After only 8 weeks of “trying” we got the news we had expected to wait months for.

We were “expecting”!

Although we didn’t have time to really work ourselves up for this moment, nor, apparently, did we not do the required reading about “trying to conceive”, we were pretty excited.

I did what I always did, focussed on the task at hand and set about obtaining the most amount of information I could. I was going to be the best mother in the world. I would do it all right.

Off to the bookshop we went, and chose three of the best-sellers, which I set about reading from cover to cover. We booked ourselves into the tour of the hospital, then the antenatal classes. Then all the supplementary classes – breastfeeding, pain free labour and the rest. Everything I could get my hands on, we did.

I had the most envious of all pregnancies; no morning sickness, no sore boobs, no pains, no nothing. You couldn’t even tell I was pregnant, if I wore a loose fitting shirt, till I was 8 months. I had, quite possible, the most complication free pregnancy. All my checkups with the obstetrician were over in 3 minutes, after sitting in his waiting room for 2 hours or more. Nothing to report. All going well.

My due date came and went. I was scheduled to be induced, but my obstetrician decided I was sitting too high, so rescheduled me for 5 days time. I had a couple of contractions during the week – irregular, painful, but not that bad.

24 hours before I was due to go in for my induction, the contractions started proper. Overnight they got closer and closer. Painful, but I couldn’t help but think to myself “what are these women complaining about, the don’t hurt that much”, I could deal with the pain. Easily.

We drove through the peak hour traffic, and my husband dropped me off at the emergency department whilst he parked the car. I was shown to a birthing room, met the midwife, and my obstetrician was called. But my contractions, rather than getting closer together, were getting further apart! An hour in and they were 20 minutes apart, very unlike the 3 minutes I’d endured only 3 hours earlier.

My obstetrician arrived, commenced the internal exam to check my dilatation, and looked at me with a mildly worried expression on his face. “I think the baby has turned” he informed me, and went off to look for a ultrasound machine.

Nope. All was fine. Baby was right way up, and I was 3 centimetres dilated and progressing nicely. We commenced the induction as had been planned, minus the gel on the cervix component, and I was hooked up to a monitor (for the baby) and an IV drip, for the Syntocinon. Then, I was connected to the epidural, oxygen, some other machine and, finally, an internal monitor – one that attaches to the babies head to monitor its progress.

I had been given a time limit to “get this baby out” and if not by then, then it was upstairs to surgery.

But that would never happen to me. I didn’t believe in c-sections. They were for people who were lazy, maybe those who were unfit (definitely not me) or had some exotic medical condition. They weren’t for people like me.

So I settled back, as best I could attached to so much technology, prepared to do the work required.

Within half an hour, I was told that the limit I’d previously been offered was being reneged, and I was heading up to surgery there and then. I had everything explained to me, that the baby was nearing distress, that they weren’t prepared to wait any longer and off they took me.

My epidural was topped up, and I was given some foul tasting liquid to drink, and some other drugs. By this stage, my mind was elsewhere, and the medication only served to make me feel nauseous. I weaved in and out of a sleep like state.

The baby was removed and I heard his cry. He was brought to me, already wrapped, although I was unable to hold him. His poor little head was swollen and “cone” like, from tryinig to get through a too small pelvis. It was later I found out that the “bottom” my obstetrician had thought he felt in the exam earlier that day, was, in fact, swelling on the babies head.

My baby was then taken … somewhere. I was relocated to the recovery area, where I spent two hours. Recovering while the epidural wore itself off.

I was left alone for two hours to recall all those things I’d read in books, that had been repeated and repeated in each of our antenatal classes. That is “important to get the baby on your breast straight away” for the purpose of bonding, and to ensure “no feeding problems”.

I was left alone with my thoughts … “I’m never going to be able to feed him. I’ll never bond with him” such was the power of testimonial of the “experts”.

I eventually got to see my two hour old son, but was unable to sit up. I was shown how to feed him lying down, and he attached with no problem at all, feeding well for a good hour. And was taken to the nursery while I attempted some sleep. Not an easy thing to accomplish when having my blood pressure and temperature monitored every half hour.

So little trouble I was having with feeding and managing him, and sitting, standing and moving around, despite my fresh wound, I was given the opportunity to go home only after three days.

I chose not to take this offer up.

There was no way I could take this baby home. I didn’t know what I was doing. Besides, I wasn’t his mother – because I hadn’t “given birth” to him, so how could I lay claim to that title.

Obviously, I had to come home. I struggled with the concept that I was “really” a mother. And when I confronted that one, I then contemplated how I could even be responsible for this little person, when I wasn’t even capable of finishing the job that I had started. I was so incompetent that I needed intervention. How could I do the right thing?

My friends had all done it “properly”. I was accused of being lazy for not birthing naturally, that I had taken the “easy way out”. I was aware of the looks, or the backpeddling in conversations when I mentioned I’d had a caesarean – always careful to emphasise the “emergency” aspect of it. I was told it was my “fault”.

I latched onto newspaper articles and news reports on c-sections, willing there to be something ok with it. That I was ok. They only served to confirm that I had done the wrong thing; that I had exposed “this” baby to some dangers, that he would have psychological problems, that he would be at increased risk of asthma and lung problems, that he would have a lower IQ than his naturally born cohorts.

For 10 months I took whatever child rearing and parenting information I could get. First mother’s group, books and more books, asking maternal and child health nurse friends question upon question. I had to do it right, now. Not to look like a good mother, but to make sure that everything was done right by this child. That everything was done perfectly.

Because he had to be perfect when his “real” mother came back to get him. His real mother wasn’t me, it can’t have been, and one day his real mother, his real parents, were going to take him. I just didn’t know when that would be, and how long I had to make him the perfect child.

I was placed on medication for depression and sent to a psychologist. I worked through this for many months. I came of the meds after only a few months, pregnant with number two, who miscarried. Was this a good thing?

Not long after, I fell pregnant again. This pregnancy was not quite as easy as the first, but not difficult by any standards. My obstetrician refused to discuss birthing options until closer to the due date – which I was grateful for – until, at 30 weeks we discovered that my “little” bundle of joy was already in the 90th percentile. That is, almost the size of a full term baby.

A vaginal birth was never an option for me. I have cephalo-pelvic disproportion, or CPD – which pretty much means that I don’t have childbearing hips. My pelvis is too small for even a very small baby to fit through. So small, that my average sized first baby had massive swelling on his head from the labour, both natural and induced, we had both endured. A second caesarean was always on the cards.

I fluctuated between “nah, it’ll be fine, I’ll give labour a go and see how it turns out” and “thank goodness I’m not required to go through that again”. At neither birth did I have any doubt that what happened was necessary. I’d had the most amazing obstetrician who kept me informed always. There was nothing left to question.

I now have the most amazing, and beautiful boys. I love them with all my heart. I had no issues with feeding. I have overcome the bonding issue with my first. For all the “damage” I was doing to my children by them not being delivered “naturally” – well, they are both perfectly healthy, they have no cardio-pulmonary or respiratory problems, and they are most definitely very intelligent.

If they end up with any psychological issues – I’m quite convinced it’s not due to the way they were born.

Author – Anon