You’ve spent the past hand­ful of months plan­ning for your baby’s birth day. You’ve read about the advan­tages of a nat­ur­al deliv­ery. Your preg­nan­cy class rec­om­mend­ed to avoid hav­ing a C‑section because of 10 – 20 con­se­quences for you and your baby. You’re also read to not take any pain med­ica­tion nor to get an epidural. 

And when the big day arrives you find out that: The baby doesn’t have enough amni­ot­ic liq­uid. That birth will have to be induced.

So far this had all been bear­able. At least, I was still going to try hav­ing a nat­ur­al birth. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I wasn’t aware of all the ups and downs that hav­ing labor induced meant.

After more than 24 hours of labor, I remem­ber break­ing apart in my husband’s arms when the doc­tors told us that a C‑section was now inevitable. 

My water had bro­ken 10 hours before, so it was obvi­ous that there were no oth­er way. But still I couldn’t accept it. 

I felt so betrayed and dis­ap­point­ed with myself.

In this post I will share with you all the wrong deci­sions and beliefs that I had; because trust me, try­ing to pre­pare emo­tion­al­ly & phys­i­cal­ly for a last minute C‑section is not fun at all.

1. Believ­ing that a C‑section is a mis­take. #

Giv­ing birth through C‑section can be as beau­ti­ful as a nor­mal deliv­ery, but it can turn into a night­mare if you are against a C‑section with beliefs like:

• C‑sections are only a bet­ter pay­check for the hos­pi­tal and doc­tors. While it’s true that a C‑section is more expen­sive than a vagi­nal deliv­ery. They’re designed to help your baby come to this world with the least pos­si­ble trau­ma in a very dif­fi­cult situation.

• I will be less brave than the oth­er moth­ers. Com­plete­ly wrong! You’ve been car­ry­ing your baby for 9 months. And now you are going to be cut open and will have to deal with not only your recov­ery but also care for your new baby. This is not the sign of a weak person.

• The recov­ery will be longer than for a vagi­nal deliv­ery. Recov­er­ing from a C‑section can be as fast as a vagi­nal deliv­ery or even faster; if you lis­ten to your body and don’t overex­ert yourself. 

• I will nev­er be able to use a biki­ni because of the scar. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it’s more like­ly that you’ll nev­er use a biki­ni due to those extra pounds gained or stretch marks than a C‑section scar. In most of the cas­es, the cut will be done low enough that it won’t be vis­i­ble when you use a bikini.

2. Not being aware that a C‑section may be nec­es­sary: #

A C‑section is nec­es­sary if your baby is not get­ting enough oxy­gen, or you are not dilat­ing, or many oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties. You can find fur­ther infor­ma­tion here.

3. Mak­ing deci­sions with­out con­sid­er­ing the pros and cons. #

After a few hours of being induced with­out much progress, the nurse asked me if I want­ed to stop and try again the next day or if I’d pre­fer to keep going. 

I was so eager to meet my son that I didn’t even ask which option was bet­ter for me and the baby. I just said I want­ed to keep going. Thank­ful­ly, my son was strong enough to with­stand the whole process with­out stress, heart or oxy­gen issues. Just to men­tion some of the sce­nar­ios that could’ve led to complications.

4. Tak­ing pain med­ica­tion instead of an epidur­al. #

My son was fac­ing side­ways instead of fac­ing down. This slows the deliv­ery and makes it more painful. 

Though I wasn’t feel­ing too much pain until my water broke after at least 12 hours of wait­ing for bet­ter dilata­tion. Then the pain increased enough to make me ask for pain med­ica­tion. BIG MIS­TAKE!

I don’t remem­ber any of the pain that I felt because I was under the effect of pain med­ica­tion and also exhaust­ed. But I can tell that I was still in pain for two reasons:

1) My hus­band was suf­fer­ing with each painful con­trac­tion that I had.

2) When it was time for the C‑section, the anes­the­sia was like a switch off but­ton. I then start­ed to enjoy my son’s birth again.

Due to some wrong beliefs that led me to keep try­ing to be as strong as oth­er moms. I end­ed hav­ing an emer­gency C‑section. My son was with­out amni­ot­ic liq­uid which made the surgery more dif­fi­cult because now my son was very low and close to my pubic bone. There also wasn’t any­thing sep­a­rat­ing my lit­tle boy from the sur­gi­cal blade.

He end­ed with a scar in his right cheek. But thank­ful­ly he’s very healthy and strong.

Now after five years, I’m ready to go through a C‑section again. This time it’s a planned one. And I know it’s going to be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent and prob­a­bly even scari­er than the first. But this time I won’t feel bad with myself because I wasn’t pre­pared nor aware that hav­ing a baby via C‑section or a vagi­nal deliv­ery isn’t the point. 

What mat­ters is that you’re going to expe­ri­ence the mir­a­cle of bring­ing anoth­er being into this world. And the amaz­ing feel­ing of uncon­di­tion­al love that will fill your heart when you hear them cry for the first time.