The Crib: A Blog for New Parents

Posted by pecuellar on 10/16/07 - 12:46 PM

My first child was delivered via emergency cesarean (the kind they knock you out for) before I went into labor. Therefore, the doctor scheduled the second child to be delivered in a planned cesarean. She did not want me to experience any natural labor because of the risk involved, so I was scheduled to deliver at 38 weeks at 7:00 am.

The experience went off without a hitch. We sent the oldest to stay with grandma the night before, got up early and leisurely headed off to the hospital. My husband and I waited in our room until the appointed time came, I received an epidural then it was off to the delivery room. There was no pain, no screaming, no drama, only the sound of laughter could be heard from our operating room as my husband and doctor shared playful banter and I requested a tummy tuck, since she was cutting there anyways. After about 20 minutes I was handed a beautiful, slightly slimy baby boy who was perfect. They took him away to be cleaned and toe-printed as the doctor put stapled my guts back in.

I should have felt nothing but happiness, but instead I felt like a cheater. I had somehow found a shortcut around the “experience” that is childbirth. It was all too easy. No hours of labor, funny breathing and squeezing my husbands hand for support. I might as well, dropped by the mini-mart and picked out a kid. Ok, it wasn’t that easy, I did carry the child for 38 weeks and recover from surgery but the climactic moment of that final push was missing.

I had to come to terms with the fact that I would be one of those people (maybe a lucky one) that would never experience childbirth. I appreciate my children and the lack of this experience will not change our relationship in any way. I will be no less of a mother to them because I am unable to bring them into the world all by myself. I am not a cheater I am a mother.