C sections Suck

OK.  I apparently have some pent up emotions regarding my two Caesarean sections (c/s from here on out).  I spent the weekend before Mother's day with my bestie Han Banan Carcass and she shared with me a treasure of a video - our sweetest sister friend giving birth to her third, a baby girl.  Oh! The emotion of it was so beautiful! My friend is a champion birther, giving pleasant instructions to those around her, even MID-PUSH!!! I kid you not.  So you can imagine, maybe, that it was a peaceful delivery room full of joy and real. raw. emotion.  I got so caught up in it.  And then I just sobbed my eyes out in selfish pitiful regret.

My labor and birth story with Eva is chronicled here.  It took me about 8 months to push the rawness of it all down, and stop crying every time someone asked about her delivery.  I'm pretty sure that the only people who will really know what pain I refer to are the ones that not only had a c/s, but also went into labor with HIGH hopes of a natural birth experience, and expectations of labor and delivery as a rite of passage into motherhood.  I hear these lies, still, that say things like, "you didn't give birth to your children," "your children are missing something because they weren't delivered naturally," "your body can never give birth naturally," "it's your fault you couldn't deliver them because you weren't strong enough..." Lovely things like that.  First, I know they are lies.  But... they still stick in my heart like poison arrows.

(My c/s with Zaya wasn't planned ahead of time, but when I went in for a routine ultrasound a day after my due date - they were worried about me because she was HUGE - they discovered what I had been telling my mid-wives for months, that she was not head down, but transverse.  Normally, babies can be manipulated externally by a knowledgeable doc into the right position, along with some weird exercises for the mama --which I had been doing-- BUT, because I'd had a previous c/s, that would be too risky on my already stressed uterus.  The docs get very concerned about uterine rupture, and law suits for that matter.  A c/s without labor is much easier to heal from.  Also, having a doc that spreads ab muscles instead of slicing through them helps too.  Although Zaya's birth was easier to heal from physically, the emotions are the same.)

When a woman is in labor, it is an emotional roller coaster... it all builds to the climax of actually pushing out your baby... and then hormones are released that cause a euphoric wave of undescribableness as the healthy screaming babe is placed on the mother's belly.  The dad can "catch" the baby... the dad can cut the cord....  Laboring for 30 hours, pushing for 2 hours... being on drugs for so long that they wear off and nobody turns down your Pitocin... and then being wheeled into surgery, a failure... that's a different hormone roller coaster.  Let me tell you.

I don't want pity.  I am so grateful for my healthy daughters! I praise God every single moment for the way He knit them together in my womb!  I write just to process this all out, because I just don't want unexpected sobs to overtake me ever again!!!  I literally cried so hard at Han's (with her, and later as I fell asleep) that the next day my noggin was so stuffed up that I had a TERRIBLE headache, I even threw up, and just felt awful - until I pushed it all down again.  :( so pitiful, I know, but I don't really want sorries - or even answers from God... I just want to have that experience.  I always have wanted that... I suppose I may always be left wanting, and I need to learn how to deal with that.

If you know of anyone who ended up having a c/s, and they're having a hard time with it, sit with them, let them talk out their disappointments.  Tell them to contact me.  I'd love to talk about it with someone who knows.