NOTE: What follows is a rather detailed and somewhat gruesome account of my experience with c-sections and postnatal recovery. This is certainly not everyone’s experience; in fact, many women report incident-free and even pleasant c-section and postnatal experiences. With that said, if you’ve never had a c-section or baby but might in the future, I recommend proceeding with caution.
The other night I couldn’t sleep. Part of it was due to the routine up and down that comes with having to pee what seems like every 5 minutes during the last trimester of pregnancy, but the other part of it was due to something else entirely: my intensifying tokophobia, or fear of childbirth.
In just 8 weeks (which simultaneously feels like a lifetime and a nanosecond), I will again find myself strapped to an operating table as if I’m about to be crucified, pleading with the doctors not to cut into me yet because my spinal hasn’t quite taken full effect even though it should have by now, insisting that, no, that’s not just pressure I’m feeling; I know what pressure feels like, and that is definitely the painfully sharp end of their needle sticking into the skin just inside my right hip bone.
In just 8 weeks, I will beg them not to cut into my flesh until my husband enters the O.R., angry that they wouldn’t allow him to come back with me from the start and terrified that they will begin their work of horrors before he is there by my side to feed me reassurances he doesn’t really believe himself.
In just 8 weeks, I will begin to have a panic attack while flat on my back, fighting back the urge to vomit and potentially suffocate on it as I breath in, out, in, out, each breath becoming more labored and desperate than the last while hot tears stream down my cheeks and into the corners of my trembling lips.
In just 8 weeks, I will implore the medical team orchestrating my surgery not to push on and lean against and crush my ribs and lungs as they try to force my abnormally large baby through my comparatively small incision, my frenzied appeals to quit rendering my organs incapable of sustaining me falling on deaf ears as they push and lean against and crush my midsection more.
In just 8 weeks, my blood pressure will drop to dangerous levels as an eerie calm consumes my body, the fear of stroking out on the table very real in my mind but at the same time very distant, almost as if part of a foggy dream, as the medical team works mechanically to stabilize me for the remainder of the operation.
In just 8 weeks, I will listen intently for signs of my living, healthy baby, this time frantically so as flashbacks of my second son’s birth invade my consciousness, the seemingly eternal silence between his birth and first cries, the on-call pediatrician’s admission that something wasn’t quite right with him but they didn’t know what, the memory of his body’s refusal to breathe hours after birth and his adrenaline-filled transfer to the NICU while I was wheeled in the opposite direction to my recovery room fresh and haunting in my mind.
In just 8 weeks, I will writhe and cry out in pain as my spinal wears off and the morphine they swear will work doesn’t, my husband’s and my insistence that my body doesn’t react normally to pain medication and that I will require something different to calm the searing burn that inevitably begins radiating from my incision throughout my entire abdomen all but ignored until the pain is so intense, it is too late to abate it effectively.
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In just 8 weeks, the poor, unfortunate nurse who, either by seniority or sheer bad luck, is assigned to make me get up and move for the first time post-surgery will have to clean up the blood splatter that decorates my hospital room floor as I hobble at slower than a snail’s pace to the restroom, the excruciating misery of post-surgical injury and quasi-effective pain relievers turning what should be a few minute task into something occupying the better part of an hour.
In just 8 weeks, I will deposit my dignity in the trash with my half-eaten Jello and mashed potatoes and gravy as one medical professional after another pokes me and prods me and comments on how oddly distended my belly still is even days after birth and my husband accompanies me into the shower, washing my matted hair and soaping my bruised and broken body because I simply can’t — the burning pain and agony refuse to allow my body to function.
In just 8 weeks, my milk will come in and, as I’m not breastfeeding again this time around, I will feel as though, on top of blindly chopping at my stomach with a hack saw, someone has taken to beating me in the chest with a sledgehammer, a torment that, in addition to being almost as unpleasant as the c-section itself, no amount of binding or sports bra wearing or cabbage applying will diminish for a week or more.
In just 8 weeks, I will (hopefully and God willing) be discharged from the hospital with my newborn and begin the grueling task of caring for a tiny, helpless infant while also battling my own persistent pain and managing my post-surgical recovery as best I can between night feedings and diaper changes.
In just over 8 weeks, my husband and the rest of the world will return to their old, familiar routines while I stay home alone to care for this new human, juggling post-pregnancy anxiety, attempted weight loss, and extreme loneliness.
In just 8 weeks, I will (again, hopefully and God willing) welcome another source of joy and light into our lives, something I decidedly can’t wait to happen, but something I must travel through the darkest depths of hell to enjoy — something that frightens me so intensely, I no longer sleep at night.
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