There’s this moment. Once you become pregnant. And I’m guessing it’s at a different time for every woman. But at some point you realize… the baby inside of you has to come outside of you. And that can certainly be something to try to wrap your mind around. Because as much as I loved being pregnant, there was no part of any of my three labors where I felt like I was skipping through fields of daisies with my arms outstretched while I basked in the sun. No, no. Labor was legit. Too legit to quit. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again folks… if it weren’t work it wouldn’t be called labor. And so, for today’s reading, I’ve compiled *potentially* the longest blog possible {shock. ing.} on my thoughts on the two ways to help a babe exit the building.
My first two deliveries were vaginal. I know, I threw that word out there without any warning. If you’ve had children, that word doesn’t scare you but throw it out in mixed company or at a Husker watch party and it can garner quite a reaction. Vaginal. There. Now maybe you’re desensitized to it. There are, at least that I know of, only two ways to get a baby out. And one is by taking it out the way it originally went in. And so there is no better word to describe it, than vaginally.
And then, of course, there’s a cesarean section. And that, for some reason, doesn’t make people uncomfortable to say out loud or over appetizers at happy hour. Which, to me, is seriously quite odd. I mean, we’re talking about cutting a hole in your stomach. And pulling parts out. And then putting it all back together. With stitches and sutures and whoknowswhatsits, galore. But people talk about c-sections like they’ve just asked you to pass the salt. For example, if you’ve had a babe, you may have noticed that when many people ask about your delivery, they will often say, “did you do it naturally?”, which would suggest they are asking if you had an epidural, when in fact, what they truly think they are asking is, “was it vaginal?”. Because they think that natural = vaginal. I mean it when I say, people would rather talk about having your stomach sliced open than have to utter the V word.
Before Mr. H came on the scene, I’d had two vaginal deliveries. And I have to say, I was pretty pleased with that. I was fully versed in all things related to dilating, effacing, those big crochet hooks that break your water, and at which point I could get my best friend, the epidural. The first delivery I labored for 92 hours, in the Sahara Desert, with no cable or water. Okay, not really. But to me, it felt like I should have gotten a brownie for my efforts. With a little dollop of ice cream. And some hot fudge. It was physically much more labor-intensive than my second, which was pretty darn manageable when I consider I was able to bring a human into the world at the end of it. And while both were exhausting, I felt like I could totally handle it again. So, given my progression from near-death {I kid…} to easy peasy labor cheesey, I was envisioning, having heard that each labor gets easier, walking into the hospital and basically giving a little cough and seeing our third slide right out. But, alas. We do not choose these things. They choose us.
Instead. Instead I had a big bad scary c-section. Which, as it turns out, was neither big. Nor bad. Nor scary.
No joke.
So what do I think was better?
If you’d asked me immediately following, I would have given the nod to a cesarean. Maybe it was our situation this time… and the fact that they’d let us know earlier in the day that the babe would come that day, one way or the other … but the initial aftermath of the delivery had me thinking I’d won a prize having a cesarean on the third go-round. And if you didn’t have to labor before your c-section, I’m sure it would seem there was even more upside. It’s scheduled, which all the planners just love these days. It’s pretty cut and dry {pun intended}. And you know the amount of time it’s going to take.
With a vaginal delivery, you’re pretty lucid, even if you’ve had pain meds, you get to see the baby immediately after its grand reveal. And though at the end of both deliveries, the mom is left in the dust while babe steals the show, there was perhaps, for me, more mental closure to going through the process of vaginal delivery. With a c-section it somehow felt even more surreal.