My First Birth (Anonymous)

~Your Age: 25 now (23 when my son was born)
~Number of pregnancies and births: 1
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 2 years

This is long so please bare with me

August 2016 I was told I had a higher chance of not being able to have kids because I had PCOS. My husband and I were sad when we found out…. We started having sex thinking nothing of it cuz hey I couldn’t get pregnant… well we were wrong. November 2016 we found out I was 8 weeks pregnant.

During pregnancy everything was fine. My son was growing perfectly. I had the usual morning sickness 1st trimester, burst of energy 2nd trimester, and super uncomfortable 3rd trimester. I gained a lot of weight… pre-pregnancy I was 150lbs…. I am 2 years post partum and I now weigh 200 after losing 30lbs the last few months.

My husband and i were planning a homebirth (his mom had 13 kids and all were homebirths). I’ll be honest I wasn’t very fond of the idea because I didn’t know people still did homebirths. But I did A LOT of researching and I came to the conclusion it would be good, less stressful, easier cuz you’re doing it in the comfort of your home. A lot of friends and family on My side told me there is no way I could do a home birth. But I wanted to give it a try.

My husband and I went grocery shopping on my due date and that night I started labor-i didn’t realize it was true labor so I just went to bed. Around 5 the next morning I woke up with horrible contractions. My husband decided to stay home from work… 12 hours later I only progressed to 4cm. I was throwing up cuz of the pain. I was already tired but I was determined to have a home birth and prove the people who told me I couldn’t that I could (cuz I am very hard headed). Another 12 hours passed and I got to 7cm. I was to the point I kept feeling like pushing but I couldn’t. I was beyond exhausted. My husband kept telling me something wasn’t right (as he is the 2nd oldest out of the 13 kids)… But I kept telling him I wanted to continue. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. Well another 15 hours passed (now I’ve been in labor for 39 hours) I was still at 7cm. I wasn’t progressing. I was in a tremendous amount of pain. I was exhausted (as I hadn’t slept for the past 39 hours). I was dehydrated as I couldn’t keep anything down (I kept throwing up). I couldn’t walk. But I was still determined. I continued to labor at home for another 10 hours and by then I still hadn’t progressed I was even more tired and exhausted. And that’s when my husband said we are taking you to the hospital whether you want to or not. We drove 40 mins to the nearest hospital (my midwife had called ahead and they had a room all ready for me). We got there about 5pm (2 days after I had started labor). They decided to give me an epidural. But because my spine wasn’t aligned they had to poke me 3 times to get it in correctly. All the while I’m having contractions.

Once they got the epidural in it made the back pain even WORSE! The doctors decided to break my water (as it still hadn’t broke) and they found my son had pooped in the amniotic fluid. As soon as they saw that they pulled my husband aside and told him I was going to need a c section (during pregnancy I told my husband I did not want a c section. I wanted to do it naturally). My husband said he told the doctor that was the one thing I didn’t want and the doctor told him if they didn’t do it I might die and our baby most certainly will die. She told my husband our sons heartbeat was dropping because he has been in the birth canal way too long and he was getting stressed. They told my husband I had been in labor so long they didn’t know how much longer I would make it. So my husband came back and told me what they said and we decided to do a c section (and I only decided to do it because I wasn’t going to lose my son because I wanted to do it my way).

They got me down to the surgery room and my hsuabnd said they started asking the normal questions before a surgery ie my name, age all that. Then they asked “what are we performing on you?” And my husband said I screamed “YOU’RE GETTING THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!!” and everyone started laughing.

After they got the spinal in me and numbed me from the chest down I remember laying down and just letting out a humongous sigh of relief because there was no more pain. When my husband was finally allowed in the surgery room he came around the curtain and looked at me and said “you’re smiling. It feels like I haven’t seen your smile in so long.” ??

And after a total of 54 hours my son Gabriel was born at 11:04pm on July 14 2017. He weighed 8lbs7oz, was 21in long and he was PERFECT. He came out holding his head up. Wasn’t even crying just looking around at everyone. The first thing I said after he was born was “is he really a boy?” And my husband said “yes babe he is definitely a boy.”

My son is 2 years old now and is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am still overweight but I am working to lose it. I have my c section scar and when I see it it reminds me of what a supermom I was. It reminds me of the pain I went through. The tears I cried. How scared I was. And then how happy, joyful and peaceful I was when I held my son finally. I have horrible stretchmarks on my stomach, thighs, butt, hips and boobs. But those are the marks of a woman who loves her child so much that was was willing to let her body change in order to bring her child into this world. My stretchmarks and c section scar are not ugly to me. They are beautiful and a huge reminder of all the stuff I went through to bring my perfectly wonderful son to this world.

~Your Age: 25 now (23 when my son was born)
~Number of pregnancies and births: 1
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 2 years
~Any key words (second pregnancy, plus sized mom, cesarean, etc): plus size, cesarean

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *