My first pregnancy I was 21 and very naive. i wanted a ‘natural’ birth, but knew very little about how to realistically make that happen. I read the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and trusted my doctor without question.
I was 34 weeks when I lost my mucous plug in a big bloody glob. I called the doctor the next morning and the nurse told me it was probably not my plug since it was so early and not to worry about it. I went in the next day for my regular appointment and asked the doctor about it. She was rushing and since I was only 34 weeks she didn’t want to check me. I also made sure to ask her to feel if baby was head down. She told me they usually are by this point so she didn’t think it was necessary to palpate. (grrr)
At 34 wks 6 days I began having some crampiness and tightness in my abdomen and my boyfriend encouraged me to go to the hospital just to get checked out. For a while I resisted, saying certainly it was nothing, and thinking this was such a waste of time. Eventually I went in, around 10pm. I was not in pain, still talking and walking through little crampy contractions, and just going along to humor my SO. When the nurse checked me, she said in a very surprised voice, you’re 4 cm. I said, what?!? She said it looks like you’ll be having a baby soon. In this hospital, their protocol was to not stop labor after 35 weeks and since I would be 35 weeks in 2 hours, they just let me go, even though I was scared to death about having a preterm baby. In any case, my contractions were piddly and irregular, and around 2am they suggested some demerol to see if it would stop my contractions. (since I have never heard of demerol to try to stop labor?!) So I slept for a bit and woke up to the doctor talking about sending me home since my contractions were still so small. But he just wanted to check me real quick to see if anything had changed, and was very surprised when I was now 6cm.
He told the nurse to start pit so he could get me delivered and a few minutes later he went ahead and broke my water. Immediately he started yelling loudly for an ultrasound machine to be brought in stat, that he felt feet. The u/s confirmed that baby was footling breech and by this time I was heavy in transition. The doctor came back in and told me I had to have a c-section or my baby would be crippled or worse, and they frantically began to prep me for the OR. The contractions were fierce and intense now, and I could feel her coming. I got my epi but before it took effect I was having an urge to push and had a lot of rectal pressure.
During the cesarean it was very rough. I could tell they were having a hard time getting her out. My SO said they cut me wider on each side of the incision to try to get her out. finally she was born and I could hear my baby girl’s cries. She was born at 10:28am and weighed in at 4lbs 14oz, 17 and 3/4 inches long. The doctor looks coyly over the screen and informs me that I would never again be allowed to give birth vaginally, bc she was so far down into the birth canal, I was given an inverted T incision, and if i ever labored, I’d certainly rupture, bleed out, and my baby and I would die. He also said I couldn’t have more than 3 c-sections. I was instantly devastated. we had plans to marry and quickly expand our family, and I craved a natural birth and as many kids as we could handle. It was really hard. I had 2 more c-sections for my second and third babies, and it was so difficult and traumatic I decided I couldn’t do this any more and wouldn’t get pregnant again.
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