Submitted by Rayne in Alabama
I have one daughter who just turned 2 and her birth was somewhat eventful, but normal at the same time. I think my biggest regret was being so drugged up I only remember bits and pieces of it and I was too out of it to try and hold her the first day or try to breastfeed her. I won’t go into minute by minute details, but here it is.
My water broke at 2am and it was almost just like in the movies…It was literally like dumping a bucket of water in the toilet (fortunately I didn’t unload on the floor or the bed). I never realized I was actually carrying that much fluid in me. I had two big “gushes”, but managed to get the toilet both times. From that moment on, I was constantly leaking.
By the time we got to the hospital (around 4am) I was so ready to get out of my wet pants and into a hospital gown, so the bed sheets could catch my leakage. By this time I had also started getting some mild contractions, but nothing unmanageable.
Unfortunately for me, the baby never dropped into the birth canal. I was in labor for 14 hours from the time my water broke to the time I delivered and I never dilated to more than 5cm. I was given an epidural and after a while feeling started to come back in my right leg, so the doc gave me something else. I slept through most of my contractions, my ribs being in so much pain, I was pleading for them to get her out and I was crying. I remember my husband crying as well, because he couldn’t stand to see me hurting. All of my contractions it seemed where up in my rib cage because that’s where the baby was lodged. She wasn’t contracting in my abdomen so I never got that overwhelming urge to bear down like some women do. I just felt a vice on my chest and I remembering trying to breathe through some of it. As I mentioned, the memories are fragments.
After 14 hours and no progress, I was given an unscheduled c-section and my daughter was born at 4:36pm that afternoon. I was completely out of it and they had to keep waking me up. I did manage to stay awake for the c-section and I heard her first cry and saw my baby and gave her a kiss.
But afterward, I had a hard time staying awake. I have pics of me with bug-eyes because I was so drugged up that I couldn’t focus. The nurses and my husband kept asking me if I wanted to try breastfeeding, but I was afraid to try and hold my daughter since I was so out of it. But I finally did and she was a pro, unfortunately I never produced enough milk to provide for her and she ended up a formula baby. Something I’m not sure I could have helped by breastfeeding earlier than I did, but something I will regret not trying. Because she never dropped and my contractions were mostly up high, I had trouble breathing deeply for about 2-3 weeks after delivery…like I couldn’t quite truly catch my breath.
My c-section was the first major surgery I’d ever had (at 31 years old), so my body freaked out and didn’t know how to deal with it. I ended up back in the hospital 2 days after I was released and spent the next week getting antibiotics and tests to determine why my white blood cell count was so high, because they couldn’t find any other signs of infection. I had fluid buildup behind my incision, that drained for about 3 weeks, so that was yucky and uncomfortable. I was extremely swollen from water retention (after delivery), so I’d advise to drink lots of water! Like it’s the last drink on earth. I developed high blood pressure during that week as well that finally got back to normal after a few weeks. I couldn’t sleep in any position except my back in an elevated position for over a month after I delivered. That was awful and really uncomfortable.
But after all that, I’d do it all over again. My pregnancy was the most uneventful and a friend even said I was the most un-pregnant pregnant person he’d known. So I guess my delivery and recovery made up for it.
My daughter is my world, I don’t even know how I filled my days before she arrived and I very much look forward to doing it all over again. As soon as my husband agrees to another child.
