My blog has a lot of random thoughts and comments on it. I’m not sure if this is even exactly appropriate to share with everyone, but I figured that since it has become a big part of who I am as a person that I might as well make it publicly known.
My c-section bothers me. It bothers me a lot.
In this day and age, nearly 1/3 of all women give birth via c-section. That statitc for me is astronomical. I can’t understand why a country with such advanced technology would be so naïve in their approach to childbirth. I really don’t understand how that many women did it. Every day I think about my c-section and have various regrets and upsets surrounding. Some days it feels a little consuming and other days I feel OK about it. The point is, that I don’t understand how women are allowing this epidemic to happen. Even more so, some women are scheduling their c-section, not only is this developmentally dangerous to the baby because they are being taken out before they are full developed, but it is MAJOR surgery, and anyone who wants to go through that including the recovery, is nuts.
America’s c-section rates are nearly 30%, and me, being me, not waking to buy into that crap decided I was going to have a birth out of the hospital. I chose lovely and wonderful little place called Andaluz www.waterbirth.net where there are very neat midwives in very neat surroundings that help women to give birth in the water. It sounded very amazing, and the bonus is that their c-section rate is something like 3% or 5%.
And for those of you that read my birth story, I guess I was a heroine in some regards. Three days of early labor followed by 48 hours of active labor that ended in 5 hours of pushing and a C-section from hell. I was lucky. I recovered pretty well from the surgery, though I do have to admit that now 7 months later I still have pain, tingling and numbness in my scar, and I am only now starting to get back the stomach muscles and nerves that were cut through, and that sucks.
I have a lot of friends that have had babies since I had mine, and they all seem to be able to just go into the birth center and have their babies without any problems, which leaves me in a giant mystery hole as to what happened. I labored a lot longer than many of them, yet they were able to push their babies out with no problems. It baffles me and puts me into a deep roller coaster anytime that I think about it. What happened? Why did I have to undergo the major surgery? Could it have been prevented? What is wrong with me that I had to do this and everyone else can have babies normally with little or no problems?
And I sit in mystery.
People always tell me that the only thing that matters is that I have a beautiful daughter. I suppose that is true, but they have no understanding of the hell that I had to go through with the surgery and the hell that I get to live every day. I get out of the shower every day to a numb and somehow hurting scar that I get to look at every day and treat. It will never go away. My lower tummy will always be sewn up the way that they did it that fateful day when my little girl was born.
And what about future children? What kind of hell am I going to have to go through if I have another baby? Will I be able to make it or will I survive one of the complications in having a VBAC like hemorrhage or even death?
These are all things that Publish PostI get to look at and deal with every day, and it is a kind of hell.
I very much enjoy my daughter, and this c-section reality is not all-consuming, but I have my own bout of self-doubt and personal upset whenever it is rudely brought to my attention that I couldn’t have my baby naturally despite all my efforts to the contrary.
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