If there is one thing motherhood is teaching you is that things rarely go as planned, here is my birth plan vs birth stories!
The plan:
In reality, I am not a big planner, in fact I am a very last minute type of gal! So naturally my birth plan for both of my children was not too detailed. All I knew and wanted was in the list below:
1. Natural delivery. (For the sake of this article please know that I consider a natural delivery as a Vaginal delivery, with OR without medical/pain assistance)
2. Try to manage the pain as long as possible without medical assistance. (knowing myself, pain is not something I manage well but wanted to experience it as much as my body and mind would allow me to)
3. Last but not least, trusting the medical team if things don’t go as planned. A SAFE DELIVERY IS THE BEST DELIVERY PLAN!
1st child birth story: C-section
Adrian was a breached baby, he never turned, so obviously the plan felt appart very quickly here. I was ready to try it all to make him turn but based on baby position my OBGYN did not recommend any manipulation as she did not see it being successful.
Things didn’t go as planned. It was a hard pill to swallow but as I said previously a safe delivery with a healthy baby and mama is the best plan!
So here I was at 39 weeks pregnant, on my way to the hospital to deliver my 1st baby when I knew that neither him, my body and my mind was ready for it.
In less than 2 hours after checking in at the hospital my tiny baby was born. Everything went by so fast. I am sharing below the step by step journey at the hospital, hoping this will help the ones who will soon go though this process:
- Check in
- A nurse got me ready to our 1st room. Checked my vitals, prepared the incision area, set up the IV. From here I got set up with a hospital gown and fuzzie socks on my way to the operating block.
- My hubby was allowed with me through out the entire process. (Except when I had to enter the operating block until the doctors finished setting up the epidura). This was one of the longest 10min of my life. I was so stressed out about getting this big needle in my back, half naked, alone in a room full of strangers. I was a little surprise by the number of people involved in my journey, but after all it makes sense. One nurse was here to care for me, two were here for baby, 1 anesteologist, i believe there was also one intern with him, and then my OBGYN and another doctor to assist her.
- As soon as the epidural was set up, my hubby was able to joined me in the room. From there on everything started to be a bit blurry. Probably from the epidural…moments later there he was, my 1st baby boy was born! After a quick skin to skin snuggle while I was stitched it was already time to be transferred to a temporary room until the epidural effect wore off.
- When I started feeling my legs waking up from the epidural we were finally transferred to our room, ready to start our parenting journey.
What I learned:
There is no wrong way to bring a baby to the world, your body, your decision! For me a c-section was a very hard pill to swallow. As a first time mom it was important for me to “work hard” and push my baby out myself as nature intentended it, but life decided otherwise for me..and that’s ok.
Don’t get me wrong, a C-section is hard, it is not an “easy way out” as some people say. It is a major surgery, where your body goes through some serious incisions and the recovery process is no joke!
I never told anyone except my husband before this but to me not being able to push my own baby out felt and will always feel like my 1st failure as a mother. So when one of my close friend expressed major disappointment hearing about my c-section..it obviously hurt.
However I also know that it made me a stronger mom. It teaches me once again that this is life and things don’t always goes as planed. My baby and I were both fine and that’s really what maters to us.
2nd Child birth story: Natural delivery
The plan was exactly the same as the 1st time around but this time I did not think about it. I’ve only mentioned the plan twice during my entire pregnancy. One time with my husband and a second time to my OBGYN.
Like the first time my pregnancy journey was good. Other than the normal heartburn and fatigue it was a healthy pregnancy…until week 38 days 4.
During my regular doctor follow up visit the nurse informed me that I had high blood pressure. It did not concern me much as with Adrian (baby number one) I had experienced the same symptoms the last week of pregnancy. This time.. the doctor asked me to come back 3 days later.
As you can imagine what I am about to share was not part of my plan… At 39 weeks with still some blood pressure and some headaches my OBYGN recommended me to be induced. I was not expecting that but at least this time around baby was head low!
I went home to pack my hospital bag, hugged and kissed my first one extra hard! Moments later I went to the hospital to be induced!
- I checked in at 5pm and was assigned to a delivery room with my husband.
- The nurse set up the baby monitor on my belly, checked my vitals.. However my blood pressure was still a little high. She set me up with an IV and here i was at 7:30pm under Pitocin.
- The contraction immediately started but were very mild and were manageable… until midnight.
- At 2am contraction are becoming very strong. The nurse recommended me to stand to help, it did. for some reason the pain was more manageable standing. Unfortunately I started feeling very dizzy so I had to lay down.
- At 2:30pm I requested an epidural, HORRAY! I felt a lot better and was able to get some rest. Because of the epidurals flow the doctor recommended I lay on my side and switch every 2 hours. So sleep was not that great :/
- Dilatation was not going fast but my water finally broke at 9am. For those wondering you do feel the difference between peeing and water breaking LOL. These are two very different flows!!
- Even under epidural the pain from the contractions were still strong but manageable untill 6PM.
- At 6pm I knew it was going to be time to start pushing, but the nurse was skeptic as 2 hours ago I was barely dilated. To her surprise I was ready!
- Around 7pm, I asked for the anesthetist to come back to boost my epidural as the pain was not manageable anymore and I finally started pushing at 7:45pm in less than 1 hour Baby was here!!!!!!
- After a quick skin to skin nurses took a look at baby, and we were left in the delivery room for a couple more minutes until we were transferred to our postpartum room.
Postpartum:
The recovery process was way faster this time around, but the bleedings was quit impressive!
Some will say that this was not a “natural delivery” as I was induced and under epidural. Honestly, I don’t care what people have to say anymore, and you should not either! 🙂 My plan was simple, felt the contraction and worked hard to push! And this is what I did!
Long story short:
Life does not always go as planed. I choose to look at the outcome and the bright side of things! I am now a mom of 2 amazing boys, and I would have not done anything differently! Please, do not listen to those “mom experts” that will judge and tell you what to do. Pick and choose the advice that YOU want to follow with your parter and be proud of your journey!
With love,
Em!
There is many blog, article, website about women sharing their birth experience. Find some on Parents.com here and on Whattoexpect.com here!
If you enjoyed this post make sure to check out more of my Motherhood posts here.
Emilie & you Instagram feed:
