Deliverance
“Is it possible to just request a C-Section?”
It was about halfway into our 3rd parenting class when I asked the teacher this question. She looked at me peculiarly as if to say, why would anyone want to do that? Suzanne, the teacher, then told me she has seen it done, although it is fairly rare.
At this point in class, she started discussing a vaginal birth and all of its gruesome details. The intense pain. The poking and prodding. Sticking a needle into your spinal cord (but not too far, like you have ample room to maneuver in there) just to help ease the discomfort. Dilating to 10 centimeters! We saw what 10 centimeters looks like. It looks like no picnic.
And that is just the beginning. How about an episiotomy? It is better to be cut than to tear naturally. That is a sentence I should have never had to hear in my lifetime. During delivery, you’ll get medication for nausea but it may not suffice. You still might puke. Not to mention, I just read that it is not unlikely to have a bowel movement during the process. They never showed any of this when Elyse Keaton gave birth to Andrew on Family Ties!
I’ve heard enough. C-Section it is.
With thirty minutes to go in the class, Suzanne pops in the C-Section DVD. The video shows a woman who pushes for 3 hours before she is taken for a Cesarean. As they roll the woman to the operating room, I am compelled to ask;
“Are they going to show everything?”
“Yes. Of course.”
And like the proverbial train wreck, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching the Blair Witch Project. I was terrified but still peeking through my hands, which were shielding my eyes. The knife slices her open. Suddenly, there is a head. The doctors are holding the head while someone is using a blue, what looked to be a miniature turkey baster, around the infant’s neck.
“Good Lord! What are they doing to that child?!”, I couldn’t help shouting. I think someone answered me (it may even have been Tracy) but I do not recall what was said. The baby comes out and other stuff follows and if I never hear the word “discharge” again, it’ll be too soon. We were both woozy after this session.
Ok, so vaginal is out. C-section is out. I am praying there is an option #3 I haven’t read about yet.
It was about halfway into our 3rd parenting class when I asked the teacher this question. She looked at me peculiarly as if to say, why would anyone want to do that? Suzanne, the teacher, then told me she has seen it done, although it is fairly rare.
At this point in class, she started discussing a vaginal birth and all of its gruesome details. The intense pain. The poking and prodding. Sticking a needle into your spinal cord (but not too far, like you have ample room to maneuver in there) just to help ease the discomfort. Dilating to 10 centimeters! We saw what 10 centimeters looks like. It looks like no picnic.
And that is just the beginning. How about an episiotomy? It is better to be cut than to tear naturally. That is a sentence I should have never had to hear in my lifetime. During delivery, you’ll get medication for nausea but it may not suffice. You still might puke. Not to mention, I just read that it is not unlikely to have a bowel movement during the process. They never showed any of this when Elyse Keaton gave birth to Andrew on Family Ties!
I’ve heard enough. C-Section it is.
With thirty minutes to go in the class, Suzanne pops in the C-Section DVD. The video shows a woman who pushes for 3 hours before she is taken for a Cesarean. As they roll the woman to the operating room, I am compelled to ask;
“Are they going to show everything?”
“Yes. Of course.”
And like the proverbial train wreck, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching the Blair Witch Project. I was terrified but still peeking through my hands, which were shielding my eyes. The knife slices her open. Suddenly, there is a head. The doctors are holding the head while someone is using a blue, what looked to be a miniature turkey baster, around the infant’s neck.
“Good Lord! What are they doing to that child?!”, I couldn’t help shouting. I think someone answered me (it may even have been Tracy) but I do not recall what was said. The baby comes out and other stuff follows and if I never hear the word “discharge” again, it’ll be too soon. We were both woozy after this session.
Ok, so vaginal is out. C-section is out. I am praying there is an option #3 I haven’t read about yet.
posted by Derek, Tracy & Calvin | 12:05 AM
10 Comments:
Oh you poor things! I feel for ya.
Just remember -- many women choose to go through childbirth multiple times, so it must be either 1) not as bad as the movies depict, or 2) really, really worth it, or 3) all of the above.
Good luck on that Option #3!
LOL. Maybe you can force the baby to somehow painlessly migrate through your wife's skin by sheer willpower.
I didn't have any drugs during the birth of my baby, but they did offer me gas, so I thought I'd try it. While the pain is strong enough that you sometimes do feel like you want to throw up, the gas just magnified that feeling for me. So I quit using it (that and it's somewhat unnatural to try breathing normally into a vacuum cord thingy) and felt much better.
And really, inside of a week I had forgotten about the pain of it all. It's just not something you focus on afterward at all because you now you have this delightfully squirming wriggle pot to hold in your arms and kiss and snuggle - and that FAR outweighs the pain. :)
We need to stop having other women give pointers on a men's blog. Derek, trust me, having that little squirming guy/girl wiggle in your arms will NEVER (and I mean NEVER) remove the hideous sound you hear during an episiotomy. NEVER. I still cringe just thinking about it. And - OH GOD - watching the Dr. stick needles to numb parts of a woman's anatomy where nothing sharper than what got her in this position in the first place should EVER EVER go.
I'm still waiting for the butterflies and rainbows that appear after having children to come and wash away those images and sounds.
I will tell you that - somehow - you manage to look at the stuff (and I mean STUFF..as in "I have NO idea what that stuff is") that oozes/spills/gushes out makes you more curious than disgusted. Don't get me wrong - it is entirely putrid - but at that point you're still numb from watching the needle-poking, episiotomy-scritch'ing stuff to even care.
You'll get through it. It just won't be pretty.
Update - just this morning I awoke to butterflies and rainbows. Now, I remember the entire birthing episode with a different view. In fact, I now distinctly remember a small harp section playing softly in the corner of the delivery room - right before the stork fluttered in and, in a soft French accent, announced the birth of my children.
Actually, I think my wife is angry that I'm making this experience sound so ugly. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds/looks on the videos...at least for us (we always have the ability to look elsewhere, or to run screaming from the room at any moment). When all is said and done, you'll be saying "It was gross...but not nearly as nasty as I thought" (you'll be saying this to yourself as your wife will be passed out from both exhaustion and the painkillers).
And thank you for mentioning the Blair Witch project in this blog entry. Now I remember exactly what the room stencils reminded me of.
I had my baby with NO drugs. Felt 100% of it (i'm not a hippie freak - I am a 26 year old who would rather of had no drugs then the idea of that HUGE needle going into my back for an epidural).
And in my opinion, it is better to tear NATURALLY, then to be cut. It's easier for your body to heal a tear, then one cut.
I am going to try with all of my might not to see anything I don't want to see. I too will have nightmares. The worst part is knowing how much pain Trac is going to be in and I can't help her.
As for the tearing, I am just repeating what my teacher told me. Neither seems like a very good option.
It looks gruseome but you are so excited that you don't register much pain ..... it's all so worth it! Of course I have no idea what a vaginal birth is like since I didn't get very far with that at all ... but the c-section wasn't bad .... and I healed pretty quickly. In fact I will probably opt for another c-section next time.... just because it's familiar now.
I've had 2 c-sections and they weren't that bad, sure there painful but you get over it quickly and move on to the little one that has arrived. As noted earlier, it can't be that bad if we insist on having more.
Sorry but I don't think there is a #3 option!!
My first two babies were natural deliveries with no drugs for the first!
My second two babies (TWINS) were emergency caesar at 34 weeks!...
I think that despite the pain... we get over it and do it again and again and again!!!!
Good luck! :)
What a great site »
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