As I have said before, he was transverse/oblique my entire pregnancy so I was told as soon as I have any tightening's or my water breaks, to head to hospital to asses if he was still in this position to avoid a cord prolapse. On Monday evening I started having some tightening's but nothing painful at all. We decided to have dinner and then call the hospital just to play on the safe side. The hospital told us to come in and be assessed.
Barney's mum came over, we tucked Myles into bed and headed to the hospital, arriving around 9:30. We spoke about my situation and they gave us the option to try and turn baby. If he turned, they'd break my waters and induce me right away. We did a bedside ultrasound to confirm his position and noticed he was kicking around his cord just about my cervix. They still let me decide what to do but there were risks if he turned he could compress his cord.
We decided with all the factors, to have a csection the next morning as I didn't want to risk ending in an emergency csection. On Tuesday, our csection kept getting pushed back as emergencies were coming in and eventually Charlie was born feet first at 3:52pm!
The csection went well and was so different from my beautiful water birth I had with my first! I didn't really know what to expect so I asked the midwife earlier to talk me through what would happen. She was great and I felt very at peace with our choice. It was a little intimidating going into the operating room with 10 staff all doing there specific jobs but the anesthetist was really friendly and funny and made me feel at ease. He talked me through every step of what they were doing which was nice as I obviously couldn't feel anything. I nearly needed a blood transfusion but thankfully avoided it.
When Charlie was being cleaned up and weighed, I could watch as they had a TV screen that I could see. I bawled my eyes out and felt very overwhelmed with it all. Every time I would think of Myles, I would cry a little more. It felt that as Charlie was now here, I was grieving no longer having Myles as my baby.
Once I was stitched up, we headed to recovery where I stayed until I had some movement back in my legs. Charlie latched immediately and had his first breastfeed while we waited to be moved to the ward. We settled into our room (shared with 3 other women) and Barney headed home so his mum could head home for the night.
It turns out that we made the right decision and God had gone ahead and directed our path. The surgeon visited the next morning and explained that I had level 4 placenta previa which is the worst. My entire cervix was covered by my placenta which was also oval shaped, not round. There was no way I could have birthed naturally and that's why baby had never turned. She said that if they would have broken my waters, there could have been serious consequences for the both of us and we very well could have lost Charlie. Needless to say, she wasn't very happy with the ultrasound clinic I went to who misdiagnosed it on my last few ultrasounds. We are so grateful that we are both here and healthy!
The recovery has been good and I have actually found it easier than my natural birth. The hardest part is not doing any lifting or driving. My haemoglobin levels were quite low and they wanted to keep me in hospital longer than the 2 days I stayed but I pushed to go home as I knew I wouldn't get any rest in hospital and agreed to take iron tablets and see my GP to get retested in a few weeks. I have been feeling really good and not unbearably overtired.
Charlie has been wonderful. So far he has been a great baby, sleeping all the time except between 12-4am. We are working on fixing that by waking him more through the day. Unfortunately, over the first few days, he was constantly falling asleep while feeding and did some serious damage to me. I have been pumping and bottle feeding Charlie as well as giving him formula. We have decided that I will dry up my milk and just stick to formula. It is a bit sad as I had a good breastfeeding experience with Myles. It wasn't an easy choice for us but decided its the best for us this time around. How different 2 experiences can be! Myles was a natural birth and breastfed. Charlie is a csection baby and will be primarily formula fed.
I have been trying to cherish these early days with Charlie as he will be our last baby. I know how quickly they grow up, so I am soaking in his newborn smell, soft hair and cuddles.
We love you Charlie and are so blessed to have you in our lives!
1 comment:
He's gorgeous! So thankful that you had a good C-section and that it was the right decision :) Happy for you guys!
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