C-Section | life is craigcellent!

Click here to read Part I if you need to catch up! So, when we left off I had just checked into the hospital in active labor, but I wasn’t feeling well. My doctor was unavailable, and I had a brand new doctor whom I had never met before delivering me that day. Luckily this doctor and I were very much on the same page, and he was great about explaining everything to us. He used a lot of percentages to illustrate things which was very helpful to Sam.

In addition to just not feeling well, I was running a high fever and Will’s heart rate was too high. The doctor agreed to let me try to give birth naturally, so he went ahead and broke my water hoping that I would progress quickly on my own. We waited a couple of hours and absolutely no progress was made. Will’s heart rate continued to get higher and he began showing signs of distress. The doctor said there was no way he could handle pitocin, but we could still try to give things a little more time to hopefully happen naturally. I’m not going to go into all the gory details of what happened next, but it became quite clear that a C-section was absolutely necessary for my sake as well as Will’s. During this time, the doctor also concluded that I was suffering from appendicitis. So, the plan was to remove my appendix after the C-section.

I just remember feeling so scared. The room was freezing and bright and I was shaking uncontrollably from head to toe. When Sam had to go change and get sterilized, I lost it a little bit and kept asking the anesthesiologist when he would be back (even though I’m pretty sure he was gone less than 10 minutes.) The anesthesiologist was an older gentleman, a good ol’ boy, and he kept trying to cheer me up about having a C-section. He said numerous inappropriate things to make me laugh. I kind of loved him in that moment. When I had to tell him my weight I made him lean down so I could whisper it in his ear so Sam and the nurses didn’t hear. He thought that was hysterical. Anyway, enough about my bonding with the anesthesiologist…..

Will was born! They showed him to me over the sheet, but unfortunately we could not do skin to skin right away because they still had to remove my appendix. Here’s where things start to get pretty dicey. It was taking the doctor a very long time to remove my appendix. Sam was across the room tending to Will so I was by myself with the anesthesiologist at my head. All of the sudden I started vomiting uncontrollably, except there’s nothing to vomit up (so gross I know.) This goes on for what feels like forever – me just convulsing. Finally Sam came back over to me because he started to get very concerned. The anesthesiologist started exchanging words with the doctor and I began to lose consciousness. I hear the anesthesiologist say, “you need to close her up NOW.”

This story is almost over – I promise! I’m going to split it up into one more part, so stay tuned for Part III in which we find out that Sam Craig is the real MVP.

It’s taken me a long time (well, Will is five months old, so I guess it’s taken me five months) to really come to terms with the fact that I had a C-section. First, you should know that I did not have a 12 page birth plan nor was I super gung-ho about having a natural birth. I wanted one, but I do know that birth is one of those things you just don’t have 100% control over, and so for nine months I psyched my control-freak self up and tried to relax and trust my doctor. Side note, my doctor was kind of shocked that I didn’t have a typed up birth plan to give her. I guess she picked up on my control-freakiness over the course of nine months.

Disclaimer: I’m not going to get super into the details medically because ew, and some things really should be private. Reliving the details of the scariest day of my life is not awesome for me, but I do want to put this out there in case others moms might have had a similar experience and are looking for some camaraderie – it’s just nice to know you’re not alone in this sometimes.

Please take a moment and admire this photo my sister took of me in the parking lot at Tucker's Onion Burger a few days before I went into labor. Don't I look thrilled?

Please take a moment and admire this photo my sister took of me in the parking lot at Tucker’s Onion Burger a few days before I went into labor. Don’t I just have that “pregnancy glow” haha

So, I saw my doctor the day before I went into labor at 39 weeks 5 days. I was 4.5 cm dilated and 75% effaced, so things were definitely progressing. During that appointment she said to me, “I hope you go into labor tonight because I’m on call.” Never did she say that she might be unavailable over the next few days. Funnily enough, I did go into labor that night. I came home from church and rolled around on a yoga ball and watched The Fault in Our Stars with Sam because he would basically do anything I asked at that point. I went to bed that night and the contractions were mild but getting stronger and closer together. I woke up the next morning and did not feel well at all. I went back to sleep and woke up around 11am and something was just not right. I felt feverish and extremely weak. I told Sam we had to go to the hospital immediately.

We got to the hospital and a random doctor came in and said that my doctor was “unavailable” that day and he would be delivering me. You can imagine how I took this news. I’ll just leave it at – I was not pleasant. Part of the reason I did not write up any plans was because I fully trusted this woman and her expertise. The new doctor ended up being fantastic – really I can’t say enough good things about him – but that completely threw me for a loop since I had just seen my doctor THE DAY BEFORE and she hadn’t mentioned anything. In my opinion, this kind of set the tone for the whole experience…..

This post is already getting super long so I’m going to split it into two parts. Stay tuned for Part II in which William Craig makes his debut, and the Craigs spend the worst five days of their life in the hospital. Should be fun!