Description: LO describing my experience with the birth of my first child

Hidden journaling reads:

This picture will always remind me of how fortunate I am and how I have learned to really, really appreciate what I have and how lucky I am. This picture was taken after I got Owen back from the special care nursery after he was born. My face is all swollen from all the bags of Saline I was given through a 28 hour induced labour that ended with a c-section. I am exhausted, terrified and traumatized, but thankful.

Owen was a big baby, 10 lbs, and so after 28 hours of trying to get him out, with little success, I had to have a c-section. It was fast and David was sleeping while they explained the process and only woke him as we left for surgery. He was alone while I was prepped with no more information than I had to have a c-section. We were both terrified and unprepared. When he was brought in I felt some relief, but was more scared than I can explain.

The surgery went pretty well, although I had no prior knowledge, until the surgery, of the fact that you still felt pressure during the procedure. That was a very unnatural feeling. Owen was lodged very deeply into my pelvis and they had to use the assistance of a vacuum to get him out. I heard him cry and all the anxiety washed away. It wasn't a long reprieve as they ushered him away from me and to the table and could be heard talking about the gash in his head. We were able to gather that he had a gash in his skull from the vacuum and they were trying to decide on stitches or tape. All I could see from the bed was his big little foot. I was bawling like a maniac. The doctors kept telling me to stop because the needed to close me up and I was moving too much. It seemed like forever was passing with us on our separate tables. Thoughts were racing through my mind of all I had read of the importance of bonding during that first hour, of trying to feed right away, of cuddling and staring into each other's eyes. It was in my “birth plan” for goodness sake. I was devastated. More time passed and they finished up the surgery and took me into the recovery room. I still hadn't even seen his face, only his foot. They had to take him and feed him formula because his sugar level was low. I think almost two hours had past when they FINALLY brought him to me. All was forgiven. He was an angel, an absolute miracle. I held him until the nurse had to check me out. At that point, my mom held him.

She had only been holding him for a minute, when David looked at him and said “he's blue.” He had stopped breathing. The nurse came and took him and he started breathing again. He seemed fine so they let us go to our room. We had him in our room for about an hour and his breathing seemed to be getting pretty laboured, so we called the nurse. They decided to take Owen to the nursery for observation. So far this had been such an emotional rollercoaster. About an hour later the nurse came to our room with a nursery room nurse and they explained to us that Owen was being taken to the special care nursery to have some testing done and to be put in an incubator hooked up to monitors and intravenous. On one hand I was relieved that he was going to best place to go if there was a problem, but on the other, I was completely distraught at the thought of my poor baby having to go through all of that and even more at the thought of something being wrong. This was definitely not in my birth plan.

The doctor's and nurses were unable to tell us anything except that they were trying to figure it out and that it can be common for a c-section infant to have breathing problems after birth because the mucous isn't squeezed out of their lungs the way a baby who goes through the birth canal's is. Owen spent the next two days in there. I was only able to face going there a handful of times over the course. The pain of being away from my newborn baby was less than the pain of going to that place and seeing my baby like that. I've never felt such sorrow in my life. Thrown into the mix was the fact that there were sick babies and their sorrowful parents all over the place. There was a 1 ½ lb baby there. It was very confusing being in a place like that with a 10 lb baby who was seemingly healthy. I definitely felt some shame for feeling so hard-done by. I was very thankful for David, who was able to go when I could not. He was in a very bad place for all of this too, as he had even less control and understanding of the situation than I did. I was so worried for him too.

After the two days, they just decided to release Owen back to us. I figure now that they just couldn't find anything wrong. They didn't give us much information about why he was in there, let alone why he was being released from the special care nursery. Of course this left us feeling extremely anxious. Then we were sent home. I've never felt more unfit or unprepared for such a task in my life. We were now completely responsible for this baby that had been in health crises and we didn't even know why or if he was okay now.

Anyway, that night we ended up taking him to the Children's hospital because we thought his breathing was still bad. There we met a fantastic pediatrician who assured us that his breathing was absolutely normal for a c-section baby and that it might stay that way for a few days (finally some information). She also taught me in that 10 minute meeting how to nurse Owen perfectly. She was a hero doctor. We took him home that night with a lot of relief. He has been healthy as a horse ever since.

This experience was a huge blessing for me in the long run. In that special care nursery, I learned so much about pain and suffering and how little I had known of it until that point in my life. I learned that no matter how bad you think you've got it, someone has it far worse. I also learned that this doesn't take away from my pain, but it makes me a more compassionate and thoughtful person.