Unplanned C Section

Around 4:00pm on March 3rd (my due date) I was checked into the hospital 8 cm dilated and ready to start the journey of labor. Everything was moving along good, contractions were coming stronger but I was able to handle them. A little before 8:00pm my midwife checked me again and I was finally 10 cm dilated, at this point I passed up the chance of an epidural when the anesthesiologist left for the night. 

I pushed for about an hour and was checked again, my daughter wasn't descending as much as she should've been but she wasn't in danger so we decided to keep moving forward with a natural birth. The midwife also broke my water now to see if that would help bring her down, when she did this she noticed meconium in the fluid. 

I got up and tried different positions to try and get her out, and pushed for another hour. When the midwife checked me again my daughter had moved slightly but the pain was starting to get to me. She offered me medicine to help relieve some of the stress/anxiety and hopefully get me in a better state of mind to finish pushing her out. After another 45 minutes of pushing my contractions started to slow down and at this point I was offered two choices; one was to have a c section and the second was to get a round of pitocin and see if that would restart my contractions. 

I gave into the pain, stress and anxiety of labor and chose the c section. Half of me felt instantly relived that the pain was going to end and I would be able to finally meet my daughter but the other half of me felt like I let myself and my body down. 

At 11:39pm my daughter was brought into the world, she ended up being stuck in my pelvis and they had to shimmy her out. She had a little bit of meconium in her lungs but they were able to get it out and other than that she was perfectly fine. Even hearing that she wouldn't have fit didn't help, I still felt like I let my body down. 

I don't know if I'll ever stop questioning my decision and be okay with the c section. All I ever wanted and planned was to have a natural birth and I feel like I failed at the one thing women were made to do. My fiancé has been very supportive and tells me all the time I made the right choice. It's just hard to get out of my own head. I just hope by sharing my story it will help me come to terms with what happened.