Learning from Women’s Stories

Birth Story:

When I was about 15 weeks pregnant with my daughter, I had the most tender dream. I imagined that I had a smooth, natural birth that ended with her on my chest in the happiest experience. It was so vivid and I woke up that morning with a huge smile. It was something I badly desired - as my first birth had gone exactly the opposite.

I never expected to have a c-section or traumatic birth experience. All of the women in my family had uneventful vaginal births, and that’s what I deeply desired as well. When my son was born in August of 2018 I was left with postpartum PTSD, a condition that affects about 9% of mothers. At 40 weeks and one day gestation, I was coerced into being induced due to one high blood pressure reading (130s over 85). When I pressed my doctors if this was really necessary the attending told me, “You made it this far, don’t mess it up now.” In our conversations, I gathered that if I didn’t listen to her, the baby could or would die, and it would be all my fault.

[I realize that not everyone has my experience, and that is OK. Scores of women who are happy with their c-section can be found on any online platform, and I’m happy for them. But they are on their journey and I am on mine. Here is how it affected me.]

The process started with a long induction. After my clinic appointment, I was told to go straight to L&D - “don’t even go home for belongings” - it was an emergency (even though I’d later learn it obviously was not). My husband dropped me off at the hospital, I checked myself in alone and waited until 11pm that evening to be induced. Some rush. I had the foley bulb in for 13 hours, and when it came out around 4 cm, I developed chorio, an infection of the uterus, and amniotic fluid. As labor progressed, I became very sick, with temperatures upwards of 102. My son became tachycardic. At stage zero I was told to start pushing, which was futile because my body wasn’t ready or cooperating. After two hours of coached pushing, I was taken back for a c-section. I was saying “no” and “I don’t want this” as they wheeled me away. No one at the hospital consented me for my c-section on paper. The attending asked me for consent after I was already in the OR and doped up. At that point, I thought my options were to consent to c-section or die on the table.

Then I missed the exact moment of my son’s birth. I laid on the table throughout my c-section without anyone telling me what was happening. My son was an APGAR score of 1/10 - no motion, floppy, blue and pale, not breathing, but with a heart rate less than 100 bpm. He did not cry when he was born, and no one told me he was outside of my body. After my husband told me that we had a boy, I laid on the table screaming for someone to tell me what was happening. No one ever did, and I was panicked. Later, I learned they were opening the intubation kit when I was screaming. Then, a few minutes later he had an APGAR reading of 7/10 - great improvement and breathing without being intubated. (Although he never went to the NICU, he was not given to my husband or me.) I regained sensation from my epidural shortly after my son was breathing, and I was put to sleep on the table. When I woke up in PACU completely alone, no one knew where my son was (not even my husband who later joined me). There were no happy moments, no photos. No support from anyone in my medical staff, aside from a little compassion from the anesthesiologist. Painfully awful.

I spent over a year in therapy to help me find answers to what had happened to me. For a very long time, it was terrifying to see a photo of a c-section or a mom in the OR - like a punch to my gut. It’s difficult to read the storybook, On the Night You Were Born, to my son. I feel badly that his birth is not a happy memory for me, but one that has tormented me instead. I feel guilty that one day I will lie to him by telling him instead how joyous his birth was while I secretly fight back tears.

The aspects I continue to struggle with most were not being respected by my doctors, the confusion surrounding why I was taken for c-section and why I was taken against my will, as well as the excruciating four hours I spent apart from my newborn son for virtually no reason at all and without information of his well being.

So when I became pregnant with my daughter, I made it my mission to control what was in my power and try my best for VBAC. I demanded another chance. My therapist recommended a doula, and I’d heard about the positive impact of doulas through a VBAC group on Facebook. The VBAC group gave me solid information about ACOG and their recommendations so that I could make evidence-based decisions. Additionally, I was treated by a chiropractor certified in the Webster Technique to help baby align.

I hand-picked a doctor who shared my beliefs and respected my wishes. He was supportive. There were moments where I doubted myself and my choices, but my doula and therapist were able to get my mind back on track. Even though it was likely that I’d have a large baby (my son was 9 lb and 11 oz), I went to 41 weeks with my daughter. When she was born, it was exactly like the perfect dream I’d had months earlier.

Her story is simpler. After spending Thursday and Friday with prodromal labor, my doula came over to do Spinning Babies techniques with me on Saturday, which my husband and I continued to implement. I spent all of Sunday in bed having irregular contractions. That night we reached out to my chiropractor who agreed to do a late-night adjustment to influence active labor! After the adjustment, we came home around 11pm when contractions started heating up! I got into the bathtub and labor started progressing. My doula came over to the house around midnight and sometime after 2am we were packing the car to head to the hospital, with contractions less than two minutes apart.

When we arrived at the hospital around 3am, I was already dilated to 7. The staff was receptive to my past circumstances of a traumatic birth and my doula helped navigate my story. After receiving my epidural around 5am I was dilated to 9. After two-and-half hours of pushing (and changing positions multiple times thanks to my doula), my daughter was born naturally. She was placed on my chest. My exact words were, “This is the best day of my life.” She was 21 inches and 8 pounds, 9 ounces of wonderful. It was a dream come true.

_____

An additional note to share:

This was something I wrote in my journal one sleepless night when I was agonizing over everything (and before I was treated for PTSD). I came back to this part night after night and felt that this is the only way to describe how my c-section felt in that moment.

An unexpected c-section is a theft. A mother is there when she conceives; she bonds with her unborn baby. As she experiences the birthing process and it unexpectedly ends in c-section, she realizes that she no longer had a part of it. Her labor efforts were futile and lacking. Her child came into the world without her help, even though she badly wanted to give her child the gift of birth. She cannot see what is happening. She is alone and invisible and even with the fluorescent lights, it feels pitch black. She lays there, robbed of her ability, for the doctor to deliver and touch a baby she should have delivered and held herself. There are no second chances. Just failure. Her pain and grief is profound. She wants to apologize to her baby. Where is my baby?