Hum-dee-dum, being pregnant and all that...
So, 32 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow. I haven't looked at, or thought about, this blog since I was 13 weeks pregnant. I deserve an award for being noncommittal, I swear.
BUT, I did manage to do three loads of laundry this week, scrub both of my bathrooms clean and somehow keep my kitchen looking acceptable.
And now is the part where I don't know what to say.
What I have learned so far during this pregnancy, is that the smell of Styrofoam can make me hungry, that VBAC is a scary term, and that c section scars can stretch and itch worse than when you purposefully roll in a bush of poison oak. My iron level is at a not so great 11.4, and dropping. And keep that red meat away from me, I'll just take some spinach drenched in olive oil. And a chocolate milkshake. I haven't gained a pound in about two months, and that I don't mind so much. I also have a new stretch mark, beautiful. I was wondering when you would show up. Baby boy is already head down, and I get Braxton Hicks from simply breathing in too fast, so hopefully that is a good sign that labor will progress on it's own this time.
More on VBACs...
I had a C-section with Isaac. I was 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant when they started my induction. I had to be induced because of pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure was dangerously high, and the baby had to come. I was given Cervadil at 6:00 pm. The nurses asked me if I had eaten anything, and I told them I had cereal for lunch. Well, that sent them into a frenzy of getting my Chick fil a and thirty minutes later I was extremely full of greasy food and getting nervous. Why did I need to eat? Puh-lease. This labor will be 8, maybe 10 hours long. I'll be laughing it up, slapping down some good ol' hospital food here in about half a day, with a newborn baby boy snoozing away in his plastic cage next to my bed.
Contractions started intensifying around 8:30 pm. What did NOT help, of course, was the constant chart reading done by my father and now husband. "Oh, oh! Here comes a big one! Oh wow, that was a huge one, it said 10! 10 must be the highest, right? I mean, come on. Did that hurt? Oh. Now it's over. Oh, another one! Only a 6, you probably didn't even feel that one. You're doing so good. I bet you're already six inches dilated."
Try centimeters, and no. I wasn't even at 1/2 cm yet. Let's just say they both got a stern talk from my mother that encouragement is encouraged, spectating is not. Enough with the commentary.
Fast forward to 1:30 am, when a giant flood decided to wake me up. I had been sleeping for about an hour when gallons of liquid started coming out. I called my mom from the waiting room, I paged the nurse, and we were whisked off to Labor and Delivery from triage. Everyone was getting so excited. I remember the nurse's exact words were, "things are going to start moving so fast now!"
Yeah, okay.
My contractions were getting pretty painful, and I was at about 3 cm at this point. 8:30 am they started giving me Pitocin, and gave me an epidural as well.
10:00 am, no change.
12:30 pm, no change.
2:00 pm, no change, but lots and lots of vomiting. How great.
5:00 pm, no change.
Very discouraging, I must say. And I was getting irritable, exhausted, puffy, and frustrated. The OB came in, and announced that I had three hours to get going, or they would be forced to do a C-section. I was horrified. Was I seriously not progressing? What was taking so long?
8:00 pm marked a turning point. I was at 5 1/2 cm. But time was still running out. My epidural was failing, and I was in lots of pain, not mention exhausted beyond belief. It had now been over 24 hours. My water had broken, and infection was imminent. The OB was generous and gave me another two hours.
At 10:30, everyone was in the room. My mom, Nathan, my sister, my grandma, aunts, doctors, nurses. My dad had run out to get my step mom and I needed him there before they took me to the OR. I had 15 minutes. I was weeping at this point, broken by the fact that my body had completely failed me. What woman takes 27 hours to labor, and not even get to transition? Nathan was paled and exhausted too. He had to leave the room for a moment when they made the final decision to open me up. He didn't imagine this outcome, either.
Nathan scrubbed up, and I had to leave my family behind. I remember the white ceiling above me as they rolled my partially numb, swollen body into the OR. A team shifted me onto the operating table. I didn't move, I stared at the ceiling, a panic attack coming at any second. My heart rate was being played somewhere in the room, and the doctor had to tell me to breathe and calm down several times. I just told myself over and over to breathe in and out. I felt a strong tugging as they began. It is a violent surgery if you can feel that through all the morphine and who even knows what else they give you. I had no drugs to cloud my brain, so I remember everything perfectly. Nathan sat at my head, and whispered words of encouragement, but he was just as scared as I was. It took what seemed like hours, but at 11:09 pm, on February 28th, 2012, Isaac came into the world. I heard a squealing and what sounded like a little baby pig on the other side of the room, and there he was! They brought him around for me to see. He was perfect. His color was beautiful, and he had no bruising and a perfectly shaped head. The first thing the nurse said was "he's got mommy's nose!"
Nathan left to go to Isaac's side at that point, and they still had to sew me up. I asked about ten times if it was over yet, could I hold my baby. I didn't get to hold him until about an hour later. I wasn't the first person to touch him, talk to him, or anything. I didn't get to nurse him, no skin to skin. I had to wait until we were in the recovery room to get my moment with him.
The recovery was awful, and I refused drugs. I only took Motrin as a pain reliever. I was going to tough it out. I felt like I had to. Which was stupid mommy martyrdom at it's best, I now realize. No driving for two weeks, walking more than ten feet was grueling, and I had to put Isaac down after holding him ten minutes because it was just too much weight to have my back support.
So here I am, almost 19 months later, and I am doing it all again. But I am hoping for a healing experience. I want to try to have a VBAC. And I realize it is risky, yes. But I need a positive labor and delivery to erase the traumatic and literally scarring labor and delivery I had with Isaac. And yes, I know, all that matters is that the baby came out healthy. No. Don't tell me that. It's easy for people to say that, but they just don't know the emotional and physical repercussions a traumatic C-section can give someone. It is something you literally have to experience for yourself. Which, I would not wish on anyone.
If this VBAC fails, I will not beat myself up, I will not be down on myself, I will know I tried. I already have accepted the possible repeat C-section, and if it happens, it happens. God ultimately knows what He wants for me in the end. He has given me a healthy pregnancy so far, with way less stress and sickness and so on. I can't ask for more than that at this point.
Sorry for the somber tone of this post. I only had a limited amount of time to type it. And now I have to end it, because I just heard a giant diaper explosion occur over the baby monitor, and I have to go clean up what MIGHT be a catastrophic mess.
l8rz, cheese gr8rz!
