I didnt think it would happen to me (Caesarean Section)

Member Name: kalliemaile

Product:	Caesarean Section
Date:	21/08/04 (1288 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can save your babies life

Disadvantages: sometimes done without real reason

A ceaserean section was ever something I expected to have so I never prepared myself for it. I didnt think there was any way I would end up having one, I thought that they were really only for people who are having twins or there is some medical reason why they can not give birth- how wrong I was.
My labouir was induced due to pre-eclampsia, I then had a very difficult 17 1/2 hour labour during which I only progressed to 5 cm dilated and my baby was starting to become distressed. When my babys heart rate started to drop the doctors were called into the room and they did some blood tests on my baby whilst he was still inside me, theis involved cutting his head and taking a small amount of blood in a tube, this was then taken to a machine which tests the blood to see weather it is showing signs of distress in the unborn baby. Unfortunatly the machine was not working very well and I had to have this done 6 times which meant when my son was born he had 6 little cuts on his head. Eventually the machine showed that my baby was in distress and needed to be delivered. I was very shocked to find that even with my baby being so distressed the doctor attending to me did not want to go for an emergency ceaserean, but at only 5 cm there was no way I would be able to deliver my baby any time soon, so the midwife called in the head doctor who said I had to go to theater straight away.
I was lucky that I had been persuaded to have an epidural as there was a chance of the ceaserean, and I am so glad I had that epidural otherwise I would have had no choice but to have my baby delivered under general anestetic which would have meant that I would not have ssen my baby being born and I would have been too busy recovering from it to enjoy my babys forst hours.
When I found out that I was needing the ceaserean I went into shock and was given 100% air through a mask to try and calm me down as I couldnt breath properly. It was only a matter of minutes before I was in theat
re. I was asked to sign an agreement, I was told that it just outlined the risks of thed an opperation and gave my consent to go ahead with opperation. Admittidly I did not even read the form because I was too worried about my baby, I was willing to do whatever the doctor said needed to be done.
In one room I was prepared for the opperation, my arms were stapped down, I was told this was incase I panicked during the opperation because it would be very dangerous if I had distracted thes to deliver my son. By this point I had calmed down but began tp panic again when I could at some points feel the doctors cutting me, I started to get very unsettled and the doctors said it was normal to feel some tugging, but it wasnt just tugging I could feel, it was pain, I didnt know that an epidural doesnt always work on all areas and there may be patches where there is stilll feeling, this is very rare but my family has a bit of a history with pain relief not working too well, so the doctors but a different drug into my drip and when I could still feel the pain slightly they put a second dose in and then I was fine. It was scary being able to feel what they were doing but it didnt last long.
The opperation only lasted about 15 minutes and I could see what was going on if I wanted to by looking into the reflection on the lights above. My mum held my baby whilst the dctors stitched me back up and I was then wheeled to the post-natal ward where I held my son again. It was really overwhelming.
I began to get the feeling back after around 2 hours andI was given morphine to help with the pain.
A physiotherapist came to visit me and explain what exercises would be best for me to do to help tone up my muscles and how long I should wait before resuming certain activities. I was told I would need to stay in hospital for 5 days but by the end of the first day I was feeling useless not being able to move around and care for my son, so I asked that my catheter was remo
ved so I could get up and start walking around and using the toilet, I think this helped me recoveer alot because I went home after 3 days. During my stay in hospital, I was given an injection of Heparin twice a day to help with my circulation because I wasnt very active.
I tried to make life as normal as possible when I got home, I couldnt do ironing, lifting, sit on th floor or sit on low chairs for a few weeks because it pulled on the stitches. The community midwife removed my stitches on the 10th day and checked regularly that I was healing well. As time went on the pain got less and things started to go back to normal. For quite a few months following the opperation I had no feeling in the area around the scar but it is back now. I was very surprised that the scar was only 3.5 inches long and even more surprised when the midwife told me that I had a big scar as usually it is only 2 - 2.5 inches but becaus e mine was an emergency it was a bit bigger.

It is important to remember that a ceaserean section is actually a major opperation and it can take a long time to recover from, whilst some people medically need this opperation some people request it thinking it is the easiest way but believe me it isnt, maybe you are not in as much pain during the birth but afterwards the pain can last for weeks and it prevents you doing some evryday things such as cleaning, ironing, driving, going from sitting to standing.

Without having the c/section my baby may not have made it so I am pleased i had it however with my subsiquent pregnancy I chose to have a normal delivery because a c/section is very difficult to cope with and I did suffer from post-natal depression afterwards because I felt that I had failed by not being able to give birth properly but I now know after discussing the situation with doctors that there is nothing wrong with needing help, and I did what was best for my baby.
I was offered a c/section with my seond child because it is
proceedure to offer a c/section to anyone that has had one previously at my hospital but I declined because I ws told the reason I had for needing the section before was not one that there was a high risk of happening again and there was no medical reason for me needing one again.

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