Birth story- induced and prolapsed cord

My entire pregnancy, I never created a birth plan. My “plan” was to listen to my doctors and do what they advised. However, I did have a vision of how I wanted my birth to go. I wanted to vaginally deliver, I wanted my wife to cut the cord, I wanted immediate skin to skin contact and to breast feed my daughter right away, and I wanted my wife to be able to do skin to skin to bond with her. I wanted to experience the magical, empowering process of child birth and feel that I accomplished something amazing. 

I did not get to experience any of these things. My birth was traumatic and scary and nothing could have prepared me for the perfect storm of events that brought my beautiful baby girl into this world. 

I had to be induced at 37 (2/15/19) weeks due to gestational hypertension. We started with a foly bulb to get me to start dialating. That was quite painful, with piggybacking contractions, but I did it all without pain meds. Despite being in so much pain, I felt empowered and strong. When I was 4cm dialted, they took the foly bulb out and started me on pitocin. 

I was only on it for a few hours. I was tolerating the contractions with no pain meds. My wife was holding me and I was even able to sing through each contraction. I had Billie Eilish, Dodie, Ariana Grande and Beyoncé bumpin in the room and was eating ice cream and feeling strong and connected to my wife and daughter. The doctors were shocked at how well I was doing with the contractions because the pitocin contractions usually are really intense. 

But I didn’t dilate past 4 cm, despite having contractions every 1-2 minutes. They couldn’t up my pitocin, so the only next thing they could do to advance the process was break my water. That’s when things went really horrible. 

When they broke my water, there was so much water that her head floated back up and she reached her hand out of my cervix and she was facing the wrong way, “Sunny Side Up” they call it. They only thing they could hope for was her for to pull her hand back up on her own and turn herself the right way. I had another huge gush of fluid and it made her pull her hand back up, but when she did, somehow the umbilical cord came out of my cervix, which is an emergency. Nothing could prepare me for hearing the doctor saying “we have a prolapsed cord, 911- page everyone- we have to do an emergency c section”. She jumped up on the bed with me, as they wheeled me to the operating room because she had to hold the baby’s head off the cord, because if i had a contraction with it out like that, it would cut off oxygen to her and she would suffocate. 

So I was rushed into an emergency c section. My wife wasn’t able to come with me and I rushed into a room with dozens of doctors, alone, and literally convulsing with fear. I had been rocking the whole process with no pain meds, and because it was an emergency, there was no time for an epidural, so they had to give me general anesthesia for it. I wasn’t responding well to being intubated and I was aspirating on the table, so it took the anesthesiologists longer than normal to get me intubated. They only had about 60 seconds to get her out of me before she felt the anesthesia and so they were rushing to cut. They rushed so much that they cut the back of my daughters head with the knife and had to call in a plastic surgeon from Children’s to stitch her back up. 

Despite the cut on her head, she was super healthy. Came out screaming (as they’re supposed to) and passed all tests with flying colors. 

I on the other hand, woke up screaming in pain, because I couldn’t get the nerve block, I could feel where they cut me. Heavy dose of morphine got my pain under control. I had lost so much blood that I almost needed a blood transfusion. 

I didn’t get to meet my daughter for an hour after she was born because they had to stitch her up. The only silver lining to that is that My wife and I got to meet her together at the same time. I did then get to do skin to skin and breast feed her, but I was in such shock and heavy dosed that it all feels so foggy still. My wife also luckily got to do skin to skin. But I think we were both in such shock that we couldn’t fully bond with her in the magical way we had spent 9 months dreaming of. 

We spent 3 days in the hospital healing and bonding. But then to put the cherry on top of this storm, my wife got super sick with a fever and had leave the hospital for 24 hours until the fever broke. Thankfully my mom was there for me, but I feel so sad that she didn’t get to be there for the first days of her daughters life and for me. 

Now, a month later, I still find myself trying to process all of this. I have frequent, scary flashbacks of being in the operating room alone and terrified. I have a deep sadness and mourning of missing out on an experience that I so deeply wanted. I feel like I failed childbirth. Everyone keeps telling me “good job mama” but I feel like I didn’t do anything. I was put on conscious and my baby was cut out of me and injured in the process. I feel almost betrayed by my doctors because I put my faith and trust into them and so many decisions they made, lead to such dangerous outcomes. I feel like Audrey wasn’t ready to come and if we had tried to treat the gestational hypertension, she could have come naturally and safely. But most of all I feel like I should have advocated better for myself. 

But then I look at my daughter and her sweet face and see that she is okay. The most important thing is that I have my baby girl in my arms and that despite this storm of events that brought her into the world, she is completely and utterly happy and healthy. And I am thankful. 

I look at my wife, who is doing everything she can to take care of Audrey and me, driving herself insane with worry but yet being so strong for me and for Audrey. And I am grateful.

I look down at my scar and see that it’s healing and I look inside myself and tell myself I can heal from this. And I am hopeful. 

It wasn’t my plan for her to come to us this way, but it is now my story and like so many other things in my life, it has made me stronger. It’s going to take some time to be okay, but I have my daughter and my family and we are so excited for this new journey and so in love with our Audrey Lane.