my new year's resolution

I have started and stopped writing this post more times than I can count. Drafted it in my head over and over. Struggled to commit to actually typing the words out. Questioned my reasons for wanting to share this more difficult chapter of my adjustment to motherhood. But it's a new year, and that means resolving to do better, right?

So here I am. Using my little bit of interwebs real estate for some therapeutic release. If reading about my internal battle over coming to terms with Natalie's birth (which you can read up on here and here, if you are so inclined) is not your thing, I completely understand. Stop now and come back again to visit tomorrow, when I will leave the serious stuff behind in favor of cute Natifuss pictures.

If, however, you don't mind learning about the nitty-gritty details of my c-section, recovery, and convoluted thought process around coming to terms with it all, then stick with me.

My memory of the final hours-long chapter of Natalie's entrance into this world is fuzzy at best. All the feel-good hormones and feel-great drugs that were coursing through my body after my surgery did a pretty wonderful job of pushing all the unpleasant details into the dusty back corners of my mind, and kept them there through the first weeks of her life. Additionally, my incredible gratitude that she had arrived in one piece with fingers and toes and a tongue and hairy ears and no teeth pretty much took over any feelings of sadness that were lurking in my brain about the rather terrifying and unexpected turn my labor and delivery took in the early morning hours of Natalie's birthday. Mike's recollection of the night's chain of events has remained somewhat clearer, though he rarely likes to delve into all the minute emotional details. I think I often forget that the fear and trauma of the night were not mine alone--not only was Mike there beside me offering every bit of emotional and physical support a person could muster, but he was also experiencing the concerned looks and hushed whispers that turned into more frantic and serious monitoring, consultation, and intervention. Really, he has a much better sense of how quickly things went south, and how long they stayed that way. In those moments and hours, he was more aware of Natalie's slowed heartbeat, her lack of progress, and the increasing likelihood of surgical intervention than I was.

I, up until the moment I was transferred from my labor and delivery bed onto the operating table, was still pushing with all of my might and willing my body to do what I had believed it could do to deliver my child. It's not that I wasn't aware that it was difficult or painful, but because I had never gone through childbirth before I had no frame of reference to compare my experience to. I think I just assumed that, while things seemed complicated, everything was going to progress on its own time and would be fine. It wasn't until the very last second that I allowed myself to even kind of realize that there was no way a natural childbirth would result in a healthy, living, breathing baby.

The worst moments were the ones right before I was wheeled into the OR, when the contractions were still right on top of each other and Mike and I were separated so I could be prepped for surgery. For some reason there was a delay in wheeling me directly in, some unexpected traffic jam that probably lasted just a moment, but felt like an eternity of waiting. I remember being curled up on my hospital bed in the hallway, while a flurry of nurses and surgical staff swirled by and around me, and seeing another surgical emergency be wheeled by. I was trying my best not to scream and cry while I fought the urge to bear down with all of my might as Natalie and my uterus still worked to deliver naturally. It was the low point of, probably, my entire life. Staring at a blank wall and feeling alone and scared and in pain beyond my wildest imaginings.

That low point, of course, was soon thereafter juxtaposed with the most exhilarating moment of, probably, my entire life: when Natalie finally left my body and joined the outside world. Hearing her cry and feeling her soft little cheek against mine as Mike held her out for me to see and smell and admire made all of the bad stuff just fade into the background, and I kept pushing that "bad stuff" (the fear and disappointment and wondering and even shame) to the background because of the little person who became the most important part of my life. Don't get me wrong--I have not spent every minute of Natalie's life with crushing emotional disaster just looming on the periphery; truly, I have found myself consumed with the love, happiness, and awe (and exhaustion and frustration) of parenting this little girl. Her existence has brought immeasurable joy into my world, and I wouldn't trade anything for her safe arrival into it.

But that doesn't mean I don't wish that I could have had a delivery that followed the birth plan I so laboriously (no pun intended) articulated in print and in person for those who would be helping me give birth. And I have had to face my own judgmental side; the side of me that skipped over the c-section chapters of my pregnancy books and had internal scoffing sessions about women who (I assumed) gave into or were forced into c-sections unneccessarily. Even in the moments before I was admitted to my L & D room I was foolishly unprepared for what was about to happen--by some strange coincidence a couple from our hypnobirth class had been laboring for hours and was being rushed to the OR for an emergency c-section just as Mikey and I arrived at the hospital. While we paced the halls for an hour or so before I had to be hooked up to the fetal monitor, the two of us had the audacity to laugh off any possibility that we would be in that same boat just hours later. If I am being completely honest, I'm sure I assumed that an epidural had slowed things down for her, or the obstetric surgeon was jumping the gun. I thought that laboring woman had given in too soon. I felt more than duly chagrined during the following days as she and I both did the post-surgery shuffle in our johnnies to get a peek at each other's babies and exchange exhausted pleasantries.

The c-section itself and its immediate aftermath, though, have not been the hardest part of the whole ordeal. It has been the months since, in which I have allowed myself to process what happened, that have proven the most challenging. In Natalie's first months of existence, when she slept for about 80% of the day, I found myself using her naptime to watch childbirth programming like A Baby Story or read up on other women's perfectly natural and rosy birth stories, as if in an attempt to further torture myself and wallow in what could have been. I felt this overwhelming feeling of loss, that I had missed out on that magical moment when your baby is placed, wet and new, on your chest for you to see as she takes her first breaths. Despite sticking to my resolution not to use an epidural or other medical pain management intervention, I still felt cheated out of my natural birth. I had to come to terms with the fact that, in addition to my pregnancy culminating in a sweet, healthy, little baby, I had expected it to culminate in a certain type of birth.

I still have twinges of jealousy when I read or hear about women who were able to have the experience that I wanted. Their happiness and pride, which were once sources of inspiration to my pregnant self, can so quickly bring me down as I think back on the realities of my birth story. Hazy memories of the helpless confusion I felt as an oxygen mask became a permanent fixture on my face as I pushed for hours on end, and the mortification that accompanied the seemingly endless number of strange hands that were responsible for shaving and examining and medicating and transporting my body are still fresh in my mind, and are in such opposition to the way I wanted Natalie to be born.

I have, however, found comfort in reading the stories of other women who faced similar circumstances during labor. In particular, this post by Sarah at don't worry baby, was such a point of light for me. Finally, I thought, someone who has been able to write the things I would like to say. Knowing that I am not alone in sifting through this type of experience, and that there are other women who have that still-numb and tingling scar, a daily reminder of what was not supposed to happen, has been invaluable.

I don't know if my story will resonate with others as well, but imagining that it might has been a part of my decision to finally sit down and draft this post. The other reason is, as I said earlier, that it's a new year. I am resolving to move forward and be at peace with the way Natalie was born. It will always be a difficult thing for me to accept, but I finally feel ready to leave some of the baggage of my c-section behind.

If you have stuck it out through this lengthy post, thanks for bearing with me. This blog has been such a treasured part of my journey through motherhood, and I feel fortunate that it provides this forum for me to have some tangible release place for all of this.