Meeting Tessie

Two nights ago, that is to say, the night before my fifth C-section, I couldn't sleep.  I paced.  I lay in bed.  I tried to force myself to go to sleep, which was pretty much impossible.  I started to fall asleep and then jerked awake.  Sometime between the sun sinking behind the horizon and morning I stole about two hours of sleep... and then it was four a.m. and it was time to get up and go to the hospital. 

So Paul and I hopped in the car and headed north.  We were up before the sun. 

Things went fast once we got to the hospital.  I changed into a gown.  After three tries an IV was finally taped into place (ouch!).  I answered a few dozen questions and managed not to cry when it took two tries to place the epidural. 

It was the tenth time a needle had been that close to my spine for a spinal or epidural and my fear may not be quite a phobia, but it comes close, and I was hugely relieved when it was over. 

Me, arriving at the hospital.

And then Paul got to change into his neat little outfit.  And of course it was an outfit that I had to document. 

I was happy that my OB, who has been my doctor for the past three pregnancies, but who won't be seeing patients anymore after yesterday because he's going to be moving to an administrative job, was the one to do the C-section. 

At 8:58 am Mary-Therese Philomena let the world know that she had arrived with a loud squaking baby cry.  The doctor announced that she was a solidly built baby, which she is at 8 lbs 12 ounces (although that does make her the second smallest of the babies in our family), and after toweling her off for about a minute she was placed on my chest, where she immediately began to nurse. 

My doctor told me that my uterus is in amazing shape, that the scarring wasn't bad and that there was no thinning and no windows!  If I hadn't been lying on a surgical table I would have danced around. 

Tessie nursed for the half forty minutes it took to sew me up.  And then she nursed for another two hours in recovery.  She nursed on her way from recovery to our new room.  And she nursed as we settled into our new room. 

Everyone who watched her nurse for basically the first three hours and fifty five minutes of the first four hours of her life was pretty impressed that she was able to eat for that long, including me.  She definitely had figured out exactly what she needed to do to fill her little tummy, and we could hear that she was filling her tummy when they listened to it with a stethoscope in recovery.

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And as for me? I was feeling pretty amazing. 

I thought it was just a really easy C-section. 

I realized today that it had more to do with the morphine that they put in my epidural, that carried me through yesterday.  It made walking super easy.  I could do just about anything for twenty-four hours, when it wore off and I felt like a truck had hit me. 

This, obviously, is before the morphine in the epidural wore off.  Way, way before.

And that is the story of how Mary-Therese was welcomed into the world. 

 So far she prefers nursing to everything else, and her second favorite thing is being held, all day and all night if that's at all possible.  And it mostly has been.

After sleeping roughly four hours in the past 60 hours... I'm hoping to get a little bit more sleep tonight.  Although I have a feeling our little Tessie has different plans! 

One More Thing

Sometimes I think that we put ideals above people, almost to the point where one might wonder if we've made idols of them.  

I'm not talking about actual moral issues that affect a person's soul.  I'm talking about the choices that I spoke about in my last post, and others of a similar sort.

In the last few days I've read many comments, some compassionate and some... not so compassionate and apparently I haven't yet run out of words.

There are ideals that are rather commonly accepted, at least by many people, as the best choice.  We usually know what these choices are.  We often feel pressure both externally and internally to make these choices work.

And I think it's good to have goals and standards that we want to strive for in these situations.

I've had plenty of goals for what I thought motherhood would be like for me.  One was to breastfeed each of our kids.  Another that was hugely important to me for a time, was to have a natural birth.  One of those worked out really well for me.  The other didn't.

If I'm totally honest, one of the reasons that I felt compelled to write yesterday's post and to speak out when I hear the anti-formula nastiness, is because I've experienced that same nastiness (often times from people who are also virulent in their opposition to formula feeding) because I've delivered all of my children via c-sections.

Oddly enough I love reading articles about natural birth.  Everything having to do with pregnancy and childbirth is fascinating to me.  I am elated for my friends who have successfully had the birth experience of their dreams.

At the same time I've met those who, without knowing my medical history, or what the experience of my first birth was actually like, are willing to tell me that they know, without a doubt that my c-section was absolutely unnecessary and if I'd just opted for a homebirth it wouldn't have happened.

They don't know that I pushed without an epidural for five hours before I went in for the emergency c-section or that I'd injured my spine when I was in college and would later find out when I went to an orthopedic doctor while pregnant with James, that my pelvis was actually twisted from the back injury.

They don't know that a half dozen doctors, from my family doctor who read the report to the on call pediatrician, to the anesthesiologist, to my OB herself, explained that I was most definitely one of those women who would have died in child birth a century earlier and that Sadie would not have survived either.

People who talk about these ideals as absolutes, with no leeway regardless of situation, do damage both to the cause they're promoting and to the people that they're blindly speaking to.

Because having ideas and goals about non-moral issues are wonderful, but I think it can be really helpful to know when it's time to let those dreams go because reality has been stacked too high against a goal.

Earlier today I heard someone claim that of course breastfeeding is a moral choice, because all choices are moral choices to which I say, was it moral choice to decide to wear my favorite long sleeved shirt today instead of my favorite sweater?  I think not.  Was it a moral choice to let Sadie decide to wear her silver snow boots instead of her pink ones?  Not all choice involve moral absolutes and saying so isn't a sign of the moral relativism eating away at our culture.

We live in messy world and come equipped with human frailties.  Sometimes the ideal is, quite literally, impossible for us.  Sometimes we must accept that the best way for us, isn't the way that looks the prettiest or gains the most accolades from the cheering masses.  

If you have never experienced this sort of disappointment, you are very fortunate in this portion of life.  Try to have compassion for those who have experienced this sort of pain, and who have experienced the disapproval of others as a result of a choice they wished they hadn't had to make, instead of calling them "over sensitive" and telling them to grow a thicker skin.  

Empathy would be a step in the right direction, but if you can't manage empathy, if you can't imagine feeling that sort of disappointment and distress, at least attempt to be compassionate.  It's likely they will someday "grow a thicker skin" because our world requires it, but healing from the pain of some of these experiences takes time, especially when you're repeatedly told how very wrong you were when you made the only decision you felt that you could make.

If nothing else this messy business of motherhood has taught me that sometimes the ideals aren't ideal.  Sometimes they aren't the best for the individual.

Sometimes the best thing is the thing that saves a life (or two).  Sometimes it's the thing that stops a tiny baby from losing more weight that it can't afford to lose.

And while those choices aren't the dream that we start with, sometimes they're the reality that we end up with... and having a baby that is healthy and alive, when without these tools, that wouldn't have been possible is the greatest blessing that we could have been given.

Perhaps it would be better to remind us to give thanks to God that we live in a time when these things are possible, rather than suggesting that we should have tried harder to "do what was best."

Looking back I realize that I've found, over this last decade, that it was very seldom the things that went as planned that led me nearer to God.  So often, it has seemed, that God has taken those flaws in the messy, imperfect world that we live in, and used them for my benefit in ways that I never could have imagined.  

Breastfeeding, as I've said, has been pretty easy for me.  It isn't particularly sanctifying.  Having major abdominal surgery every couple years on the other hand is a far greater test of my endurance and sometimes even faith.  For it's often in suffering that God helps us to see how small we are and draws us to himself.

Instead of criticizing others for hardships that aren't our own and that we often can't imagine, let's lift one another up, offering help when it can be given, but also understanding that sometimes what is best for our neighbor is not the good that we wish that we could thrust upon them.  Even if we think it would be for their own good.

God works so often through our brokenness and imperfection in drawing up to Himself.  Let's help one another along instead of talking about how the choices that we made were better, without ever knowing the hardship that can come when walking down a path that isn't our own.

Why I'm Thankful for C-Sections

James is not impressed.

I have to admit every time I see an article or online conversation talking about the evils of c-sections I find myself feeling increasingly annoyed.

I have a love-hate relationship with my c-sections.  I hate that I had to have them, but I love that I'm alive and that my kids are alive and healthy and if c-sections weren't around none of us would be.

Sadie was born after five hours of pushing (without an epidural).  When I was being wheeled in for my c-section the words "I'm going to die" had been on repeat in my head for the better part of an hour.  And apparently they weren't far wrong.  Doctor after doctor (including our very nature-friendly family doctor) who I saw in the hours and days and weeks after the c-section volunteered the information that neither of us would have survived without the c-section.

Patch was transverse.  He'd been turned twice and was head down when an ultrasound was done while I was laboring in the hospital but sometime before my water broke (naturally) he turned himself around again and went back to his favorite position.  Both of our boys just seemed to love that position while they were in the womb.  Transverse likely wouldn't have ended while for me (or Patch) without a c-section either (even the all natural hypno-babies program that I did for that thirty-something hour trial of labor admits that transverse babies need c-sections).

Gearing up for c-section #4.

So I guess you could say that I have a healthy appreciation of c-sections since I wouldn't be here without them.  Would I have opted for them if I had a choice?  Absolutely not.  But I'm incredibly thankful that the technology exists that make five of the six lives in our house possible because without it Paul would have been widowed after less than two years of marriage.

Right now there's a popular article floating around my Facebook feed about the "cruelty" of c-sections.  They make the claim that c-sections are a form of birth control to prevent women from having more babies.

I find myself... skeptical.  I think that there are plenty of reasons that c-sections are done.  Many are absolutely necessary and lifesaving for the mother or the baby (or both).  Some probably are the result of doctors who are being over cautious because of a fear of lawsuits in the event that something does go wrong that might have been prevented.  I will admit that the c-section rate is very high in our country.  I seriously doubt, however, that many doctors are suggesting that first c-section as a way to discourage women from having more kids.  Is it within the realm of possibility that someone out there has that motivation?  Yes. Does it seem likely that many doctors do?  I just don't buy it.

I know that the motivation behind these articles is to encourage women to avoid c-sections, but I sometimes feel they overestimate the number of women who say "Oh you know what sounds fun?  Having to recover from major abdominal surgery while caring for a newborn!"  And so they come out swinging about the evils of c-sections and I feel that they often do so at the expense of women who have to do have to have them.  

Sadie after that first c-section.

I've known so many women who feel shame about their c-sections, who have lost the joyful realization that bringing a child into the world is beautiful, even when it wasn't the picture perfect birth they might have imagined or written into their birth plan.

When a woman begins to look into birthing she's likely to find a vocal portion of those writing about the subject passionately talking about the benefits of natural birth.  That isn't a bad thing.  I think natural births are amazing.  I desperately wanted one.  They just aren't always possible.

However I have a huge problem with the mindset that says that only one "type" of birth is good is good, only one is beautiful.  Some women even struggle to call their c-sections "giving birth" and I think in large part that's because of the shaming that's done when c-sections come up.  Your choices are suddenly questioned and you may even be told "well you could have done this and this and this" and you "likely wouldn't have needed one then."

I've been told that repeatedly when I've spoken up about the benefits (mainly not dying) of the surgery.

So for those of you out there who've felt doubts about your c-section, who've been questioned and made to feel like less of a mother because of the way in which you're child came into the world, I'd like to say that those who've made you feel that way are so, so very wrong.  Perhaps they are well meaning, but they are also still wrong.  Your birth and whatever way you brought your little one into the world is a hard but beautiful thing.

We are blessed to live in an age when doctors can save mothers and babies far more often than they could in past generations.  I'm reminded of that fact after hearing these claims of the "cruelty of c-sections" every time I look at my little family, which wouldn't exist if it weren't for that technology which so many feel the need to speak out against.  I'm thankful for c-sections and for all those lives that have been saved by the surgery.  Without it my family wouldn't exist.

C-Sections... My #1 Tip

A girdle made all the difference when
moving around post c-section.

I cannot believe I forgot this.  There is one thing that I learned after my first c-section that made an entire world of difference in the recovery process.  It is huge.  It's something that's worth spending a little money on, especially if your hospital (like the first hospital I delivered in) doesn't offer them.

Post c-section girdles make all the difference in the world.

They can be the difference from being unable to walk or move and moving around to being up and walking (in my estimation I had around 80% less pain when wearing it and wanted to curl up and cry like a baby when I wasn't).

With my first c-section I just got cheap girdles at Walmart and I layered three or four at a time.  It worked.
The second time I bought a medical grade girdle like this.  It was more painful putting on the first time, and I think it made the post baby cramping more extreme for the first day, but the support it offered was amazing (the nurses thought that I was crazy wearing it and kept telling me it would make the pain worse, but the doctor thought it was great).  And I don't think the discomfort of wearing it was any worse than the nurses coming in to do the whole little "massage" thing that makes the uterus contract.

I wore it for the recovery period last time too and my only wish was that I had more than one (maybe one in a larger size and one in my normal size to size down to over the first week or so).

So there you have it. If you know you're having a c-section I can't recommend these enough!  They have made all the difference in my post c-section recovery.

And if you have any post partum c-section recovery tips you'd like to add in the comments I know that there are lots of us out there that would appreciate them!

C-Sections... On the Bright Side!

Yesterday I promised to write a post about the positive aspects I'd found from having had three c-sections.  After all, there are a lot of articles out there to tell you why to avoid them.  I think those bases are covered.  But for those women like me who are going to be having one because they and their doctor's believe it's the best choice for the situation they're in, I thought I'd shine a small ray of light.  It may not be the ideal we dreamed of or planned, but its not all storm clouds and gloom either!

1.  Knowing when baby is going to arrive- Okay, admittedly this isn't 100%.  Maggie decided to join us the weekend before her schedule c-section.  However, the idea of knowing roughly when to expect baby (and knowing that we can't go past that day) does make things significantly easier for Paul and I (as long as baby doesn't decide to come super early) when arranging child care for the big day.

This is big since we don't have family, or really anyone who's watched the kids who we can fall back on in the state we live in.  Having a date and being able to organize childcare is one of those things that I appreciate about having to have a c-section.

2.  Three words: Hospital Baby-Moon- So, if you've read any pregnancy books or magazines that suggest taking a "baby-moon" you probably picture a trip to someplace warm and sunny with virgin margaritas or to a cozy bed and breakfast somewhere that you take early in the second trimester when you're hopefully past morning sickness, but not yet feeling gigantic and ready to pop.  And for the first two babies I definitely didn't look at my time in the hospital this way.  I refused everything except motrin, with the exception of 1 dose of painkillers, after my c-section with Mae just so I could go home after two days.

But with Patrick I found that I really appreciated the extra time in the hospital to snuggle and bond with baby and eat meals that I hadn't cooked for myself (okay, it probably helps that the hospital that I'm going to be delivering in has a fantastic menu that is simply amazing).  I knew that the girls were well cared for and having fun and going to the zoo with their grandparents (and coming to visit me and the baby daily) and I let myself enjoy that extra time to nurse and cuddle without having to jump up to pull someone down who was scaling a baby gate.

3.  Nursing-  This isn't a plus specifically for c-sections but I wanted to address it.  One of the scare tactics that's used when the topic of c-sections comes up is that someone is likely to act as if you're going to have problems nursing if you have a c-section.  While I'm sure that's true for some women (and for some who go through natural births too), it isn't an across the board rule, and hasn't been my experience at all.

When Sadie was born they whisked her away for about 45 minutes to clean her up while I was sewed up.  When Maggie was born they took her away for about an hour and a half to get her bathed (both times Paul was with the girls the entire time, with Maggie he finally demanded they stop what they were doing and bring her back to me).  With Patrick I was shocked when they kept him in the room and handed him to me immediately and let me hold him while they wheeled me into recovery (something they told me was impossible at our hospital in California, but is a policy I love at the hospital here in Michigan).  But one thing stayed the same across the board with all three babies. They all started nursing right away without any problem.  My milk still came in while we were in the hospital and it was still the start of almost two years of nursing with each kid being weaned a couple months before the next one was born.

In other words, having a c-section doesn't inevitably mean you'll have problems nursing, any more than any other choice will mean that it will be easy (I still solidly struggled with nursing my first time around from about 1-2 months, but that had nothing to do with how Sadie came into the world and had everything to do with her being a reflux-y baby who nursed every hour for the first 18 months of her life).

About to meet Mae.

4. Not going through labor before the c-section-  This one isn't specific to all c-sections, but is for those moms out there who know their having a c-section in advance for some reason, like I'll know with this baby, or like we might have known if we'd realized Patrick had flipped transverse after that first ultrasound when we got to the hospital when he was still head down.

I have had one c-section when I hadn't gone through hours of labor (they'd actually been blocking my labor, which was apparently progressing anyways, but I hadn't felt a thing, despite not having any sort of painkillers).  And it made all the difference in the world.  After both Sadie and Patrick's births I felt like I'd been run over by a truck.

After Maggie's birth, the mostly "planned" c-section I was up and ready to go.  I was begging nurses to let me out of bed that day.  I was refusing morphin left and right.  I was ready to take a shower and get dressed.

So while I don't regret that long, long trial of labor with Patrick in the least, in my experience there was an advantage to not going through labor before having surgery.  I found it much easier to recover when my body had only gone through the surgery, without the extra fun of an unsuccessful labor.

5.  Baby-  I'm going to try to put this one into words that won't be misconstrued.  When Sadie was born the skin on her head was actually broken by my pelvis (or possibly by being pulled back from where shed gotten stuck).  Her heart was decelerating with each contraction for a while.  And Patrick was seriously battered by a long labor in a position that just wasn't going to work.  When you're in a situation where natural delivery just isn't going to work, I do think it can be a blessing not to go through all of that for you and for baby.  After all the end goal is having a safe delivery with a warm, snuggly baby in your arms at the end.  That's what we're all praying for, no matter how baby ends up being delivered.  

6.  Surviving-  This is the biggest plus.  Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, I'm here to raise my children.  And my children are here too.  Without c-sections neither Sadie or I would have survived the ordeal of childbirth and I'm infinitely grateful that we live in a time when the doctor's were able to bring both of us through that day.  That trumps my birth plan and some imagined experience I would have liked to have any day of the week.

C-Sections (a series)

#1

I went in for my first doctor's appointment last Tuesday and it was nearly as uneventful as I imagined it would be.  It was just a new pregnancy intake appointment, where I answered questions with a nurse practitioner and didn't see my doctor at all.

But one statement that she made towards the end of the appointment sent my head spinning, as thought after thought began to chase each other round in my mind.

"Our doctor's are very, very good and very supportive of VBACs."  She said in an optimistic voice.  "So I'm not sure if you want to try, and I can't promise you they'll say yes, but you should bring it up if you want to because there's a very good chance they'll say yes."

"Oh."  I said, and sat there dumbly.

I didn't say that I'm 99% certain that none of the doctor's in the office would be on board with the idea.  My own doctor was the only one on board for my VBA2C and he was very clear that if the trial of labor failed he wouldn't be on board with another attempt.

Still the question, "If I could have another trial of labor would I?" kept running through my head and I'm finally sitting down to order my thoughts and face the fact that the answer, quite simply, is no.

#2

As a woman who's had three c-sections in the last five and a half years I've probably read more than my fair shares of articles and online debates on the topic.  C-sections, like breastfeeding and co-sleeping and so many other hot button issues in the seemingly endless rounds of Mommy wars, is a topic that is sometimes wielded like a weapon to cut other moms down.

"Had a C-section?  You know you didn't have to?"  Someone will likely say (no, seriously, it really happens when the topic comes up).  "It really wasn't necessary."

I was told quite a few times that my first c-section wasn't necessary.  Sure I went into labor naturally and progressed quickly and had no painkillers for an hour before pushing and was up and about in a variety of positions, and pushed for five hours before my c-section, but I probably could have done something differently.  You know, if I tried a little harder.
 

And my last?  Maybe if I'd just toughed it out for a little longer.  Sure it was a 36 hour trial of labor (I did ask for an epidural around hour 34), and I was up pacing the halls and bouncing on a birthing ball and doing my hypnobaby mp3s, but I'm sure I could have done something differently.  I mean, I may have gotten Patch to turn from breach to head down twice, using the spinning babies positions and hypnobabies breach mp3 I'd downloaded, and he was transverse in the end when they did the surgery, but I'm sure I could have done something.

#3

The point of all that, in case you were wondering, is to show how, no matter how good your reason, you'll run across people, who, with no medical training or knowledge of your case, will announce that you could have done something different. They'll be wrong.  They're taking the fact that there are unnecessary c-sections and applying it to every woman who's ever had one.

Of course, if you've read here through my last pregnancy you know I'm a big fan of natural child birth.  But I'm also really thankful that c-sections exist.  Because there are those of us who wouldn't be here if it weren't for that option (as I was told by pretty much every doctor I saw after I delivered Sadie).

Which is a whole lot of lead in for the post(s) (because I have a feeling there may be more than one if this first trimester exhaustion doesn't knock me off my feet first) that I'm going to write for a friend who is expecting and asked me to write about my experience with c-sections (and who I'd like to congratulate here!  You know who you are! Congratulations!).  The posts to come are going to be my mishmash of what I've learned from my c-sections, because while it's not my first choice in the way I'd like to welcome our little ones into the world, it's not all bad either.

And for those of us who do face necessary c-sections, we might as well look on the bright side!