How to Prepare for an Unplanned C-Section
I get it. You’re going into your delivery and there’s no way you’re going to have a c-section. I’ve been there. When I was pregnant with my first, I was 23 years old, actively doing crossfit, and had taken the entire Bradley-Method 12-week course in order to properly prepare for my inevitable all-natural delivery.
On top of that, I had done my research. Most c-sections were avoidable. Many times births resulting in a c-section are due to ineffective pushing caused by receiving an epidural. I wasn’t getting one of those, so I’d be in the clear. Combine that with my wholehearted belief in positive thinking and using your throughts to conjure up your reality, and I was confident that I was sitting pretty for this birth. I had done everything right.
I did all of my research on how to deliver naturally. I could’ve given a seminar on it. I spent all of my time walking through my birth plan and visualizing how this smooth delivery was going to go. I was ready. When anyone uttered the word c-section, I would quickly tell them “I’m not going to even speak that, because it’s not going to happen.” Did I even do a single Google search on c-sections? Nope. I wasn’t having one.
I bet you can guess where this is going… 40 weeks come and go and next thing you know I’m in the hospital actually giving birth to this baby of mine. For 14 hours I successfully avoided any form of medication. I did it. I was finally at 10cm, I had recieved no epidural, and it was time to push. All that was left was to get this baby out of me.
I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. For 3 hours I pushed. For 3 hours, he didn’t progress. The medical staff eventually concluded that he was in the wrong position, and that due to that positioning, he couldn’t make it through the birth canal. We attempted to turn him with no luck. The longer this went the more I began to lose focus. They put me on oxygen as my last hope to not pass out. Finally it was determined that if this baby was going to come out of me, it was going to need to be through surgery. And there I was, having a c-section.
This was crazy. I honestly wasn’t even totally sure what a c-section was, and now they’re asking me to take my wedding ring off and they’re wheeling me back for surgery. Oh, how incredibly unprepared I was for this.
If you want to “wing it” and totally not prepare for your lunch today, and just live on the edge and see where the day takes you, by all means go for it. That sounds exciting! What I don’t suggest is winging it when it comes to a major freaking abdominal surgery. If you do, you’ll be like me, laying on the operating table while the doctor slit me open and nudged some of my organs around before extracting a baby from me, wondering why in the world I was nauseus, shaking uncontrollably, and unable to move my fingers on my left hand. Sounds fun doesn’t it?
Fast forward to laying in the recovery room and not knowing what this surgery meant for my post-partum journey or, in the more distant future, what it meant for having more kids down the road. I knew literally nothing, y’all.
Here’s my suggestions after having been the idiot that thought I could roll in and out of birth completely on my own terms:
Still make an ideal birth plan and expect the best for your labor and delivery.
I’m still a believer in positive thoughts and self-talk, so there’s no reason to think that your birth will be anything short of amazing. Allow yourself to live in that midnset for 99% of your pregnancy.
Take one day to fully walk through worst-case scenarios.
You can spare one day. Take a single day and completely dedicate it to all the research you don’t want to do. Research all of the things that “aren’t going to happen to you,” just so you can be informed on what they actually are. In the case of c-sections, know what the surgery is, what they do during surgery, what are some immediate side effets following surgery, how can it effect your milk supply, how can it effect post-partum depression, what will your physical restrictions be post-partum, what roles will your husband need to fill in order to support you through your recovery, etc. Finish the day by literally walking through the c-section step by step from labor to delivery to post partum so you can visualize what it will be like and how you are going to emotionally react to the circumstance. This will give your brain a “test-run” so that it is more prepared and able to cope if it does end up happening in real life. Once you have done this, be confident that you know what you need to know, and proceed in your pregnancy with an awesome and upbeat attitude that everything is going to go great, and that you are prepared for anything.
Know that no matter how you deliver Your baby, it will all be okay and you are a straight up superwoman for bringing a human being into this world.
Vaginal, c-section, natrual, epidural. Who the heck cares. Once you become a mom, you become part of an elite crew of superheroes that have literally created life. Nobody is here to judge you over the details of how you did it. No matter how you brought a human being into this world, I can bet it was hard, and yet you did it anyways, and that is worth celebrating.