High Risk Pregnancy, Cascade of Interventions, Emergency C-Section
It’s 2022, I’m pregnant with my first child. I’m Type 1 Diabetic- which automatically places me as a high risk pregnancy. My husband and I have been through the Bradley Method Natural Birth Class while simultaneously attending high-risk pregnancy appointments. It is so hard to bridge the two worlds together to decide what interventions or lack of would be best for our family.
“Do your exercises, eat healthy, avoid toxins to ensure a low-risk pregnancy…”
“… But being Diabetic automatically means you’re already high risk.”
” Avoid inductions, epidurals, & other interventions to for the health and safety of you and your baby… “
” … You’ll need to be induced by 39 weeks or else your chance of stillbirth increases”
Eventually I’m 38 weeks pregnant and its time to start making decisions. Its a Friday morning- I decide to get a membrane sweep done as a “natural” effort to get baby to come to avoid the conversation of being induced at 39 weeks. I then spend the next two days endlessly walking, using my yoga ball, and praying to go into labor.
Saturday night comes, I get into bed and feel a “pop”. My water breaks. I get up, soo excited and adrenaline pumping, to walk to the bathroom as I yell for my husband. I call the hospital to let them know my water broke and will be waiting at home for contractions to start (again wanting the most natural labor possible).
Their reply is an urgent “well if your water broke you need to come in to be checked”. Ugh, more confliction. We head into the hospital. Its 12am- Covid masks are on and my cervical check says I’m 3cm dilated. Nurses confirm it was indeed my water that broke so I’m to wait here until baby is born.
8:00 am – I’m still not having contractions, so they tell me I need to start Pitocin since we don’t want to reach the 24 hour mark of my water being broken. Well, Pitocin wasn’t part of the plan but I don’t want baby or I to get an infection- so okay.
But what comes with Pitocin? Continuous fetal monitoring and IV fluids, so now I get be connected to this pole on one side of the room though they allow me to still sit on the yoga ball. Pitocin starts, and it works. Works as in boy do I start feeling those contractions- but all in my back. Yuck
I no longer want to be on the yoga ball, I don’t want to be playing a card game, I’m not having fun anymore. I try to sit in the bed with my fists under my lower back to help get through my contractions. They do another cervical exam and I am 6 cm. At this point I’m really struggling, I remember telling my husband & mom,
“I’ve already failed at having a natural birth, so I might as well get the Epidural”
The nurses encourage me to get it; Epidural goes in. I feel so much relief, but I can still feel the dull ache of back labor with each contraction. I’m also starving but am officially on a clear liquid diet so a popsicle it is. I finally get to a point where I am about to fall asleep… but here come the nurses. They do another cervical exam and I’m 8 cm dilated. They leave telling me to let them know as soon as I start feeling pressure.
Okay so now I’m trying to decide with every single contraction- was that pressure? Is this pressure? DO I have to poop or ? I call them back in, they do a check- 9 cm, but now I’m running a fever of 101 degrees. So they start a bag of antibiotics then tell me I can go ahead and start pushing.
“Push like you have to poop”
I’m pushing. On my back, on my side, hands & knees. I’m completely delirious at this point. I feel like I’m in a fever dream. I’m just listening to them tell me what to and I am pushing as hard as I can. I’m holding back tears because I am just. so. tired.
They start getting worried about baby’s heart rate… I cannot understand what they’re saying at the time but they tell me we’re going into the operating room and I can try a few more pushes there. I get wheeled in and do a couple more contractions worth of pushes as the doctor and techs all stare at the monitors, waiting for my baby’s heartrate to come back up. I overhear her tell my husband,
“She gets one more push then its a C-Section.”
I ask the OB if she prays, she said yes. She asked if I wanted her to pray and I nod my head yes. She prays over me, I do my final push and baby does not come. I’m moved to the operating table. The anesthesiologist proceeds to tell me my epidural isn’t strong enough so he will have to put me under general anesthesia. In that moment I was beyond caring, I was so excited to finally get to sleep.
I wake up and the nurses are telling me the surgery went good and my husband is bringing me my baby. I get to hold him and start breastfeeding.
God truly blesses us with a successful & positive breastfeeding journey despite the nurses having my family feed baby a bottle of formula, and it being over an hour until his first latch. I ended up breastfeeding him for 19 months.
Postpartum is rough though; I develop postpartum depression and cannot let go of the negative emotions surrounding my birth experience…
- I missed the first hour of my son’s life.
- I shouldn’t have gotten the membrane sweep; it caused my water to break first.
- I wish they’d helped me avoid the epidural, I could’ve pushed better.
- I should’ve been doing positional work while pregnant because he was probably sunny-side-up
- Was it actually necessary? Did it truly save one or both of our lives?
The thoughts are endless.
Even my body knew of the emotional weight I was carrying as it took over 4 months for my incision to heal. I see NOW that the cesarean was most definitely necessary, but the initial interventions leading to the cesarean were definitely NOT necessary. However, this experience was needed to be the first stepping stone on my path to birth work.
My lesson for this birth? God is Sovereign over all.
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