As Cillian's due date approached, I started to ask my doctor about the process of being induced. Not because I WANTED to be induced, but so I could prepare myself for the idea of Cillian getting a little help to arrive. I am a practical person, so I wanted all the information I could get. I felt well prepared.
So when Cillian's due date came and went, I was scheduled in to be induced. I tried every trick in the book to try and get him to come naturally, but he was just so cozy inside and my induction was scheduled for Wednesday October 10th, 2012. We arrived to Mt. Sinai at 8am, and by 10am I had been hooked up to monitors and was given the medication to start things rolling. Chris and I were exhausted from staying up the night before, too excited to sleep, and we settled in for what we thought would be a couple days of labour.
That afternoon, as I laboured away at home and in hospital, the doctors and nurses seemed concerned about Cillian's movement. Every time someone came in to check on me, they asked if he was moving and would poke around and move the fetal monitor to see if they could check for better movement. At 9:30pm, when they were putting in my second epidural because the first failed, the doctor came in and told me that if Cillian didn't start moving within the next five minutes they were going to take him out via c-section. His heart rate was dipping even lower, movements were minimal, and the decision was made.
The next 90 minutes passed in a blur. True to her word, after five minutes of minimal movement, the doctor was filling in Chris and I on risks of a c-section, trying her best to inform us about everything when we could see in her eyes that time was off the essence. I signed a bunch of forms, and Chris was kindly ordered to take all of our belongings to the recovery area. He was dressed in scrubs and sat down on a chair outside the operating room, to wait while they prepped me for surgery. As soon as I had signed the forms, my hospital bed was whisked out of my labour room and pushed down the hall into the Operating Room. The room was just like on ER, and it was already filled with fifteen or more people, scrubbing themselves up, and I was later informed these were doctors and nurses for me AND for Cillian since they weren't certain his birth was going to be easy. I was given s spinal in my epidural line, a curtain was put up between my neck and my belly, and Chris was invited in to sit and hold my hand while they took out our wee boy. We were informed about everything happening, the anaesthesiologist held my hand too, and she talked me through what the doctors were doing, luckily without too, too much detail, while we waited for that first scream of life from our son.
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| Our wee boy! |
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| Our first snuggle together |
But as soon as he was removed and shown to us, he was whisked away to a table where he was surrounded by a team that was furiously working on him. There was no cry. There was only air filled with fifteen or more people holding their collective breaths. After what seemed like forever, though we were told later it was about three minutes, Cillian let out his first scream, followed by his first pee, and was wrapped up and brought for his mommy to hold. True love at first snuggle.
Do I regret my labour and birth story? Not for a millisecond. Although the recovery was long and hard, Cillian was born healthy and happy, and our care was wonderful. I hope that if we have another child I won't have to go through another c-section, but that's based solely on the pain and limitations that I had to deal with after the surgery. I would hate to regret the way I met the most important person in my life.
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