(30) Annie was off work before my c-section officially began
but she colored it in a powerful way.
She was one of my L&D nurses in pre-op.
I’d found out that if my baby was over 4000g
(Eight pounds thirteen ounces),
she would receive a minimum of four glucose checks
(heel sticks),
and more if her numbers were low.
It was hospital policy
(the ultimate conversation stopper).
I feared nursery observation and formula pushing ahead.
Mama Bear was on high alert.
I knew my almost 42-weeker would be over 8lb 13oz.
I grow chunky babies.
But I’d passed my glucose tolerance test with flying colors at 105;
I didn’t have anything close to gestational diabetes.
Plus I could easily express colostrum.
Even if my big girl was slow to nurse
my baby would not go hungry.
And I’d previously had a 9lb baby at 41 weeks with no glucose issues.
I wanted my baby to be left alone if she was healthy
like she would have been at home.
I explained all this to Annie.
Said I wanted to buck the hospital policy and
offered to do a modified version of the protocol.
I asked her for her help.
She talked to the nurse manager.
She talked to the pediatric nurse practitioner.
Apparently he asked her if he should come talk to me.
Annie told him no and that I was “pretty reasonable.”
I am so glad I was spared a lecture from the PNP.
I had to sign a form saying my child could die or have brain damage
(so that was cute),
and another nurse urged me to consent to protocol if my baby was symptomatic
(obviously!),
but my request was granted.
My 9lbs 3oz baby did not have routine sticks.
And Annie gave me a great gift before clocking out that night:
“You can refuse anything you want,” she said.
“You’re the mom.”
Maybe she thought I was nuts, maybe she didn’t agree —
it matters not.
Annie was a patient advocate, which, I believe, is
a nurse’s most important role.
She crowned me with great authority.
She recognized my inherent jurisdiction.
She submitted to me when I had to submit to everyone.
She called me by my title.
She reminded me I still had some control.
(31) I had a night nurse who was okay.
She was fine, polite.
Just not warm and fuzzy.
Her name was something like Emma.
She crisply told us about the no cosleeping policy
at 10PM when we rolled into postpartum.
But I appreciated it so much
that Emma simply charted my total noncompliance,
like a good nurse should,
instead of lecturing me about my choices.
Thank you, Emma.
Because there was no way
I was going to relinquish my child.
Not even to the plastic box crib thingy next to my bed.
My prefrontal cortex knew she would be safe.
But the reptilian brain stores trauma
and causes you to act in ways you can’t explain.
Back in nursing school
I was invited to observe a newborn circumcision.
The baby was strapped down.
The resident cut too deep.
Hemorrhage.
Panic.
The attending rushed in
to stitch up the maimed penis.
The baby wailed —
there had been no anesthetic.
I slid down the back wall of the room,
put my head between my legs,
and tried not to pass out.
The baby’s parents weren’t there.
So, Emma, I want to be a good patient
(for the most part).
But this baby will not be leaving my arms because
my brainstem just can’t tolerate it.
You put her in the plastic box at 3am —
you think I’m asleep and don’t know.
But Mama knows all.
And my husband retrieves her for me
as soon as you leave.
I sure can’t get out of bed myself.
(32) I didn’t tell anyone that night.
We shared the baby news, but not the baby girl news.
It’s become a family tradition to reveal the sex of each new addition
in person to Grandma and siblings.
So the day after Tabitha was born my mom brought
Gabriel and Phoebe up to my postpartum room.
We had dressed Tabitha in a girly onesie and swaddled her
with one of those ubiquitous hospital receiving blankets.
The kids rushed in and cooed over the newborn
sleeping between my legs on the bed.
Grandma was struggling not to erupt from all the anticipation
as we explained to our five-year-old and three-year-old
the fun game we were about to play.
“We’re going to unwrap the baby and you guys tell us if it’s a boy or a girl!”
I soon revealed a navy sleeper with pink polka dots which
caused Grandma to squeal with delight but
did not solve the mystery for the little ones.
I told Grandma to hush with my eyes
while Daddy rolled the iPhone video.
“Well let’s peek inside her diaper!” I suggested
as I unsnapped the sleeper and opened the Pampers.
Inquisitive little faces peered down to see.
“It’s a vagina!” Phoebe proclaimed with glee.
“It’s a vagina,” Gabe said, and then,
“Are you sure it’s a vagina?” and then, rechecking,
“Oh yeah, that’s a vagina.”
My boy looked slightly bummed but also content. He knew
that sisters are pretty great.
“Baby Cookie is a girl! Her name is Tabitha Eden Kim!”
We celebrated the joy that is a little girl and
I dressed my baby again, soon to be
passed from adoring arms to adoring arms.
My children held their tiny sibling
and kissed her tiny hands and face.
We explained it’s not awesome to cover up her nose and mouth
when you’re enjoying her, and that her squawks mean
she needs Mama’s nee-nees.
Grandma got her fill too, of course, and many
texts and pictures were sent out to all of
Tabitha’s tribe not present.
The next weeks and months would be hard for my kids,
particularly Weebers, as I could not pick her up
for a solid eight weeks.
She cried and did not appreciate being
defrocked
as the littlest one.
But Tabitha’s spell would get to her eventually, as time
wore on, and Mommy’s strength returned, and Gabe the ringleader liked the baby, and the strange alien creature
started laughing at Phoebe’s jokes.
The kids were fascinated by my incision.
“Show me your ouchie,” they’d say to me.
“Is that where Tabitha came out of your belly?”
I’d nod in response to this frequent question.
“We came out of your vagina, Mommy,” Gabe would say.
“But Baby Cookie was stuck! She had to come out of that cut in your belly.”
(33) “At least you have a healthy baby.”
“That’s all that matters!”
“Be thankful everything went well.”
Some people said those things.
I wondered if they thought I needed
to be told.
I wondered if they thought I was ungrateful
for the gift.
Did they think I didn’t know
the value of a healthy child?
Did they think gratitude could be separable
from meeting your long-awaited babe?
I’ve seen a baby die in childbirth.
I’ve watched my friend mourn the loss of her son.
I’ve helped NICU mothers pump milk
that would never nourish their damaged children.
You don’t need to tell me to be grateful.
This isn’t a black and white phenomenon.
It’s not grateful or grieving.
It’s grateful and grieving.
I wanted something deeply.
You didn’t have to want it for me.
But I did want it, and I didn’t get it, and that hurts.
It’s okay to want things.
It’s okay for women to want things.
Be content, be accommodating, be sweet,
says the patriarchy.
Accept your lot and move along.
Just be a good mother.
But I am not a demure status quo keeper.
I am a rabble-rouser.
I’ve got desires
pain
gratitude
love
grief
anger
joy
fear
passion
and it can all be held at once.
I don’t know another way.
You wouldn’t tell a bride
whose big day went wrong
that she ought to be thankful she’s got a husband.
You’d cry with her over the botched cake
or the ripped dress
or the thunderstorm.
My birth came with a thunderstorm.
It yielded my beautiful healthy baby.
She and I traversed the storm
and we are stronger for it.
But it was still scary and sad and hard as hell.
And I get to say so.
(34) “You didn’t try an external version?”
“You didn’t see a chiropractor?”
“You didn’t consider a vaginal breech birth?”
Other people said these things.
I broke the natural childbirth gospel.
I believed I could —
but I didn’t.
We don’t say it out loud,
us birth-obsessed folks.
But there’s an unspoken belief
that if you do the right things,
all the right things,
you will get the birth you planned.
Implication?
If you got sectioned,
you screwed up.
You didn’t want it enough.
You didn’t try hard enough.
It must have been avoidable
(because otherwise it could happen to me).
Well,
it could happen to you.
(PS I went to the chiropractor often.)
Your armchair analysis of my choices is painful.
I did the best I could, and I shouldn’t
even have to say that.
I am not my birth’s lawyer
and I’m not interested in being put on the stand
to answer a prosecutor’s questions.
You weren’t there.
I hope you never have to be.
(35) Walking soon after surgery
is crucial for post-op healing.
Ambulation:
you gotta do it.
Every nurse knows that.
But when you’re the the patient
and you had your gut
sliced open
twelve hours prior,
it feels like the dumbest thing you could possibly do.
The tech dragged me out
of my warm bed
at 0700 to do a lap.
Doctor’s Orders.
She pushed my IV pole and
stayed close to my side
in case I collapsed on the floor.
I sweated profusely
as I made my way around the unit.
Halfway through
I thought I was going to pass out
and requested a wheelchair to rest in.
My freshly sewn incision would
surely burst open
with all this evidence-based exertion.
The tech made a flippant comment
about how a c-section
was her worst nightmare.
I craned my neck to look at her,
incredulous.
I wanted to say to her,
do you not know
that I just had one of those
last night?
And while I’m dragging
ay maimed body around,
and feeling faint,
and so very sweaty,
it does not help me
to hear
that to be in my shoes is your worst nightmare.
We made it back to my room,
back to the refuge of my bed.
And I told the tech,
take those horrible socks off me
and rid me of these blankets,
because I’ve never felt so on fire in my life.
(36) It’s bizarre
defying categorization.
Who am I?
A homebirth mom?
A c-section mom?
What the heck happens
when you take an
organic-food-preferin’
placenta-encapsulatin’
Ina-May-idolizin’
birth-kit-and-pool-buyin’
routine-procedures-refusin’
maybe-some-controls-issues-havin’
HOMEBIRTH MAMA
and put her in the big bad hospital?
And paralyze her?
And cut her open with a knife?
Who is she after that?
I asked my midwife lots of questions.
I asked my previous midwives
lots of questions too.
I needed help from my birth tribe to wade through it all.
I focused on my indication for surgery:
BREECH PRESENTATION.
And I second-guessed
and third-guessed
and fourth-guessed
could, should, would
I have done anything differently?
I collected my circle of midwives’ feedback
like jewels in my cesarean crown.
Jetta said my birth was beautiful & amazing.
She said I was a picture of grace & bravery.
She said my birth changed her and she’ll never forget it.
She was my witness.
Jetta was there on my couch, on the other end of the phone call, and only a text away
when I needed to tell another part of the story
and ask another question
and cry about my final reproductive act taking place in that freezing operating room.
Nicole told me my birth had touched her deeply
and she sent me the most gorgeous artwork
honoring the surgical birth journey.
She pointed out to me that you cannot
do a Pitocin induction with a breech baby.
Vaginal breech birth must
begin with spontaneous labor, and proceed
smoothly, the experts say,
if it’s going to be safe and successful.
So if baby declares,
“I’m not coming out on my own,”
and thwarts labor repeatedly,
that baby might have a deeper wisdom.
She might know she needs help,
and she should be listened to.
Nicole’s words helped me feel my surgery was needed.
Mary and Allison shared breech stories.
They validated how few providers are skilled in vaginal breech.
They validated how hard of a decision it would be,
as a mom, to choose a delivery plan
when breeches sometimes slip out like butter,
and Frank breeches are safest of the variations,
and considering I’d birthed two chubby babies before,
and cesareans are no small thing,
but also when breech-savvy doctors are a rare breed,
and my babies have big heads,
and my labors tend to be long and atypical,
and some risks aren’t worth taking.
They spoke of harrowing surprise breeches
at home,
that were truly traumatizing.
911 emergency.
Used every maneuver in the book to get baby OUT.
Big episiotomies on mom.
Lots of resuscitation.
They said they would never
attend a known breech
at home.
And these are homebirth midwives.
They value homebirth.
But ultimately they value evidence-based care,
healthy babies,
healthy mamas,
and thriving families.
So I collected these jewels of wisdom, carefully
constructing my cesarean
crown of glory
with bits of reason, bits of understanding, bits of acceptance.
I integrated my birth experience.
Slowly, thoughtfully, as I could.
Sort of because I had to,
(can’t undo it, no backsies)
but also because I deserved to
learn from it,
find the beauty in it,
harvest its fruits,
and eat them with others.
Homebirth moms who have cesareans
undergo metamorphosis.
They remain the same creature, but they
emerge from their chrysalis
with wings,
now equipped to see the world
from a higher vantage point.
Peace, Love, & Spit Up 