Being a nurse I wanted to avoid major surgery if at all possible so I opted for the epidural and trying the vacuum. (What fun it was to sit up, sit still, and not push through contractions for the epidural…but the anesthesiologist was great and I think it was only 3 contractions before it was in and they were laying me back down). When we got to the OR William’s heart rate promptly dropped a couple of times so the doctor was not comfortable trying the vacuum so they got things set up, gave me a little more medication in the epidural and we had a C-section. William did not cry immediately and looked blue and kind of floppy but the nurses were great and he cried before too long. After Eric left and they were finishing the C-section the nurse asked the doctor if she had seen the placenta. I asked her about this later and she said that the umbilical cord was implanted in the sac and then branched off into the placenta (this is called a velamentous insertion and occurs in only about 1% of singleton pregnancies). She told us that William was a miracle because a lot of babies don’t survive when the cord implants like this. In doing research on this, a velamentous insertion can be associated with abnormalities in the baby. As far as we can tell William is perfectly healthy with no issues.
My recovery was longer than I had hoped for. It took about 8 weeks for me to feel a little more normal. On top of major surgery, I had hormonal shifts and a newborn to care for.
How have you weathered the hormonal shifts after giving birth?
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