I am a planner. I like to know when, how, and where things are happening so I can prep appropriately. I also research everything, so when an event comes up, I know what I need to bring, who’s going to be there, and what we plan on doing as far in advance as possible.
Growing a person for nine months gave me plenty of time to plan. I knew exactly what color the walls of the nursery were going to be. I knew what outfit I would bring him home in. After reading every pregnancy book and article out there, I knew his entry into the world to be as natural as possible, with no epidural, and delayed cord clamping. But what I didn’t plan on was having my birth plan thrown out the window in a life-or-death situation.
This is my emergency C-section story.
I absolutely loved being pregnant. I never felt so confident and happy in my life despite having minor complications along the way. Pregnancy was hard on my heart, so I had to wear a heart monitor for several months. I also had bouts of losing consciousness which was always interesting. When Little Man tried to come at 25 weeks, it did not look promising, but we got through it and convinced him to hang out a little longer. Despite all of this, I loved snuggling my cuddle bug and looked forward to Labor Day — literally my due date.
When my water broke and the time came to go to the hospital, I couldn’t contain my excitement. I gently woke my husband, did full hair and makeup, and grabbed the prepacked bags. By the time we got to the hospital, the contractions were really close and I knew I’d meet my little guy very soon.
Everything was progressing really well. My entire family had come and the room was electric with anticipation. We told stories and laughed, guessed who he would look like, and joked about what was going to be on my postnatal Pub Sub once everything was over. It was quite an exciting moment for all of us. Then the monitors started going off.
The doctor and nurses came into the room and started checking everything. They asked how I was feeling. I had a nagging pain in my side, but as a first-time mama, I chalked it up to labor pains. As the minutes crept on, the pain got worse. And worse. It was only on one side and did not correlate with the bell curves. The monitors kept beeping and more nurses came in, then more, then more. Then they asked my family to leave.
With only my husband on one side and my mom on the other, I began to feel dizzy as if I were going to pass out. I could see the fear on their faces as people hurriedly ran around the room. Something clearly was not right, and they were trying their best to be brave.
When mentioning I needed to push there was a collective “NO!” from the medical team. It was at this moment that my doctor calmly came over and whispered in my ear, “Honey, you are having some dangerous complications. We need to perform an emergency cesarean right now or we face potentially losing you both.”
I didn’t plan for a C-section. That thought never crossed my mind. I literally skipped those chapters in all the books because I never considered it to be an option. It wasn’t “the plan.” But now the plan was to live. For BOTH of us to live. And I was going to do whatever we needed to accomplish that.
READ: C-Section Secrets: What I Wish I Had Known Before My Surgery
With determination in my eyes, I nodded “yes” and signed off on all the documents.
After asking my husband to pray for us, the nurses rushed me down the hall and got straight to it. I didn’t feel a thing other than some jiggling and pressure. In the time it would take you to spell cesarean correctly, I heard the sweet sound I’d been waiting nine months for — the first cry from my little guy.
Afterward, they wheeled us down the hall like a parade float as 14 family members waved and cried hysterically as we went by. As they got us settled in the hospital room, I realized that it didn’t turn out the way I had planned, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was here. That I was here. A cesarean section saved both of our lives, and I refuse to think about what would have happened if I had declined to do it. My scar is a badge of honor that I wear proudly showing the fortitude I have from our experience.
I implore you to always anticipate the unexpected when expecting. Babies don’t follow birth plans.
