Birth story: unplanned c-section. Help me understand what happened. (TW: birth trauma)

[boby777]

ETA: none of what I say here is meant to reflect anything negative towards other csection mothers. This was just my experience and my feelings about it.

I gave birth January 14th at 2:19AM to a beautiful baby girl. I am so happy she is here safely, but I feel seriously traumatized by my birth experience and I still don't fully understand what happened. I'll try to keep this brief, so here's the timeline of my labor:

January 12th (39+0) 8pm: painless contractions start. I think it's just braxton hicks.

January 13th (39+1) 1am: contractions wake me up. They feel like painful period cramps.

3am: contractions are every 2-3 minutes and 30 seconds to 1 minute long. I call L&D and they tell me to head to hospital at a leisurely pace (recommended I shower, eat, etc. beforehand).

5am: Arrive at triage. Measured 4cm, 50% effaced, station 1. Triage offered to admit me or let me go home to labor longer. My husband and I decide to be admitted.

10am: Measured 6cm, 75% effaced, station 1. At this point the pain felt unrelenting, even between contractions. I could not find a good position to manage my pain due to the continuous monitoring and I was exhausted from lack of sleep, so I requested the epidural.

11am: epidural administered. I immediately go to sleep.

12:30pm: Measured 8cm, 75% effaced, station 1. At this point I am excited and hopeful to have baby by dinner.

4pm: Still measured the same. Doctor offered to break my water and start pitocin. I accepted both.

8pm: 10cm dilated, fully effaced, station 0. I was told I'd start pushing as soon as OB finished up with a c-section. I still don't feel an urge to push, so I don't mind waiting.

9:30pm: start pushing with guidance of nurse and OB. Epidural has worn off quite a bit so I can feel my contractions and time pushing with them. At some point I develop a low-grade fever so the OB gives me antibiotics out of concern for infection. OB steps out and has me continue pushing with nurses.

11pm: OB informs me that baby has not descended at all in last 1.5 hour of pushing. She casually mentions we might need to consider c-section due to failure to descend, my fever, and baby's heart rate was elevating with every push. I feel so overwhelmed and like a failure that I spiral into an emotional breakdown. I ask everyone to leave the room so I can speak to my husband. I ask him what to do. My husband is also an MD and has been coaching me through pushing the entire time, so I feel best putting this decision in his hands. He suggests I push a little longer with the aid of a nurse that I liked.

January 14th (39 + 2) 12am-ish: After another 30+ minutes of pushing, the nurse lets me know nothing has changed. Baby is still at station 0 and I should consider c-section. She tries to assure me that this is not my fault, but I just accept defeat and lay on the bed crying while my husband holds me.

From there they start prepping me for surgery and I won't go into too much detail about the actual c-section. I am still processing the whole thing. I had a panic attack during the procedure and was vomiting and uncontrollably shaking the entire time. I think it was the worst day of my life. I was in such a bad place mentally that I refused to see my daughter until we go to the recovery room. I still have a lot of guilt about that.

I just don't understand what happened. Did I not push hard enough? The OB and nurses try to assure me that it was not my fault, but I am struggling to accept that there was just no reason. The baby was in a good position and was only 7lbs 6 oz. I am already worried about my chances for VBAC and if there's something I did to cause this, then maybe I can work on it before the next pregnancy? If anyone has any insight, I appreciate it.

 

[glend53]

@boby777 That's a tough time you had.

I think the most important thing to really internalize is that labor can look like this big decision tree, and everyone together contributes to the answer for each decision. Everyone's tree looks a bit different, and everyone's team is made up of professionals and non-pros who add a variety of perspectives/ biases/ preferences.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I just wanted to emphasize how it's not this smooth path with clear-cut answers.

If you are concerned about something preventing you from a vaginal birth in the future, ask your OB; you can even get the report of your time in hospital.

 

[suzannel]

@glend53 I think this is absolutely the best way to frame it. And once you go down one branch of the tree you can’t go back and redo.

My top priority was of course my baby coming safely, but with three small kids (oldest was 5) at home I knew resting adequately and allowing myself to heal from a csection would be really hard, so I wanted to avoid it.

I had similar interventions, so epidural, water breaking. The water breaking led to baby compressing his cord, and I was liter seconds from being wheeled to an OR. With the nurses help I was turned and able to labor on my side, but had a few more decels before he descended.

Part of me processing was thinking, what if I hadn’t come in (there was a blizzard and I didn’t want to have baby at home, or get stuck on the way and have baby in the car, in a blizzard). What if I had gone longer without the epidural or water breaking? And I remember the silence of the monitors being SO loud.

But I made every best decision I knew how to. Seeing right where it led, would I make different decisions in hindsight? I don’t know. Because all the concerns I had at the time were completely valid.

Op I’m so sorry you’re having trouble with the outcome.

 

[glend53]

@suzannel Oh my god: that part about the silence. Wow. I'm so glad you had capable nurses! It's clear that not everyone is assisted by people who have lots of tools in their toolbox.

And yeah- it's rare that we actually know for sure what the outcome would've been had we made a different (set of) choice(s). Sometimes, that's a blessing, but it can be hard to find closure for others. What a whirlwind it all is!

 

[suzannel]

@glend53 I typically have high faith in medical providers in general, but L&D nurses specifically. Mine, and the hospital I delivered at are proficient with Spinning Babies techniques, to which I absolutely give credit to me avoiding a c section.

To be clear, it was specific positions to help give baby room to move around that they tried, and it was a couple hours of laboring in the one position (flying cowgirl, not as fun as it sounds) on one side that baby tolerated.

This is also my little soapbox: not being monitored during labor is not for me, especially after water breaking. Without monitoring things could have been so much worse for my baby, even though I was fine. All of my what ifs about epidural vs not, waiting to come in vs not, I have no way of knowing if his cord would have still been compressed when my water broke, manually or naturally.

 

[writewords]

@glend53 Yes! There’s literally an algorithm that nurses have to follow, if this happens then we do this.

The baby just didn’t want to come out on its own, it’s not your fault OP. Nothing you did or didn’t do caused it. Remember the baby has to cooperate as well.

I had opposite experience, I was planned to have c section the next day at 6am, I went into labor literally the night before at 9pm so they had to do c section early at 2:30am.

Baby does what baby wants unfortunately

 

[freeway]

@boby777 It is important to remember that childbirth is unpredictable and things just happen by chance. You never know what is going to happen in a particular pregnancy or birth. Without modern medical interventions, a lot more women would be dying in childbirth, through no fault of their own. In my case, my baby was breech and would not spin no matter what (no known cause) and then my water broke 8 weeks early with no onset of labor (again with no known cause). You should try to make peace with chance and know that as long as you are following your doctor’s advice and best practices, there is little you can do individually to change your outcome.

 

[lookx009]

@freeway This is why I'm so pissed off by the 'woman have been doing this for millennia! Your body knows what to do! It's all about mindset!' feedback I hear so often. Women have also been dying for millennia! If it was genuinely about mindset my birth would have gone smoothly. I was unbelievably relaxed and confident. Who's got birth trauma now? It's just luck of the draw.

 

[fmliff]

@lookx009 “You exist because of generations of successful births!”

Just because I made it through my birth doesn’t mean my mother did.

ETA: oh lord, I’m so sorry, this is not a post based on lived experience. I don’t even know anyone whose mother died during childbirth.

 

[horlait]

@fmliff If you’re speaking about a real experience then I’m so, so sorry. The world trivializes the dangers, even with modern medicine. It’s not like buying a puppy.

 

[fmliff]

@horlait Oh, I’m not and I’m sorry for implying that I am. Thank you for the sympathy

 

[christmasspirit]

@lookx009 Yeah I’m with you! I really hate that sentiment and cringe every time I see someone say it! Women die from childbirth still all the time.

 

[texasgungal]

@lookx009 This mindset is so toxic imo and leads to additional trauma and blaming yourself when you need a medical intervention. I’m so grateful to live in a time where my risk of dying during birth are so low.

 

[godsgatekeeper]

@lookx009 Hard agree. Evolution doesn't give a fuck if YOU or I survive childbirth so long as some people do. The 'we are made for this' argument is so backward and stupid. We evolved in a way that flies in the face of successful, easy childbirth. Standing upright + our giant brains means even giving birth weeks or months earlier than we ideally should (based on gestational time and development of other mammals) we still struggle and suffer and are in danger because our pelvis and our baby's skulls are juuuuuuust barely compatible enough to keep the species going

 

[regondifan]

@lookx009 I also think we’re now actually no longer naturally selecting humans for “able to give birth/ be born vaginally” (and for clarity this is not a bad thing, it’s wonderful that women and children dying in birth is rare and not run of the mill). So a woman who has a pelvic opening shape where vaginal birth is very difficult instead of all her kids dying (and possibly her too) or having disabilities that mean they don’t have kids, those kids now go on to have their own. It’s a pretty high chance that her own daughter will have the same pelvic opening as her which means she’s also unable to give birth vaginally. Before, that family line may well have died off, and now they live and also have their own kids

Or if kids have huge heads, instead of them getting stuck or brain damaged they also are able to be born and have their own kids.

That’s why I think even if we did the best we possibly could with allowing unassisted birth to happen, over the generations we are going to see an increase in CS, instrument delivery etc. unassisted vaginal birth will definitely still be a thing but we need to be more accepting that assistance is going to happen. we were barely able to do it before we started saving all the women and babies that would have otherwise died

 

[yunawriter]

@regondifan Totally agree with you here and wish my midwife had been more understanding at my first appointment when we were going through medical history.

My mum had to have a true emergency C-section with me (full general anaesthetic) because my head was too big for her pelvis and I was back to back with her. I raised my concern that I would be in a similar situation, but midwife was just “everyone is different” attitude. I wish I had advocated more for myself when it came to birth plan and insisted on a planned csection.
I ended up being induced at 41+5 because baby wasn’t coming, pushed for 2 hours to baby not descending and facing sideways, ending up with a C-section because instrumental delivery wasn’t ideal. Baby ended up at 10lb 10oz, surprising everyone because I wasn’t measuring that big.

I don’t feel traumatised from my delivery, I think because I always had it in my mind that I would end up with a C-section, I just wish I had declined the induction and gone straight for a C-section, or that I planned a C-section all along.

I have also told my sister if she has children (younger and as a result of me, mum had planned csections with her and brother because it wasn’t recommended for her to trial labour) to push for growth scans and reinforce that mum had to have C-section because of small pelvis and big baby, sister had unexpected big baby and C-section.
I will also be telling my daughter the same if she wants children, and I will be there if she needs me to help with talking to the midwives. I can only hope in 20 years or so (I hope it’s at least 20 years) that the stigma around csections has gone. It’s been 30 years since my mums and I feel more people are able to openly talk about their choices but csections are still seen as “the easy way out”

I would be interested to see if any research does get done into genetics and generational csections.

Me and my mum certainly would have died at my birth, and my mum has said in another time or country neither of us would have been here, so both me and my daughter are incredibly lucky medicine/surgery has evolved from where it was say 100 years ago. Because of my C-section, my daughter was born without any injuries

 

[vocalmakeup]

@freeway This is so true. So many factors regarding childbirth are outside of our control, I almost find the term “birth plan” laughable. I am sorry OP had a traumatic time but both she and baby are healthy- this is literally the only outcome to aim and hope for.

 

[muffinpie]

@vocalmakeup It took me a long time to come to this realization after my emergency c-section with my first. When I was pregnant with my second, an OB I hadn’t met with before looked over my chart and asked me about my son and if he had any noticeable brain damage from his birth. The notes about my labor made him think that there might be long-term issues with him (which fortunately there don’t seem to be). I resented having to have the emergency c-section until meeting with this OB because I’d convinced myself that I didn’t actually need one and I should’ve kept laboring. No one had really explained to me how necessary it was. The OB described the situation being as though my son’s head were held under water while trying to breathe during each contraction. Hearing this made me not only much more accepting of the c-section, but also left me wishing I’d had the c-section sooner. I’m now at a place where I’m so grateful for modern medicine. I’m so grateful to have my son here with me, happy and healthy.

I hope OP will get to this place soon. I definitely understand how traumatic an unplanned/emergency c-section can be, but it sure beats the trauma of the alternative.

 

[quirkymango]

@vocalmakeup For real. The only true "plan" is that there will be a birth. Whatever else happens, happens

 

[armorbear1]

@vocalmakeup I just want to mention that physical health is only one piece of the puzzle. Everyone’s situation and feelings around birth is different, but we need to protect people’s mental and emotional health also. OP is telling us she’s struggling and saying physical health is the only outcome to aim for can be quite minimizing.