The ninth month, birth, and postpartum
I was feeling pretty good at 7 months pregnant. Which was the last time I posted on this blog. I had no idea how hard that final 1.5 months of pregnancy would be.
About halfway through September, I finished an easy 5 mile run only to find myself crumpled on the ground afterwards, immobilized by intense pelvic pain. I cried and unable to stand, army crawled to our bedroom, where the pain subsided after about 45 minutes. This incident marked the beginning of the end of running while pregnant. I tried a few more short runs, but I could feel that same pain coming back and decided it was not in the cards to run all the way until my labor day. I had logically known I probably wouldn’t run my entire pregnancy, but emotionally it was a hard blow for me to stop with still weeks to go.
Thus began the most difficult part of pregnancy for me. I know running is just one thing that I do, but stopping running after running pretty much every day for the past 15 years felt like losing a big part of who I am. I wasn't sure who Claire was without it.
So I was really really really ready to be done being pregnant. I spent a few minutes every day during October googling different ways to induce labor. All to no avail as our baby decided to wait until his due date to make an appearance.
I woke up on the due date and started my barre blend workout only to start bleeding from my vagina a few minutes in. I woke up Dallin to tell him, called my mom, and when more blood came (like a lot more), called a nurse who told me to go to the hospital.
In what felt like a mad dash, we made it to the hospital around 8am. After a doctor confirmed my water had broken but nothing else seemed amiss despite the continued bleeding, we bunkered down for the labor. Apparently I was having contractions every couple of minutes when we arrived, but couldn't feel them for a few hours. The worst part of the initial labor was getting my IV, which made me start sobbing uncontrollably after they missed my vein twice.
Dallin and my sister-in-law Becca were my labor companions and while I bounced on a birthing ball and walked around the labor room, we started the extended versions of Lord of the Rings. I felt the contractions more in the late morning and by the late afternoon, I decided I was ready for an epidural.
Epidural? 10/10 would recommend. Even if you're not giving birth. Seriously, what a neat feeling and experience. Like a warm hug around your legs. Plus I loved feeling the pressure of the contractions without the pain of them. I wanted Dallin to ask for an epidural too (because again, everyone should try it once), but figured one of us should probably be able to walk. With little progress in terms of dilation, we continued with The Two Towers. Becca left in the evening as it became apparent this was one of those long, slow labors. Dallin and I both tried to get some sleep, but a nurse kept coming in to turn me over.
Especially when our baby's heart rate kept seemed to be dropping after each contraction.
At 2am, after many unsuccessful adjustments, the doctor on duty came in and formally recommended a C-section because of a suspected abrupted placenta (which is why my broken water had so much blood in it during the day and baby's heart rate was dropping).
ASAP, that is.
I panicked and asked for some time to think about it. I had not even considered a C-section as a remote possibility since my pregnancy had been so normal and uncomplicated. Dallin and I talked about it for a few minutes and it seemed like the right thing to do with the information we had, so within 30 minutes, I was given oodles numbing drugs and wheeled to an operating room.
Dallin was in charge of putting on my baby playlist during the surgery, but unfortunately I have an iPhone and he has an android and so he didn't actually know how to open my phone. They let him into the operating room just a couple minutes before making the incision and Dallin rushed over to me as I lay shaking, nauseous, and disoriented on the table with my arms strapped down outward and whispered: "Claire, what is your passcode?" He put on some Enya (there was a better choice in retrospect) while the doctor quickly cut our baby out of me and I proceeded to throw up from the medication (which the anesthesiologist caught with amazing agility).
The plan was for baby to go skin to skin with me right after, but there were some clear issues with him (namely, he wasn't initially breathing) and so he was whisked off to the NICU. I wasn't super cognizant of the whole experience and it was maybe the worst that I've ever felt physically in my life because of the various drugs (which thankfully distracted me from dwelling on the fact I’d been cut open). I remember thinking: this kid better be perfect because this is never happening again. I did indeed have a placenta abruption, which explained the excessive bleeding throughout the day. The doctor told Dallin my placenta looked like it belonged to a smoker or someone who was way past their due date.
Shortly following the operation--because I'd said I wanted to breastfeed--they hooked me up to an electric breast pump so I could try to get some colostrum out for the baby (whose name we still had not picked). Which is odd in retrospect based on my fragile physical state but I guess makes sense and certainly set the tone for my body deciding it would just go ahead and produce enough breast milk for triplets (our freezer is packed with milk after my weeks of initial pumping).
Pause real quick so we can all sit in AWE that
every. single. human.
came out of a woman. What. How have women been doing this forever and why wasn’t I shocked every time I met someone. Because remember how every someone GREW INSIDE ANOTHER HUMAN?
12 hours after my C-section I was able to stand to be wheeled down to see our Teddy bear in the NICU. I got to hold him, but didn't really believe that he had literally lived inside of me until 12 hours ago. I mean, I didn't actually see him come out or anything because of the curtain and my stomach was still big and puffy, so where was the proof?!
We spent the next few days wheeling down to the NICU to visit Teddy every three hours and delivering my pumped breastmilk, while also trying to recover from the traumatic event of a surprise C-section (but also, maybe all birth stories are a little bit traumatic?). The first couple days were awful for me physically--especially the part where I tried and failed to get all the adhesive sticky stuff off my body in the shower. Pro tip: they make little adhesive remover wipes that work WAY better than soap. If I ever have another C-section, I'm ordering some in a pack of 100 (or just asking the hospital for their whole supply).
After arriving at the hospital Friday morning, Teddy and I finally both had clearance to go home on Tuesday late afternoon and we were very ready to be out of the hospital. Which brings us to postpartum.
For most of pregnancy, I was way more terrified of the postpartum period than any particular trimester or the actual labor experience. Almost a month into postpartum, it has been WAY better than I thought it would be. This may be due in part because month 9 was so miserable for me and I am just so happy to not be 9 months pregnant any more. And the actual 45 minutes of having Teddy cut out of me and then being sewed back up was way worse than any vision I had of the final pushes of pregnancy. But already I've though, meh--I could do that again.
I had been so worried about not being able to run or workout postpartum, but I hadn’t been able to run for the last part of pregnancy anyways. I was up for taking walks a week after giving birth and I actually got cleared to start jogging again by my doctor last week (!) so I am really excited to embrace that part of me again. I had no idea that healing from a C-section would go as smoothly as it has. My incision has healed so well, I haven’t had any pelvic floor issues to deal with, and did I mention how much I love my squishy belly again? It was actually kind of fun to watch my body slowly deflate. With that said, I do think we should give people all the time and grace they need to recover after giving birth. You don't get to pick how long it takes your body to mend and there is no shame in the time that takes.
Oh and of course I am so full of love and gratitude for our tiny Teddy, the product of this whole experience. Wow.
Month 9: 2/10
Birth: 1/10
Postpartum: 8/10
Teddy: an obvious 10/10 (but like, a higher 10/10 than the epidural)
Comments
Post a Comment