And just like that our world was never the same again. What a strange feeling to go to sleep knowing the next day you’ll wake up and have a baby. We’ve wondered for months if she will look like a sumo wrestler like I did at birth (she was actually our smallest babe) or if she’d have the blue eyes that are so rare in my family (so far, yes). Trying to put words to the birth of a child…our sweet child.

I remember waiting. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30. The house was so quiet as we dropped our boys off at grandma and papa’s the night before. We were mostly quiet and still, just like the morning. For everyone there, the doctors and nurses, we were just part of their routine. She arrived just short of three hours later. There was a lot of paperwork, questions, and monitoring. I soaked up the last time I would hear her heart beating on the monitor, the last little kicks before I’d feel them in my arms.

I felt nervous and alone. I warned the anesthesiologist that at my last birth I was so lightheaded on the table from lying on my back that they gave me medication to stabilize my blood pressure. This time it happened again, and our heart rates dropped low. I saw my OBGYN’s eyes watching the monitor, watching the nurse as she prepped my belly. I felt about to pass out as I saw him fanning the antiseptic to speed its process. He began the procedure as they hurriedly finished draping me, around the time medicine started kicking in, my blood pressure stabilized, and my husband joined me.

I remember the anticipation. Per my request, hubby kept me distracted with stories of his students and fellow teachers. He talked about rudimentary things and I asked a question or two but I was quite aware of the pressure, tugging, and quiet talking of the doctors at my midsection. She gave them trouble coming out, several people pushed on my belly before they used the vacuum to deliver her in the midst of more amniotic fluid than anticipated. At this point hubby and I sat quietly in awe, waiting for that sweet tiny cry in the silence, because what else can you do as your child arrives in this world?

I remember desperately wanting to know her.  We hoped to have the doctor show her to us before anything else, but given the circumstances they took her straight to the incubator to be checked out. Hubby saw her, took pictures. I finally spoke up, as he was captivated, reminding him I wanted to know too. He brought over the camera and I that’s how I caught my first glimpse of my girl. Perfect.

I felt complete. She quickly arrived at my head, bundled up but every bit of beautiful. Her alert but glazed eyes penetrated to my heart. The rest of the room disappeared until I heard the pediatrician ask to take a picture.  There she lay in my husband’s arms, the finishing touch to our family. Instantly it felt a bit like she’d always been there. Even still, remembering life before her is hazy unless I really think about it.

I felt calm, almost at home (as much as possible in a hospital on an operating table). As hubby went with baby toward the recovery area just a few feet away, I spoke with the doctor I’d come to know over two pregnancies’ time. He explained what he was doing as he sewed me up but I basically already knew. This was my third time on this table. The nurses were familiar, the routine calming, as all the literal and figurative loose ends were tied up and I wheeled into recovery and babe was brought to my naked chest to nurse. Her long fingers and stretched out toes!

I remember looking over at hubby and smiling. Our world was never the same again.

Annie is a mom of two boys, ages two and four, and a newborn girl! She looks forward to sleeping again in about 18 years.

One subject I’ve not shied away from is my experience with two cesarean births and this birth planned the same. I don’t want to make light of the seriousness of major surgery, but I find myself sharing pieces of my story because I see the shame surrounding cesareans, and I don’t think that benefits expectant mamas or those who have experienced the operating table for birth. It took time to be at peace with that first cesarean birth.

I was induced based on borderline high blood pressure and a “trace” of protein in my urine. It was the day before a major holiday during America’s longest holiday season. Though I originally opted for a natural birth plan, 6 hours in I had an epidural. My labor never progressed. After 19 hours my child remained at negative three station (very high), my cervix dilated only to 3 cm, and I developed a fever while baby’s heart rate began to decelerate. A borderline emergency cesarean birth resulted. Baby went to NICU and I saw him 18 hours later (and for about a minute after delivery).

Afterward I felt like I failed, like I was weak for asking for the epidural at all. I felt embarrassed that I was so in pain that I moaned and groaned so desperately in front of my husband (he didn’t care) until I finally received an epidural. I was alienated from the doctor from her hard bedside manner, not to mention indignant at the seemingly convenient, baseless induction to avoid the chance of my birth happening on a holiday. I felt enraged at the nurses for not trying harder to encourage nursing, instead opting to force feed my son formula (to avoid potential blood sugar issues related to a large baby). I felt despair at being so far from my son in the NICU, seemingly powerless to be there with him. Though about one month later baby became exclusively breastfed, every feeding that first month just brought back up these feelings, made more punishing by my exhaustion and hormones.

I hid all these feelings because people insisted that it didn’t matter how baby arrived, just that we were all healthy. Sure, yes. Then I felt discounted like my feelings and hopes were entirely disregarded, seemingly cancelled out by the healthy child that eventually made it to my arms. Now I somehow felt selfish to be disappointed in my experience when the doctor potentially “saved our lives,” as one said.

Healing finally came as I began to observe the culture through others’ experiences. When I saw other mamas talk of their struggles (mostly online in a cloth diaper group), I saw the pressures, the shame seething under the surface of comments. Sometimes these comments looked helpful, discouraging induction if at all possible (good advice really, but discounting of some women’s medical need for induction). The horror stories just seemed to amplify the fear and darkness surrounding cesarean birth. People regularly bring up the extra healing and risk though many mamas, I’ve learned through hearing stories and my own experience, get through the recovery with just a little extra effort.

This helped me shed the shame and feelings of less than. Time (and a change to an awesome doctor) helped me to process the many emotions of the birth, where deep down I felt an overwhelming lack of control. I had to account for myself as well. I never took the time to learn about cesarean birth. I think a lot of my feelings would have been less severe had I not been so blindsided by the unknown. I could have had a birth plan in place. I also may have opted for a C-section earlier had I realized the likelihood of my son going to the NICU due to my fever, but I never took the time to learn about why one might even need surgical birth.

I also never invested in classes for childbirth. Due to our busy schedules, I read a book on the Bradley Method but assumed that was enough. I was ill-prepared for labor. I didn’t even think to get out of the bed at any point in the six hours of labor before my epidural to move around. None of this may have mattered, but I realized I gave up much of my autonomy far before the day of induction. Certainly my doctor failed me in preparing me, but part of my healing came from an honest evaluation of what part I played in my labor experience. These things—getting up during labor, knowing about C-sections, more practice of focusing through pain, etc.—may have made no difference in the end result, but I judged myself for failing when I needed to offer myself more grace for being human.

Last, I hold out the possibility that my doctor kept baby and me safe. She and a nurse reported to me that the baby was angled into my pelvic bone instead of my cervix. It’s entirely possible that my son would have never dropped and had no chance of coming out vaginally either at all or without significant effort and risk by the doctor. In all of this I have found comfort in choosing a cesarean for my subsequent births. I face the operating room with grace and courage instead of fear and dread. It may be cold and sterile but it holds the opportunity to birth my child with just as much joy and excitement as any other variation of birth experience.

Annie is a mom of two boys, ages two and four. She enjoys the finer things in life, like compression socks and a full night’s rest.