And as most of you imaginary people reading this have probably figured out, I had a second c-section. It was better than the first. Better doesn't necessarily mean good, it just means it didn't suck quite as badly. From the perspective of a criminal life in prison is better than the death penalty, but neither is good. Everyone says that I did everything right, and that there was nothing else that I could have done. I know they mean well, but what I hear is "you did everything you could, but you failed anyway. You're just a stupid, broken, fat girl who had the audacity to think that maybe she wasn't a lemon, and that you had the right to give birth to your children." They don't realize that if I did everything I could and things still didn't work out, then the only thing you can say is that I really I am a failure. That my first birth experience wasn't a fluke, there really is something wrong with me. They blame it on the size of her head, that she was a big baby, that my pelvis had never opened before. Yeah like I don't know that people give birth to big babies on their first try all the time. I don't get why they just won't spit it out and say you're broke, you're a lemon,here's how you deal with it. I don't know how to tell him that I appreciated the fact that he acknowledged it, but when our assistant pastor called to check on me a few weeks after she was born he asked how I was doing recovering from my surgery. It's silly, but it was nice to have it acknowledged that I was recovering from surgery and not from childbirth.
Probably because I had a better idea of what to do and not do, I'm recovering better than I did last time. And yet the things I can't do frustrate me to no end. The fact that it hurts, still, to pick up our two year old. She's not even that big at between 25 and 26 pounds at 2 and a half. I want to snuggle her, and carry her, and have it be like it was before. I went to go get a prescription filled and get some milk from the commissary on Friday. I didn't want to wake the baby up, so I took the stroller into the clinic. It was a mistake,it's too heavy and I spent all day yesterday paying for it. I know it's fair, but I hate the fact that every time I think that I'm better and physically mostly back to normal that I have to be reminded that I didn't give birth. I realize that failure has consequences, but I really wish I could get away free and not be punished for my actions. Or lack there of in this situation. I don't get why I can't give birth. I saw a chiropractor. I sat on the floor. I held bags of frozen strawberries to the top of my belly while playing music to the lower portion. I managed to both prevent another posterior baby and get her to turn vertex from breech. I hired a doula. When it became obvious that the OB I'd been seeing wasn't going to support my desire to give birth, I asked for a new referral which oak weeks from the Base and switch doctors at 38 and a half weeks. I went into labor on my own,and I got to the hospital with a bulging bag of water at 8cm. I was far enough along they wouldn't let me pee in triage because they were worried about me having a toilet baby, and they actually brought the birth cart in to my room. I had no iv and no drugs whatsoever. As yet she never would come down past a -1 station, and I didn't make it any further after I was at the hospital. I don't get it. It's not fair. I get to listen to people complain because their labors went so fast they didn't have time for an epidural. People who think I. Lucky because I could have just scheduled the birth. And yet I who greatly believe in natural childbirth, and except for a short period of time right around when my water started leaking at home and based off the first time I was sure I was only at 4cm at most I never wanted drugs. And yet I can't give birth and they all can.
It's selfish. But I really do want to know what it's like to feel a baby come out of me of my own volition. To push my baby out and get to hold her immediately. To have that birth high. I want to not have to explain that mommy has a boo on her tummy. I hate the fact that it cuts me like a knife every time my little girl announces to anyone who will listens that "Waurie came out Mommy tummy!" I can't really tell her to stop because it's not like it's not true. And it's the biggest most amazing thing to happen in her life so far.
I torture myself. I google what does birth feel like. I tell everyone that I'm fine, and that at least it was better. The spinal only took one try with no nerve pain, they didn't strap my arms down, I got to hold her in the OR, hear her first cry, and that they brought her to me in recovery instead of making me wait until I got to my postpartum room where she took to nursing like a champ. Everything is great. I grieved so publicly last time much to everyone's annoyance, that I've been trying to hold it together. To not let anyone see the crazy inside, or what I'm really thinking. I don't post about the birth on Facebook except for in the closed VBAC Facts and ICAN groups. They're full of people who seem to understand, and doesn't involve my brother asking my mother if he has to hear any more about my "vajayjay." But I need to talk, I need to let it out, I ned somewhere where I can say everything that I think. To share the fact I'm walking an emotional tightrope between shutting down completely emotionally and not allowing myself to feel anything anymore, and of completely following apart into a crying depressed mess. Mostly I try not to think about it all, but boxing up your feelings and sticking them in the metaphorical closet isn't particularly healthy, and when it gets quiet the thoughts burst out anyway.
Ironically since I wasn't super thrilled to discover I was pregnant and had been researching there it's of only having one child, there's a part of me that really wants another baby and feels like part of our family is still missing. I know James wants to try for a son. And it pains me to no end, that unless a miracle happens, we can't have anymore children. I probably have a better chance of getting authentic eastern North Carolina style barbecue that I didn't make myself in Alabama than I do of finding a doctor willing to take me on as a patient. Oh obviously there's not an OB around who wouldn't happily slice me open for the third time. But the only way I could survive a pregnancy knowing a planned c-section is the only option would be to stay drunk, high, and/or drugged into a semi-vegetative state. None of those are really viable options since they would hurt the hypothetical baby. By finding an OB or midwife willing to take on a woman who's had two surgical births, one for failure to progress and the second for failure to descend with adequate contractions during spontaneous labor, and who who has never given birth normally at all. Probably not happening. Finding people supportive of VBACs is hard enough, but VBA2C... Assuming we're living somewhere with better laws, a home birth midwife might take me on, but James isn't going to pay out of pocket for a birth that could happen at the hospital completely covered with nothing out of pocket.
At least the benefit of a blog no one reads is that at least I can talk here.
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