Oh goodness, Aphil, my husband had the digital camera and decided to take pictures of
everything as I was pushing.
I coulda killed him!
I can tell you what happened with my c-section with Linda, since that was a fairly normal one. (The first wasn't an emergency either, but I labored unsuccessfully for 8 hours before they believed me that she was breech.) But it's gonna be another book.
I had a c-section with Linda because she was breech too. I was planning a VBAC, but with her positioning it wasn't possible. My water broke a month early, and when I went in I was having only very mild contractions. So they hooked me up to a monitor, took a sample to run a test on the fluid I was leaking to make sure it was amniotic fluid & there wasn't meconium in it or anything. They drew some blood & placed the IV and started a bag of penicillin since I hadn't had my group-B strep test yet (that was scheduled for the prenatal appointment I was due to have in less than 24 hours
). There was saline too, of course.
Waiting around for an operating room to open up--this won't be an issue with a scheduled section, one assumes, though you always run the risk of being bumped for an emergency--I went over post-birth stuff with the nurses. Yes, I would breastfeed, no I wouldn't be circumcizing if it was a boy, general stuff like that.
They went over the surgery & anesthesia with me. They have to warn you about all the possible complications, like death or a cut bladder (both are very rare of course, but I was told that a problem with my bladder would be the most likely complication). There are two meds you take about 30 minutes before getting the anesthesia; they're both anti-emetics so you hopefully don't throw up. One of them tastes very bitter and lemony; the anesthesiologist thought I was insane when I told him I actually liked the taste of it; apparently I'm the only one who does.
They took me on the bed I was in from the L&D triage room into the OR, cranked the bed up, and I got onto the operating table. That sucker is
narrow, & I have never felt fatter than on it. (I think I was 212 at that point.) I did fit, but with almost no room for error.
Oh, I forgot: they put a headcovering over my hair before taking me back to the OR, & they also usually don't allow you to wear your rings back, or any jewelry, but I'd already left my rings with my husband. And there was a catheter insertion somewhere along the lines too, but I don't recall quite when.
There were a bunch of nurses bustling around getting the room ready, laying out all the implements necessary, and counting things twice. (They counted them again post-surgery.) The worst part, for me, was next. The preferred anesthesia for a c-section is a spinal block. If you've had an epidural, then you know the drill. Lean forward, curl your back, and get stabbed. (I've been told that your husband will NOT be allowed in the room for this, but Rob had to babysit our eldest so it wasn't an issue with us.) I'm one of those odd folks who finds needles incredibly painful to begin with. I also have scoliosis, and from what I gather in my case that translates out to a pretty pronounced curvature of the spine & a
twist in my spinal column. For 99% of people, the anesthesia goes smoothly; for me it did not. The anesthesiologist had a hellacious time getting the needle in correctly; I had a hellacious time trying to stay still! They tell you to lean back, you know, but it's totally against instinct to not flinch away from pain. I quit counting after the fifth attempt to stick me; I was told later that it took longer to give me the anesthesia than to perform the surgery! They actually had to call in a different anesthesiologist and use the setup for an epidural in order to give me the spinal.
Like I said, though, for most people this goes swimmingly. (But if you feel
any pain, sing out, because that most likely means the needle's placement is off & needs to be redone. I actually know someone who had a c-section with only half her body deadened; why she didn't holler about it to begin with is beyond me!) It certainly had for me the first time around! They got the spinal started & laid me down on the table & within maybe 90 seconds I was numb from the bottom of my ribcage down. It's kind of like when you sit on your foot for too long & cut off the circulation. It's not a
total absence of feeling, but very close to it. The first time the anesthesiologist showed me a stiff-bristled brush and dragged it along my arm to show me how it felt, then dragged it along both sides down where the spinal should have taken hold, about from my leg on up, & told me to tell him when I felt it. The second time the guy pinched me; I guess he was upset about how long it'd taken to get it done. (Not that I'm to blame for his lack of skill...
)
The anesthesia in place, they strapped my arms down--this doesn't happen for everyone, but it's common enough practice that if the idea bothers you, ask about it--and put in a nose piece with an oxygen supply & affixed a blood pressure cuff which would check me periodically. They also got the surgical drapes in place. There's a sort of curtain that separates you from seeing the surgery itself. A lot of women ask for this to be lowered when they take the baby out, but I had no interest in seeing my internal organs laying on my stomach! There was this huge light above the operating table with a concave metal thing behind it that acted very nicely as a mirror.
Anyway, the doctor came in & it was time to get the show on the road. They'd already explained to me what was going to happen. You can sort of feel it, but no pain. Just a sort of mad tugging. It's like, you know it's happening, & to you, but there's a disconnect there. It's quiet when this is happening, for the most part. The first time around, my nurse gave me a play-by-play of what was going on.
We never find out what sex my kid is before birth, so there's always an element of anticipation for that. With Linda being early, they also had 3 pediatricians standing by to evaluate her. So the doctor got my uterus open, and everyone in the room started laughing. My nurse said, "He's mooning everyone!" (As a sidenote, with my first daughter they had
also said "he" to begin with! It's not nice to do stuff like that. "I can see him! It's a girl!" WTH?) There was more tugging as the doctor took her out of me, and there was about 20 or 30 seconds after they said she was a girl that I was terrified because she didn't cry immediately like Bobbie had. Logically I knew that not all babies cry immediately, of course, but that didn't make it any better.
She started hollering the second they suctioned her, though. The pedis checked her over and the nurses cleaned her and weighed her while the OB was replacing organs & sewing me back up. This hospital used staples to close the outer incision. Sutures are far more common, but I've talked to a handful of others who were stapled too. There is something
very disconcerting about the sound of a staple gun in the OR!
While I was still being worked on they called out her APGAR and weight and length. Then they brought her to me to show me just briefly before taking her off to the nursery. This happened with both my girls and is why I was so amazed and ecstatic to be handed Esther after she was born. Since my arms were still strapped down, I didn't even get to touch her like I wanted to, but they did bring her close enough for me to kiss before taking her away.
Baby gone, the doctors cleared out. I don't really like doctors, but I love nurses. They're the ones who do most of the patient care, of course. After the surgery, they cleaned me up. This was another part I hated, but only because I'm a control freak. They were
very nice about it, of course, and explained everything, but having two nurses roll you to one side while they changed out the sheets on the table (&, I assume, took out the anesthesia; I'm not positive exactly when that happened, though) isn't exactly dignified. They lifted me bodily from the operating table onto a bed they'd wheeled in, & took me off to recovery.
The first time it had been in a ward, the second time I had a private room for recovery. They can bring the baby to you during recovery for you to nurse; I didn't know this though, so mine both stayed in the nursery. I honestly can't complain much. Usual time in recovery is about 2 hours, but I was in there a little longer. Their main criterion for taking me to a maternity room was that I be able to move
myself from the gurney to the hospital bed, which meant that they had to wait for the spinal to wear off. I also had to have a certain number of "normal" blood pressure readings. So I got to lay in this room for a couple of hours with another automatic blood pressure cuff taking readings I think every 15 or 30 minutes, trying repeatedly to wiggle my toes (the spinal wearing off feels like the circulation
returning after being cut off, the same pins-and-needles thing) and then move my legs, because I really wanted to get in the room and have my baby brought to me! The nurse was good and let Rob & Bobbie come back into the recovery room, though it was technically not allowed. Which was good, because Rob brought my book. I think I'd have gone insane if I'd had nothing to do but stare at the clock the whole time.
The first recovery period had been pretty uneventful. I'd chatted with the nurse (who'd previously been an EMT and then switched over to an OB nurse because he wanted to see births instead of deaths!) and had my uterus massaged occasionally. The second one wasn't pleasant. I got the shakes. From this and later on throwing up I am convinced they slipped me a bag of morphine, because those are classic side effects of that drug. The nurse brought me a couple of blankets, but I wasn't shivering because I was cold, just as a reaction to the medicine. She also had to re-do, manually,
every single blood pressure reading, because the machine was reading them low.
Finally, though, they took me back to a maternity room, and introduced me to my nurse there, explained the bed's workings, that sort of thing. I "spider-walked" across to my hospital bed (scrabbled over sideways like a crab) and started asking when they were going to bring me Linda.
And that's pretty much the end of the story, except for actually having to use the basin they gave me to throw up in, and the song-and-dance surrounding being allowed to get up the first time. The nurse made me spend half an hour sitting up on the side of the bed before she let me get up and waddle to the bathroom. That first 'output' after they took out the catheter was collected and measured, but after that I was thankfully left pretty much alone. They came by every so often to give me ibuprofen and ask if I wanted some Vicodin. I'd taken it initially after having DD#1, but it didn't work too well, so I had one dose after having Linda & that was it. I got by on the ibuprofen the rest of the time. Of course, in the realm of pain relief I am also apparently an anomaly; what knocks the rest of the population for a loop seems to just take the edge off for me. The only drama I had was fighting to make them bring me a meal; they didn't want to feed me because I'd just thrown up. Twits.
6 weeks to go and a possible VBAC
Of course no one gives you a medal for having a VBAC, but the sense of accomplishment...there's nothing like it.
