Given my pregnancy journey we ended up with no choice but to have an elective c-section. If I’m honest all that mattered to me was Liara arriving in the safest way possible for her and this was exactly that. So, here is my birth story!
On the day 19th of December, we arrived at the hospital for 8 am. In our hospital, we had to head to our MUA unit to have an assessment of the baby and myself to ensure we were both okay & fit to go. We had a visit from the full team who would be part of the surgery procedure including the surgeons, doctors, midwives & anaesthetic doctors. It’s quite overwhelming as there is a lot to take in and be told on that morning. But it all goes by so quickly you barely have a moment to process it. We were told we’d be taken down to the theatre at 11/11:30 but ended up going at 9:30 am.
Once we went down I headed into the theatre to get prepared. It took a tad longer than anticipated due to my numerous spinal conditions which made it a struggle to administer the anaesthetic. But once that was done I laid down and Ant was allowed in. Quite honestly, it’s a bizarre feeling as you can still feel your ankles and legs but can’t feel them too if that makes sense. It’s a terrible dull ache through your legs. They test you with an ice-cold spray to make sure you can’t feel anything before beginning. The procedure itself took around 30-50 minutes. All you feel is tugging and tension. It really is a peculiar feeling. Of course, ladies don’t expect any of your dignity to be left because it goes all out of the window as you are naked waist down but trust me you really don’t care! It’s all about your baby so you’d do anything for them and it’s nothing they’ve not seen before either.
Within around 15 minutes Liara was born and was instantly taken into the recovery room where multiple midwives and doctors examined her to ensure she was okay. She had a neonatal alert on her prior to her birth which was the reasoning as to why it was a quick-examine kind of occasion and not all babies will have this which is worth keeping in mind. That felt like the longest time as I had no idea what was going on and I could see it all from the operating table. Thankfully it didn’t take too long for a midwife to come and show me photos of her and tell me she was doing really well. From a distance I watched Ant holding her and it was the most emotional moment I’ve ever seen in my life.
Back to the theatre room I ended up having an obstetric haemorrhage and lost 1.2L of blood. Thankfully they managed to give me back 900ml and quite honestly I had no inkling at all. During surgery, my placenta also broke down into tiny chunks which made things complicated as they weren’t entirely sure they got it all out (they didn’t and that led to further issues more recently). But in that moment there wasn’t an ounce of alarm and everything was so beautifully peaceful. It was really a magical experience and the team I had were beyond words of amazing.
Once back in the recovery room, I had a doctor monitoring my blood pressure etc every 5 minutes for half an hour to ensure all was going okay. A few hours later I had the doctor from the theatre come and brief me on how the birth went which I really appreciated as it just felt like I knew all that went on at that moment even though at that time I didn’t. I felt nothing except happiness looking at my beautiful baby girl. It was all so new to me that I had no idea what to do in all honesty I even asked the midwife if I could hold my baby like it wasn’t my baby! The team looked after me so well.
Within 10 hours I had my catheter removed and was able to go for a wee. You have to be able to pass a specific amount for it to meet their criteria then normally you can go home. In my case, that was a tad different due to Liara having a few additional tests and largely due to her feeding needs to be a tad more as she had no clue what to do which did gradually get better. I had intense apprehension about walking for the first time but quite plainly it wasn’t even that bad. The worst thing for me afterwards was the trapped wind it really was the most intolerable part of it all. Peppermint tea became my best friend. Following Liara’s heart scan which that going all well on day 2 we finally realised on day 3 that I was home and recovering really nicely. I felt wonderful in all honesty of course I was tender but doing well.
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I’ll share more blogs on my c-section in the coming weeks. But if you’re awaiting your time I promise you it’ll be okay and not as bad as you typically hear. I had a lot of anxiety surrounding the day and it all went so beautifully that I look back with pure fondness!
Speak again soon x