A Necessary Cesarean by Mother’s Instincts

This mama is awesome! I met her on BWF when she posted about a rude comment someone made to her when she was pregnant. She was planning a natural hospital birth, but it didn’t go that way. She was informed and trusted her instincts. She knew she had to have a cesarean for her baby. I have met her and her family and they are just wonderful! What an amazing birth! ~Mrs. BWF

My contractions started about 6:30am Saturday, January 29, 2011. I didn’t even realize I was in labor at first. I went to the bathroom thinking it was an upset stomach from the Mexican food I’d had the night before. The stomach cramping stopped, so I went back to bed.

I was up again 30 minutes later with the same problem. The same thing woke me again in 20 minutes, and it got closer together as the day went on. Around noon, I ran a warm bath, grabbed a granola bar and bottle of water and went to sit in my tub. For the next several hours I slowly sipped my water and rode the waves out in my tub, keeping the water as warm as was comfortable. I called no one, told no one I was in labor. Around 12ish I told my best friend I suspected it, and around 5 I told my husband we might be having our baby that night. He didn’t know I was in labor, only that I had spent several hours in my tub, which towards the end of my pregnancy had become normal anyway.

My baby and I were doing fine, relaxing as much as possible as the waves became more intense. I left the tub and began wandering back and forth between my bedroom and my bathroom, returning to my bath here and there. I tried sitting on my birth ball, but that was very uncomfortable.

At 8:15, my husband still wasn’t home from work. I called my friend Mary, a L&D nurse who lives a few hours away. At 8:20 I lost my mucus plug. My husband arrived home about 8:45 and at this point the contractions were much closer together and much more intense. He wanted me to go straight to the hospital. I handed him the phone and let him talk to Mary, who helped him time my contractions.

I finally went to the hospital, arriving close to 10:30 that night. Because it was my first pregnancy I was admitted to triage instead of L&D. They checked me and told me I was 7 cm and then moved me across the hall to L&D. I progressed to 8 cm before a doctor was brought in to see me.

It was not my doctor, and on top of that, it was a male doctor. No exactly in my personal comfort zone. I looked to my husband terrified. He stepped in front of my bed, maintaining touch with me the whole time and talked to the Dr. He asked me if I was comfortable. I agreed to let the Dr. treat me and examine me. He sat and talked to us for a few minutes, then reached for something that looked like an over-sized crochet needle and came towards me. My husband and I both yelled “No!” at the same time. I pulled my legs up under the blanket as my husband pushed forward, demanding to know what the Dr. was doing.

He began trying to explain to us how beneficial it was for him to break my water since it had not broken on it’s own. As we were explaining we did not want that, my daughter decided to break the water on her own! The Dr. explained that most women want their water broken which is why he didn’t ask, and apologized. I didn’t see him again until the very end.

I had three nurses in my room, three failed attempts at an I.V., leaving my arm severely bruised for 3 weeks by one nurse (which I later threw out of my room). At 9 cm they forced me to roll onto my left side, which was beyond painful. My grandmother and mother were brought into my room somewhere in between 8 and 9. They helped keep me on my side to get me to dilate faster. I was in tears and once I hit 10 cm they put me on my back and asked me to push.

I spent 2 and 1/2 hours pushing and crying with my grandmother and mother holding my legs and my husband telling me how much he loves me. I kept telling them something was wrong. It hurt only on the left side, and in one spot it hurt too bad to push. I was screaming in pain, kicking my mother and grandmother off of me, trying to get them to pay attention to what I was saying! My baby was stuck and something was wrong. The nurses and my mom and grandma kept telling me they could see her head I just needed to push harder or I wasn’t pushing right and to keep at it. I kept trying to tell them they weren’t listening to me, only to be told I wasn’t listening to them. My husband was the only one who believed me.

Finally when I refused to push anymore, and the baby’s heart rate dropped down a little (not enough to be dangerous,

but enough to make them pay attention), they went and got the Dr. again. He came in and talked to me, told me I either needed to push her out or have a c-section. I told him something wasn’t right as I cried. I didn’t want surgery but I knew I needed to. Somehow my mother in law got brought into the room. She talked to me and my husband and asked us what we thought about it. As they were prepping me for surgery my grandmother told me how easy it would be for me to push her out and wanting to know why I was having surgery and told me I should have just done that to begin with and said I should have gotten an epidural.

They brought me into surgery, I still refused the epidural, opted instead for the spinal block which has a lot less effect and is much safer. Normally no one is allowed in while they give the injection, but I would not allow them to do it without my husband in the room, and they couldn’t really keep him out. The pain had become unbearable in the one spot at this point. I needed my husband to help hold me up as they did the injection because of the pain. Once the injection took effect I began to drift in and out of sleep due to how worn out my body was.

As soon as they made the incision, I remember hearing the Dr. say “Oh” and they had to call someone else in. My daughter was stuck under a large fibroid cyst. If I hadn’t had a c-section she would have died. They couldn’t even take her out without first removing the cyst. After they had removed one large one, (which could not be cauterized until she was taken out) there were 7 more small ones under her. If the nurses had listened to me, neither me nor my perfect baby would have gone through the insane stress put upon us by shoving her harder and harder against the fibroid and getting her stuck under it.

Just after the surgery instead if carrying her straight to our room, my husband brought her to my face, kissed me, then let me kiss my daughter as they were operating on me. At 3:19 AM on January 30,2011 Autumn Rose Gaudin was born, scored an 8 on her APGAR, and began breastfeeding not long after I was brought back to my room. No one touched her until I was there and I got to see them weigh her (6 lbs 6.9 oz and 20 in long) measure her, and bathe her. They brought her to me before anyone but my husband was allowed to even touch her little hands.

My grandmother still insists I “wussed out” and constantly berates me for it, tells my now 4 week old daughter how I was too lazy to push her out and I didn’t want to do the work. As much as this hurts me, I know I was right. I trusted my baby and my body. I had the most rare thing ever and empowering c-section!