I said it. A Planned Caesarean birth is absolutely magical!
When I birthed my first child Foxx completely drug free, completely through my hoo-haa nothing could prepare me for that moment. Nothing. I had it set in my mind that a vaginal, drug-free delivery is the best. That is would be a quick recovery and that it would be no where near as painful as being cut open. In fact vaginal birth would have no pain involved. That is what I told myself. Women had been doing it for years and I could too.
I did it, I gave birth out of my hoo-haa. I felt proud. Amazing that my body did such a thing! I know we aren’t all lucky enough to be able too.
Then with my second child Elle, I selected a planned Caesarean.
I feared entering the unknown of birth all over again. You see, I had done the vaginal delivery so I knew what I was in for but a c-section I couldn’t prepare for. I decided to rarely focus on it though. My first birth taught me that the way you birth has absolutely no fucking change on the blessing of whether you parent or not.
I see so many women fearful of a caesarean, others that have not experienced it also try to talk other women out of it.
But you know what, if you are on the edge of your seat and have the option to choose your type of birth I am just going to go ahead and say it…
A CSECTION CAN BE MAGICAL!
One minute I was getting a needle in my back, one that I expected to fear and be huge and hurt a bunch but in fact they numb you first, you don’t see the needle if you don’t look and it certainly isn’t actually as bad as I thought! This is coming from someone who HATES needles and the fact that the anaesthetist missed the first time still didn’t overly scare me… maybe just sent my heart racing a little more.
The best thing was we got to schedule it. The day before I was rolling around packing my bags, organising last minute things, booking a massage and going to sleep happily that night knowing I would be meeting my baby tomorrow (yes I actually slept too!). There was no contractions, no build up, no wondering how long or when it would happen but I knew.
It took 20 minutes and she was out.
Quickest birth ever right? I literally laid down, they checked I was numb and then a lady said ‘I am going to push your baby for you!’ and she was out being held up for us to see. I cried. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t feel a thing and she entered the world!
The recovery was just as pain free for me. You have drugs to soothe any pain you may feel as you wish but to be honest I barely took them and by day three I was on none completely.
It took me four weeks to recover from a vaginal birth and to be able to sit comfortably and walk for longer than 10 minutes but I was up and about and going on walks around our neighbourhood within a week of my csection.
You also get to completely recover in bed with a csection. You have the help of nurses for 5 days (if you choose to stay that long) who will come to your buzzer when you need. You get fed and truly get to recover so that when you come home to parent just you, your baby and partner you feel completely ready!
Even right after birth I felt totally refreshed. I hadn’t spent seven to seventeen hours contracting and pushing a baby out. I had a full night sleep and got to meet my baby while feeling completely refreshed!
I am not going to be one of those women that ramble on about how amazing birth is whatever way you do it but I want you to know that a Caesarean birth is acknowledged to be just as much normal as a vaginal birth. More babies survive birth nowadays thanks to the ability to have csections. That alone is absolutely amazing!
The real journey though…
The real journey is PARENTING!
Birth is a split second in the journey of parenting!
Don’t be afraid of a c-section if it is what your journey has to be or what you choose…
Don’t fear it. It was magical! I would do it again in a heartbeat!
