What I Wish I Had Known About: Delivery

For me, delivery felt sort of like when you're speeding down the interstate and you suddenly roll the window down and the air WHOOSHes in really quickly deafening you and changing the pressure in the air.  For a moment I couldn't hear any of the sounds in the room.  There was only me and Miles and the change in pressure resulting from the way gravity shifted as he became the center of my universe (it's cliche, I know, but seriously, it's true).  In that moment nothing else mattered but my love for him and my need to keep him safe.  I was surprised by how primal my instincts were.  As much as I understood why I had to be still and let the doctors sew me back up, I have rarely felt an urge so strong as my desire to jump off the operating table and run to him, hold him, protect him.  The fact that I couldn't (I was strapped down, as every C-Section patient is) made me cry.  It was surreal.  
I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  I should make sure you know that I had a C-section after almost 3 months of bedrest due to a complete placenta previa.  Every woman's delivery is unique for many reasons, so before I go explaining things I wish I'd known, I need to clarify my own circumstances.  Also, because each woman's delivery is unique I know that this information might not be particularly useful.  But I'm still working from the perspective that if I had had the chance to read this blog before my own delivery, it would have been helpful for me.  I'll try to be concise....  :)

You deliver a C-Section in the operating room, not a delivery room.  Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but it was not immediately obvious to me.

I knew I would have a C-Section from early on in my pregnancy, and everyone told me that Matt would be allowed to be with me the entire time.  What they neglected to tell me is that "the entire time" DOES NOT include during the epidural & spinal--the time when I was the most frightened!  Looking back on this, it makes sense: it's a sterile environment and they wouldn't necessarily want a nervous husband close to his wife as she's getting a needle the length of a ruler inserted into her spinal column.  Still.  I wish someone would have told me I'd have to do that part alone.

Having said that, one of the nurses sat across from me while I got the injections and held my hands, talked to me and told me exactly what the doctors were doing and that everything was going to be fine.  I'm not a person who would typically rely on a stranger, but when I was so scared it was SO comforting to let myself listen to her voice and block out everything else.

I never knew you could get the shakes from anesthesia.  I'm sure adrenaline was involved too, but my worst pain of the entire delivery/recovery was from shaking so hard for 2 hours straight.  Not everyone reacts to anesthesia this way, but because I didn't even know it was a possibility I was not at all mentally prepared for it.

Your connection with baby will come at it's own time.  Some women feel a connection early after conception.  They might read, sing and talk to baby while he/she is still in the womb.  For me, this wasn't the case. I couldn't conceptualize the enormity of what was happening inside me.  Some women feel it at the birth, some women--especially women who struggle with the baby blues--might feel it later.  I have never considered myself to be a particularly  maternal being, never really felt comfortable around infants.  I was afraid I wouldn't know what to do when the baby was born.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't magically understand everything about babies.  But the connection and the desire to learn far surpassed my expectations.

Your breasts will get HUGE and ROCK HARD and be PAINFUL for a day or two, maybe more, while your milk comes in.  Bring a ginormous, comfy, soft sports bra or nursing bra to wear in the hospital.  I didn't bring any bras that would fit and SO wished I had!

As usual, I feel as though there's so much I'm forgetting...but it's a start.