Okay, I need to bag up all of this milk.
And I haven’t told you my C section story yet,
so I wanna tell you my birth story of a planned C section.
Keyword, by the way,
is planned.
I was in the hospital for a month leading up to my C section
because I had some complications and a high risk pregnancy.
But if it was an emergency C section,
I feel like those go, uh,
very differently. So this was just my experience.
I already knew everyone that was gonna be in the room
and everything that was going on.
But the day of, I was scheduled for 9 o’clock in the morning
because you also can’t eat the day of.
And so I was like, I’m going to need to be first on the docket
because I was ravenous my whole pregnancy.
I couldn’t even imagine, like,
not eating until four PM or something.
And so I was scheduled for 9.
Everyone that was going to be in the room,
that is NICU, anesthesia, nurses,
doctors,
everyone came into my room like 30 minutes early to have a huddle.
And I’m literally not bagging milk.
The huddle was essentially just to make sure it was like
the right patient,
to make sure everyone was on the same page of what was going on,
why I was having the C section to begin with and all of that.
And so we just kind of talked,
went over everything And by 9:00,
I was ready to go. I walked myself to the OR.
They give you the choice to walk or be wheeled.
And I just, like,
wanted to walk because I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to for a while.
And we stayed in my postpartum room while I walked down to the OR.
They wanted to give me the spinal tap,
which is essentially what’s going to numb you, um,
before he was allowed in the room.
So I walked to the OR by myself, or, like,
with one of the nurses. And I will say,
I wanna prepare anyone who is going to have a C section.
The first 15 minutes that you were in that room is
by far the most overwhelming and chaotic.
As soon as I got in there,
like, all morning leading up,
we were so bored. I’m, like,
counting down the minutes.
You know, you’re nervous,
you’re just excited, all these things,
and it was going by so slowly.
The moment you get to the OR,
people are just kind of grabbing at you.
They’re putting an IV in your arm,
someone’s bending you over to put the spinal in.
Everyone is very kind. At least in my experience,
they were very kind, very gentle,
but, like,
it just felt like I was being grabbed all of a sudden,
and people are just kind of touching you all over the place.
And so that felt really overwhelming and chaotic to me.
But it goes by very quickly.
10 or 15 minutes in and you’re just, like,
laying there. Someone’s like,
I’m gonna clean your vagina now so we can put in a catheter.
Um, and, like,
so, like, as.
As they were doing that, I lost all feeling in my entire body.
Anesthesia is kind of touching and, like,
making sure you cannot feel certain things,
but you can feel others,
because they want you to essentially feel pressure but no pain.
Since I was numb, Henry came into the room,
and I don’t know why, like,
because I was numb, I couldn’t feel if the surgery had, like, started.
And there’s also a curtain.
And so at some point, I felt like they might have started,
and I was like, where is Henry?
Is Henry coming in? And they were like,
oh, yeah,
like, nothing’s going on,
and he’s on his way in right now.
So he came in, he was fully suited up.
You know, I’m sure you’ve seen it.
Like, they have the hairnet things over their shoes.
He has the full, like,
Ghostbusters gear on. And basically it just starts like,
you kind of don’t know exactly what’s going on,
which is ideal for me. I will say the anesthesia team, uh,
there was two women in mine,
and they, like,
carried the whole experience for me.
They were checking on me the whole time,
stroking my hair. They made sure that music was playing,
cause I Did not, uh,
make a playlist. I don’t know why. I, like,
people told me to, and I just didn’t.
And so they made sure that, like,
Billie Eilish was playing,
cause I said I liked Billie Eilish,
and I even told them once they said they were gonna do that,
I was like, if birds of a feather could play while Tommy is being born,
that would be amazing. And so they made sure that it was,
in fact playing while he was being born.
Um, and so they just were awesome.
Kudos to those two women. I loved them.
Um, and the doctors basically will say, okay,
you’re gonna feel some pressure now.
And Henry is by my head this whole time. And, uh,
I felt a lot of pressure. Like,
I felt my body, like,
moving in waves. I could feel them essentially,
like, the incisions down here,
and I could feel them just pushing,
like, all their body weight onto my body and, like,
shoving the baby down. And for some reason,
they had a really hard time getting him out of the incision.
And so they had to use forceps,
which I did not know was a thing for C sections.
I had just
personally never heard of forceps being used for a C section.
Um, but they did have to use it.
Use them. I don’t.
I don’t even really know what forceps are,
to be honest. Um,
but they basically said, by the way,
That they had to use the forceps,
and it was difficult because my abdominal muscles are so strong.
That is literally what the doctor said.
He said I had ABS of steel.
Um, which is funny,
cause I’ve never had ABS in my entire life,
but they are buried deep within,
and I know it now for a medical fact.
And about 15 or 20 minutes into the surgery, uh,
I hear the anesthesiologist go, okay,
we’re gonna put your song on.
And I was like, oh,
my god, it’s happening.
Henry and I was not worried,
but we didn’t know if it was gonna feel intimate, um,
like, have the same experience as these,
like, water,
natural home births, you know what I mean?
Like, what’s that gonna feel like as partners?
And, like,
just what was it gonna be like?
And we truly feel like it was such an intimate experience.
It was beautiful. Henry and I are, like,
holding each other. Birds of a feather comes on,
like I said, so now I know that he’s about to come out.
And right as they were pulling him out,
I mean, I’m sobbing,
so is Henry. Uh,
we’re, like,
holding each other. And then they pulled a piece of the curtain
essentially up so that you can see through. Um,
and so I could see him physically being taken out of my stomach.
They give you that as an option,
but we definitely wanted to see it.
And It was like, the most magical experience.
I, I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like.
I’m sure everyone says that,
but watching your baby be born is.
It’s, it’s the most intense experience of your life.
Now, because he was going to be five weeks early
because of my complications,
I knew that he would likely be going to the NICU.
So we had the NICU team in there,
and I knew that he was probably gonna go.
Didn’t really know what it was gonna be like, though.
They basically said,
we’re just gonna have to play it by ear once he’s there.
So once he was taken out, once he was born,
the NICU team took him away.
I did not see him other than through that curtain,
and they basically assessed him.
Henry went over right away,
which is what we wanted. We had talked about that prior,
and then basically one of the NICU people,
I just felt some.
One of the NICU people came over to me and said,
he needs to be put on a C pap.
He’s doing really well. He cried really loudly right away,
which is, like,
obviously what you want to hear.
Um, and so then she said,
he needs to go on a C pap, though,
and we are gonna take him to the NICU.
Just letting you know that that is definitely happening,
but we’re gonna bring him over to you to say hello and meet you
very Very briefly, cause he does need to be put on that machine.
So that person brought Tommy over to me,
and we did a little, like,
cheek to cheek moment. It was like,
literally 10 seconds, but I kissed his cheek,
and it just felt good to have him here.
And then Henry went with him to the NICU.
This is the part that I was by far the most nervous for.
Like, I just thought,
they’re gonna take my baby.
He’s not gonna be in me anymore,
and Henry’s gonna be gone.
I’m gonna be left alone in this or.
And I’m gonna be, like,
the most depressed person on the face of planet earth.
Like, it’s gonna be devastating.
And I will just say I did not feel that way at all.
Like, that was my expectation in that moment.
I really tried to mentally prepare myself for that moment,
just feeling very lonely.
And I think because of the complications that I experienced,
I was just elated that the baby was here,
he was healthy. Um,
and I just felt nothing but, like,
so much physical relief. Like,
immediately I was like, oh,
he’s here. Like,
he’s here and he’s going to be okay.
And so I just. If you are going to experience something similar,
um, just preparing you that you.
You don’t actually know how you’re going to feel.
Okay. So I wish I wouldn’t have put so much emphasis, uh,
in like, a negative Way on that in my mind.
But anyways, they stitch me up,
everything takes out another 15,
20 minutes. The whole thing was under an hour.
And then they wheeled me to recovery,
which is its own room. Um,
and I could hear some women with their babies in that room.
And that was like, a little depressing
cause I didn’t have my baby with me.
Um, but it was okay. Again,
I knew he was gonna be fine.
And then after two hours in the recovery room,
they are checking your vitals every 15 minutes.
They wheeled me down to the NICU to see him again.
We did skin to skin for a few minutes with him on the C pap,
and I still have all this milk to bag.
I’m terrible at doing this.
I then went up to the postpartum room.
Uh, Tommy stayed in the NICU for only 18 hours,
which I feel like it’s such a bragging point as a mother,
because five weeks early,
we were prepared for him to stay there for much longer.
But then he came up to my room and postpartum,
and we were discharged four days later.
We stayed all four days, cause after C section,
insurance was gonna cover four days,
and we just wanted to ride it out as long as possible.
Um, and so we stayed four days,
we were discharged together,
and we have been at home ever since.