, and don't even think about being able to raise that box of wipes above your head to put on a closet shelf. Bending over and turning at the waist--you know, the movements you have to make in order to breastfeed the baby--hurts like a bitch. Meanwhile, you're still bleeding (and will be for weeks probably), the pain meds don't really make the incision pain go away (they just make it more tolerable), you may not have pooped in awhile and won't for days (at least I didn't), you still have a plethora of pregnancy hormones crashing around inside you and you have a tiny human that is now 100% your responsibility in keeping alive. No more nurses or hospital nursery or medical advice at the push of a button; you are on your own. (a topic worthy of its own post)

Oh, and apparently when you have a c-section, the probability of having a vaginal birth in the future goes down. As in, you may get to only have c-sections from here on out if you have more babies. Oh boy! Didn't know this ahead of time, either. 

So while I'm sure vaginal deliveries have their own special set of cons, C-sections are not easier to endure, not by a long shot. They are NOT for pussies, and what I mean by that is there's no way a man could ever do what us ladies do in terms of childbirth. Women will rule the world one day, just wait and see.