Happy C-Section Awareness Month!
In movies and TV shows, there is always that beautiful birth moment - you know the one. The crying, sweaty, exhausted mama feels she can’t go on. Then someone holds her hand and gives her the encouraging speech she needs for one last push. Just then, you hear the unmistakable sound of a newborn baby crying as they place him or her on the moms chest. *cue music* Now, I don’t know if that’s really how it goes or not because I never made it there!
My doctor knew Logan was going to be a big boy, and suggested that I schedule a c-section. I thought to myself “noooo way! (That’s scary.) You are not taking my beautiful, made-for-movies moment away from me! (Also, I’m scared.) You don’t know what I’m capable of, lady! (Petrified of that option actually.) I’ve got this!!”
You guys, I didn’t have it. I didn’t have it after 38 hours to be exact. Instead, I was wheeled into the OR to face one of my my greatest fears about having a baby - being awake during an operation.
Instead of the beautiful movie moment I had imagined, there I laid - motionless, with my arms tethered to the table in a cold operating room. There was no sweat. There was no struggle. There was no pep talk unless you count the anesthesiologist asking me if I could feel “that.” I waited to hear a cry and hoped to catch a peek of our bloody, cheesy baby over the blue curtain that was placed between us.
Was it my beautiful movie moment? Not exactly. But it was beautiful nonetheless. I watched as Matt held him while my organs were stuffed back into my body, and I was sewn and stapled shut. Nobody was dabbing sweat from my forehead and congratulating me on all of my hard work.
I know that may sound very dramatic, but I mean, duh, have you met me?
C-section recovery is an entirely different animal. You’re expected to diaper and breastfeed a newborn baby every 2ish hours when you can barely even get out of bed to diaper and feed yourself. At least not without shouting obscenities. My body hurt in so many different ways, and for so long that I thought I may never be “normal” again. I could go on with this topic all day, but I’ll spare you and get to the point.
Meeting your baby anywhere, anyway is simply magical. Life changing. You’re flooded with so many inexplicable emotions that your body can’t sort out how to react to them physically, so you just sob. But it’s the unimaginable amount of love that knocks you on your freshly diapered ass! To those who say that a csection is the “easy way out” - that’s ludicrous. Let me put this plainly, THERE IS NO “EASY WAY” FOR A BABY TO EXIT YOUR BODY. I don’t care how you brought your baby into this (crazy) world - you are a warrior, and I am forever in awe of what women are capable of - yes, even sometimes with the help of modern medicine.
My best birth advice to future mamas is to prepare your heart (and your baby’s dad) for plans b,c, and d because the chances of things going off without a hitch aren’t that great! But whether you meet your baby in the delivery room, operating room, recovery room, NICU, back of a car, bathtub, or on the other side, you are incredibly strong and worthy of that title of mama.
xo - Kellie
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