“I don’t want your medicine,” I said. Apparently at that point, I still thought he was the bad guy and I actually had a choice in the matter. The midwife had transferred care to an OB/GYN and she got eye level with me and said, “You’re going to need a c-section. Your baby’s heart rate is decelerating and we aren’t sure if you will be able to be awake for the birth or if we will need to put you under. We don’t have time, the baby needs to come out.”
Still on my elbows and knees, they wheeled me down the hall. At that point while I was being taken to the operating room for a “crash c-section”, I remember thinking for the first time that maybe this whole pregnancy and labor so far would amount to a baby, perhaps unhealthy, harmed in some way, or maybe even already deceased. I braced myself for the worst.
Wheeling into the OR I remember lifting my head to see something like 30 people, men and women, looking at their patient come into the room, me. So much for a birth with only Dave and a midwife present. This was all happening so quickly. We didn’t even have time to call our family to tell them we were at the hospital.
Meanwhile, Dave is in a “purgatory,” as he calls it, an in-between space where he waited for about 10 minutes to see if he could come in to the OR or not. Waiting, waiting. Apparently we were both wondering what was going to happen next, but separately.
“Excuse me, where is Dave?” Tears were rolling down my face and around the oxygen mask. If I would have known we would be separated for our child’s birth, I would have at least given him eye contact. My head had been face down in a pillow for most of the time so far at the hospital. They gave me the epidural because there was time for this step after all. I was relieved to know that I wouldn’t be asleep for the birth of our baby. Dave came in. I was comforted to see him.
What seemed like 15 seconds later, “Baby’s out! Meconium!” Dave and my midwife were at my head and telling me what was going on. Then my midwife explained to me why we didn’t hear crying. I didn’t even realize we were supposed to hear the crying…then I was worried. We just waited.
“Can I take pictures?” “Should I go with the baby or stay with you?” Questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Where was the chapter on cesearean birth, Ina May?! In all of my reading, I wasn’t prepared to deal with this, for so many reasons. It may not seem like that big of a deal to make these decisions, but when you are naked on an operating table, after giving birth, insides still revealed, and had not yet heard the cry of your baby, it would have been nice for us to have talked about a few aspects of these decisions. Yes, Dave, take pictures. Yes Dave, please go and check on your new baby. I threw up once again.
A cry?! We cry. Relief. Wait, is it a boy or a girl? We ask, they announce. A girl. We have a baby girl. More tears. She is wheeled by us in her plastic container on her way to the NICU. Bye baby girl, see you soon.
I was also very disappointed with the natural birth movement. I did hypno-birthing classes. Although some of the information was helpful, I was completely unprepared for the pain. Thanks for sharing your story.