As we prepare to welcome our son next week I was reminded that I never shared Lyla’s birth story. At the time it was such a hard thing to wrap my head around and ultimately ended in a way that I hadn’t wanted and mentally had a hard time coping with, so I just never shared about it unless it was in person and even then I kind of skirted around the topic.
For those who don’t know, we decided to keep the gender a surprise, so this is written without the knowledge that it was our little girl, Lyla! I apologize in advance for the long descriptions, but I know I appreciate understanding a little more of the circumstances so I want to provide that for other mommas who need it too!
At 39 weeks I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension, which my doctors recommended just going ahead and inducing me. Ultimately I agreed because when they tell you that if you don’t follow their recommendation it could mean a complication for you, you listen. I was scared of not meeting the little human that I had just incubated for 9 months, so a week early we ventured to the hospital to be induced.
This will get a little technical but I’ll do my best not to be too graphic with the nitty gritty details :P
It was about 1pm in the afternoon on March 12th when they induced and my contractions started right away. (For those of you who know, Lyla wasn’t born until the late evening of March 13th…) Four hours later I had barely dilated so they decided to insert a foley bulb to mechanically help me dilate. Honestly? This was probably the most uncomfortable part of the entire labor process for me. About 3 hours later they decided to start Pitocin and another 3 hours after that the foley bulb had done its job and came out. I was 4cm dilated, but not effaced at all. About 2am they increased my Pitocin dose and then an hour later decided to break my water.
A Little Relief
Through all of this I felt very taken care of, had the best nurses and the best support from my husband. It is SO frustrating when you aren’t making any progress but are contracting for over 12 hours. Around 7am I decided that I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone and got an epidural and at 8am I hadn’t made any progress and was still at 4cm. We tried different positions increasing and decreasing Pitocin but ultimately at 3pm after laboring for 26 hours, I was still at 4cm. Talk about feeling a bit like a failure. My body was contracting but I just wasn’t getting anywhere. I was exhausted, hungry and frustrated, but also just overall concerned about getting this little one out.
Still, no progress
After 6pm they decided to insert an IUPC device to measure the strength of the contractions on the inside of my uterus, which we determined were definitely strong enough. Honestly, strong enough for me to feel them through the epidural… After a while (like the 29 hours I’d been in labor, 12 with an epidural) the epidural can fall more to one side of your body, and it did that for me. So as I started to feel the contractions again on my right side, and was ultimately feeling them in my back, we realized that although the little bean was head down, the back of the head wasn’t putting the necessary pressure on my cervix.
Finally a decision
By 8:30pm when still no further progress was made, our doctors recommended a C-section. Ultimately I KNEW this was an option but I was so determined to deliver naturally that as soon as they left I had a total meltdown. I not only felt like a failure for not being able to deliver naturally, all the fears that come with an unexpected outcome crept up on me and took over. I didn’t do as much research on a C-section as I did on a natural birth, my mind didn’t feel prepared but I knew that I didn’t totally have a choice. It was time to get the little one out and this was the way it would happen.
Surgery started at 10:45, and our sweet girl, Lyla was born at 10:56pm after laboring for 34 hours. Let me tell you, the movies don’t show how you can shake uncontrollably, like weird tremors through what feels like your whole body (but is really only your top half. They do show people being overcome with emotion, but when you aren’t a cryer you don’t think that you’ll cry THAT much. Um… I’m not a cryer and I practically was sobbing not even when I got to see Lyla for the first time but when I heard her cry. It is one of the most surreal experiences seeing the person who has been nudging you for months on end and getting to touch their little cheeks and smother them with kisses.
After surgery they take us to a room to be monitored and to receive pain medications, where luckily my hospital also let me hold Lyla and even try to nurse. They let us know that I lost almost double the amount of blood that is normal, so that was a little frightening but I felt okay so there weren’t any alarms to sound. Meanwhile they were also pumping me full of pain meds so my memories are a LITTLE blurry :P (The main thing I do remember about our overall stay was how SWOLLEN my feet were. Literal balloons, like couldn’t fit in shoes and could barely bend my ankles. They said it would go down after a week and I laughed at them, but ultimately they did go down and my feet never felt so light! :P)
My Mental Struggle
Ultimately that is the official end to her birth story, but what I think is most important to share is what I didn’t expect. What I didn’t expect was the mental struggle I had with having a C-section and being cut open. I didn’t think about how my body would be altered in a way that I hadn’t done and for a scar to be a constant reminder of how I felt when they told me a C-section was the best option. That failure and frustration lived with me for MONTHS. I didn’t feel like I would ever have my body back. I was embarrassed to tell people I had a C-section at first because that isn’t what they expect. I hid and didn’t want to acknowledge that my birth story was quite different than many people I know, which is probably why I’m just now sharing this when our sweet girl is 19 months old.
For any mommas that feel like the failed in the moment of having a C-section or after, know you aren’t alone. More importantly, know that the feeling DOES go away. I think it was 4-5 months before I finally started feeling more confident about the way things went and by the time we decided to have our second baby it wasn’t even a concern to me any longer. It can be a hard mental struggle and I encourage anyone struggling to seek help because adjusting to life with a baby is hard enough, let alone when you are a little mad at yourself.
We opted not to have a birth photographer, but had a photographer friend come by the hospital to capture our transition to parenthood :) By the time we had pictures taken, Lyla needed to be on the light bed so that is the random blue bed she’s on!
Photos by Aaren Lee Photography
(Another disclaimer – I had a fresh shower and spent far too long doing my hair and makeup for these photos. By no means am I well rested, but I do look far better than I had at the start of the day :P)
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