A few months ago, I submitted the story of Olivia's birth to be published in an anthology of birth stories being put out next month as part of a mixed media art & performance show about birth called The Art of Birth. Just yesterday, I received notification that our story had been chosen as one of the stories to be featured in this anthology!!! I am so excited to share this story. It is (obviously) very near and dear to my heart and I feel so honored that our story will be told as part of this show! We have also been asked to submit a picture and the one I chose is at the end of the story.
If you want to know more about the show, please check out
http://www.boldfortworth.org/!
When I submitted the story, I was asked to keep it to 2500 words. I had to do some edits to get it there so the story you see below is the unedited version. The parts I edited out for submission are italicized.
Each time I read this story I sob and my heart is filled with joy and love. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
*****
It felt like a slap when he said it. The C Word. “How could he have said that to me?” I thought. My sister was sitting there next to me and heard it too. I could tell from the look on her face that I must have had a look of horror on my own. Who says that to somebody? I had always been polite to this man. I had always been nice, friendly, clear about my expectations and yet, he said it.
I’m not sure why I was surprised. I mean, his kind often do throw that word around. They let it roll off of their tongues as if it’s a nice word to say. As if it would invoke some kind of relief or excitement in the person to whom it was uttered. As if I were going to say, “Oh, thank you!” What had I done to deserve this man using words like that around me?
But there I was hearing it. And there he was saying it, “Stephanie, have you talked with Dr. S about a cesarean section?” Yes, THAT “C” Word. Oh, you thought I meant the other “C” word? Let’s not be crass.
The truth is though that those two words were equally as vile, as upsetting, as sickening to me. A C-section?? Was he serious? I had spent 12 weeks, EVERY. SINGLE. FRIDAY. NIGHT. for 3-4 hours taking a Bradley class to prepare for natural childbirth. And not just any old Friday nights either. The last Friday nights of not having children for crying out loud! Why on earth would I now agree to a C-section?
The man throwing around that word was my perinatologist, Dr. R and I was 38 weeks pregnant with my first child. I was a High Risk Pregnancy and I had the pleasure of seeing him weekly. He was a nice guy and I was sure we’d be great friends until he threw that word out. I was shocked that he didn’t see how important having a baby naturally was to me. Actually, I still really like and respect Dr. R. It just stung to hear his casual suggestion that my belly be split open and my sweet angel ripped from my insides. That may sound dramatic but that’s how I felt about a c-section.
Prior to that meeting with Dr. R, I had been diagnosed as a gestational diabetic. An insulin dependent gestational diabetic at that. And I had a very large baby growing inside of me. These things made me High Risk. This was laughable to me though. High Risk? Whatever. I felt fine. My baby was healthy, I was healthy (aside from the diabetes) and I had been feeling great through my entire pregnancy. But now I was in a doctor’s office nearly 3 times a week being treated like a terminal cancer patient?
Even after my diagnosis, I knew that everything was still going to be okay with mine and Mike’s birth plan. Our daughter would be born naturally regardless of my pancreas and liver’s inability to cooperate with one another.
Slowly though, I was nudged toward a major invasion of my body. At first, I was told that I would have to be induced. No way was I going to be allowed to go full term with a baby that big. I agreed. I felt powerful enough to take on induction. We hired a doula to help us through the process. I still just KNEW that I would have this baby without any pain medication.
The Friday before my induction date, my OB, Dr. S, delivered a heartbreaking blow to us. Dr. R had hand delivered a report to her about the size of our angel baby. He was worried and in 10 years of working with her, he had never hand delivered a report. She was worried about our baby being stuck in my pelvis. There’s a big, scary medical word for it too: shoulder distotia. She informed us that the decision to have a natural delivery (via induction of course) was still ours but her recommendation was that I have a c-section that Tuesday. Oh, and if I did decide to go with my original plan I would have to sign a release, releasing her and the hospital from any liability should something go wrong.
Mike and I looked at each other in shock. We asked every question we could think of. Had she encountered this before? What was the likelihood that the baby would be stuck? What would happen if she did get stuck? What was the worse case scenario?
Have you ever asked a question you wish you hadn’t? Well, that last question was one of those for us. The worst case scenario, she told us, was that our baby and I could die. Die? She hadn’t even been born yet and already we were talking about her death? We suddenly felt the full weight of parenthood on our shoulders.
See, we thought we’d be making all of these tough decisions after our sweet girl arrived. But here we were, facing this huge decision while she was still floating happily inside of me. It seemed that the life of our little girl was in our hands.
Statistically, the chances of her getting stuck were small. But this was our baby. Did we want to be in that small minority? Did we want to do something that could lead to the death of our child or some other dire consequence?
We asked Dr. S how much time we had to make this decision and she asked us to call by Monday morning to schedule either induction or the c-section for Tuesday. We told her we wanted some time and we left our last pre-natal appointment in a much more somber mood than when we arrived.
I had to drive Mike back to work and on the way there we talked about this huge responsibility in front of us. We talked about all of the time we spent “training” for a natural birth. We talked about how he was going to be my coach and how our daughter was going to be born after hours of crazy, intense labor. We talked about how important it was to us that we have a natural birth, that we got to experience that together as a family. We talked about how excited we were to meet this little (or big!) girl and how we couldn’t wait to hold her. And that’s what helped us make our decision.
The thing is, we knew the statistics walking into that office that day. We knew that by having our birth in a hospital, our chances of a c-section went up. And we knew that as a gestational diabetic this was going to come up. We also knew that I could probably deliver this baby naturally and both of us be healthy. But, “probably” just wasn’t good enough for our family. We had waited so many months to meet this little person and we weren’t able to make the decision to take a chance on not getting to meet her at all.
I called Dr. S that afternoon and left a message telling her that we were opting for a c-section.
When she called back, she told me to be at the hospital at 5 a.m. on Tuesday and that the procedure would take place at 7. I felt like I was listening to someone else’s conversation. Reporting in for the birth of my child. Huh. That’s definitely not how I imagined her birthday. As our conversation came to an end, she stopped me just before I hung up and she apologized for this. She said she knew how important a natural birth was to me and she was sorry things had not worked out. I was more sorry.
That weekend, I cried. A lot. Mike knew to just hold me and let me work through it. Others didn’t. In an attempt to make me feel better, many said things like “Well, at least you don’t have to go into labor. It hurts!” or “Well, at least she’ll have perfectly round head and not have a cone-head like vaginal delivery babies.” Those comments hurt me so deeply and I did not know how to respond so I’d just laugh or shrug it off. Didn’t they know that I would have done anything to have a little cone-headed baby? To feel my body do what I knew it was made to do? To push myself harder than I ever had?
I had friends who had had c-sections. Many friends in fact. So many that I really only know a few people who have had vaginal deliveries. My c-section friends assured me that a C was the way to go. “You’ll love it!” they said. “It’s so easy!” they exclaimed. They all said that if they were to have more children, they would elect for a c-section again. How could this be? How could it be that all of these women who I trusted were telling me that this was going to be great and yet, I felt sick. I couldn’t believe that someone would actually pick this ON PURPOSE.
I can’t explain why I was so set on having a natural labor. The thing is, I don’t have anything against people who opt for an epidural. And as insane as I think it is, I don’t begrudge my friends their choice of a c-section. Before I was even married, before I even thought about having a child, I just knew in my heart that natural labor was right for me. I just knew that I wanted that experience when it came to the birth of my child.
When Mike and I started taking our Bradley classes, friends and family were shocked. Didn’t we know that hospitals had pain medication for things like childbirth for crying out loud!?!?!? When people asked why on earth I would want to go through that kind of pain, I could only explain that I felt it in my gut that it was the right thing for me.
I wanted the crazy movie scene birthday for my child. You know, the one where the woman comes into the hospital, in labor and threatening to push the baby out onto the hospital lobby floor. The husband is frantic and excited and you can just feel this energy in the air because a new life is about to be in this world. I wanted that so badly that my heart ached for it. Why was I having to miss out on this? What had I done wrong in my pregnancy to be here?
That Friday night, my friend C went into labor. Our girls were due just 2 days apart and we both had been going through Bradley. She called me from the hospital that afternoon to tell me she was in labor and later that night her husband texted to say that she was doing great. “That’s supposed to be our labor,” I sobbed into Mike’s shoulder. Don’t get me wrong, I was so very excited for C and her husband. She had worked hard to get there. This was her second baby and she was going for a VBAC. She had searched long and hard to find a doctor and hospital who would support her and I had been a cheerleader for her the entire time. It’s just that I wanted to be in labor too. I wanted my husband to be texting friends and family as I was in labor to tell them how great I was doing.
After more than 20 hours of labor, C ended up going in for her second c-section. When I went to see her the next day, I wasn’t sure what to say. Should I ask if she felt bad about not being to complete natural labor? Should I just not mention it at all? I was worried about how to approach such a sensitive topic. She and I had spent hours talking about how important this was to us.
It turns out I didn’t have to worry about what to say or ask. The second I walked into that hospital room and saw C with her new daughter, all I saw was the love she had for that little miracle. I had a small surge of hope in that moment. C was okay. Her daughter was okay. Her bond with her child was so evident, so visible.
I spent the next 3 days trying to work through my emotions and trying to understand what was going to happen. I also tried to focus on the excitement of meeting my daughter. She was going to be here in just a few days!
Finally, Tuesday morning arrived and my alarm went off at 4 a.m. I jumped out of bed and started getting ready for the biggest day of my life. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 and began filling out mounds of paperwork. I was giddy and excited and a little bit scared. Not only was I about to meet my child, I was about to have a major abdominal surgery—while I was AWAKE. The whole thing had me a little spooked.
As the nursing staff hooked me up to all of the machinery, my nerves continued to get worse. I was shaking and my happy-go-lucky attitude upon arriving at the hospital slowly started to fade. For the epidural Mike had to leave the room. There I sat, surrounded by machines and people I didn’t know. I felt vulnerable and scared and my best friend, my husband, couldn’t even be there with me.
I was relieved when Mike could come back in to be with me but they still made him sit in a chair across the room most of the time so they could work on me. It all felt so clinical but, still, I tried to focus on the great thing that was about to happen to us. But, when they wheeled me back to the operating room and Mike couldn’t immediately come in, my heart sank.
I laid there on the table, listening to people talking around me, sometimes about me. I listened to the machines and the clink of metal surgical instruments. I saw the bright lights overhead and the sheets draping my body. And I was terrified. I started to tremble. My jaw was trembling so bad that I clenched my teeth to keep from biting my tongue or the sides of my cheek. And just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, Mike came in.
My poor husband had been so strong through all of this. Never once had he expressed his own fears or upset at the way our daughter was going to come into the world. Never once did he let me see how scared he was of this strange procedure. When I saw his face, the only look I saw was one of love. I couldn’t see his mouth because of the mask on his face but I could tell from his eyes that he was smiling.
He sat beside me and stroked my head, my arm, my hands. “Steph, we are about to meet our daughter,” he said. I could only nod. The knot in my throat was so big that I couldn’t talk. He continued to talk to me, his voice soothing me, helping me to forget how scared I was. He told me how much he loved me and how excited he was and how amazing it was going to be to meet our girl. We didn’t get to go through natural labor, but that day my husband earned the right to call himself “Coach.”
“Get ready, dad!” Dr. S shouted. Mike jumped up from his seat and got the first glimpse and picture of our daughter making her arrival. I laid there listening for the first signs that she was here and healthy. She began screaming immediately as if she, too, was a little upset by this rude way of introducing her to the world. But that scream sounded like music to us.
“She’s beautiful, Steph!” Mike shouted. They placed her in his arms and he brought her to me. I looked at the two loves of my life and I knew that my heart would forever belong to these two people. She was beautiful and loud and BIG. Mike brought our little miracle over to me so I could touch my daughter for the first time.
“Hello, Olivia Anne,” I whispered in her ear. I touched my cheek to hers and breathed in her smell. I studied every feature of her chubby little face. I kissed her nose and forehead and relished the feeling of her soft skin. And she screamed in my face the whole time. I loved every second.
As the nurses took her away to weigh her and the doctors finished sewing me up, I took a deep breath and thought about how much my life had changed and how much more change I was about to experience. And despite all of the devastation and sadness I had felt about having to have a c-section, in that moment, I didn’t care how Olivia had arrived in this world. I just thanked God that she had.
Since the birth of my daughter, I am drawn to others’ birth stories. I laugh, I cry, I am moved by the awesomeness that is birth. When I read of women who experienced natural labor, I cry a little more. My tears now are not from sadness or jealousy. I cry because I know firsthand how important that choice is. I know the excitement that mother felt before she went into labor. However, I’m not sure if I’ll ever know the excitement that mom had during labor or the moment she delivered her child into this world without pain medication.
That’s okay though. C and I have talked many times about the emotions behind the decision to have a c-section. We’ve talked about how scary it is, how strange and unnatural it feels to have that be the way your baby makes her entrance. We’ve also talked about the feeling you have when that same little girl is placed in your arms for the first time. We talk about how you stare into her beautiful eyes, touch her perfect nose, marvel at her every feature. And how the furthest thing from your mind in those moments is how she got here.
Now that she’s here, now that she has captured our hearts and souls, I’m at peace about how Olivia got here. There’s a song by Train that I love called “Get to Me” and the lyrics pretty much sum it up for me,
“Well an airplane’s faster than a Cadillac, And a whole lot smoother than a camel’s back, But I don’t care how you get to me, Just get to me… Go on hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly, there’s no better way to fly, just get to me. I look around what I got without you it ain’t a lot. But I’ve got everything. With you, everything.”
