Even when someone asks me about my births I remember them with a smile. I remember what scared me most in the world. Panic to the pain, to the complications, to the unknown, to that new life as a mother who was beginning and not knowing if she could cope.
When I had my first child I got rid of caesarean section because of Kristeller's maneuver, painful but without consequences. My second pregnancy was overwhelmed, crying on many occasions because being two children everything seemed to indicate that nothing would free me from a twin caesarean section. But what an illusion it was ... thinking that it would be terrible and yet it was the most beautiful experience of my life. The birth of my dreams and I think it is worth it that moms with the same fear that I have the opportunity to see that the caesarean and especially the twins they have happy endings too.
My problem began with the widespread idea we have in Spain that all multiple births must end in caesarean section. It was something that I quickly wanted to talk to my gynecologist who told me not to worry, that if the first baby was placed they tried a vaginal delivery without hesitation. Obviously the chances of such interventions are always higher and almost from the beginning I tried to raise awareness.
I admit that I was panicking. Fear of the scar. Fear of recovery. Fear of life as a mother of three kids with a wound in my gut. I used to cry thinking about it and the worst, there is a lot lack of information. The family supports you but except for a "well, don't be overwhelmed and whatever it has to be" you don't get much more. I needed to know details ...
I began to investigate what a C-section was really like. Yes, big mistake. I watched videos and almost fainted. I informed myself of the protocols of many hospitals in Madrid, whether or not they let the father in with me ... I wanted to know everything in case the time came since my gut was growing and my first baby, my boy Unai, was very comfortable buttocks and without no intention of turning while her sister was going around and around in each ultrasound.
My fears
Some friends told me their experiences and data that disturbed me most were:
- They don't let the father go with you.
- You will not be able to make skin with skin with the baby and being two less yet.
- You almost don't see the baby. They show it to you for a moment and give it to the father while you go to recovery.
- They tie your hands.
- For several days you will be in bed, you will not be able to take care of the babies and they will have to give you heparin.
- Points or staples can become infected.
As you can see, my birth looked very dark. One of the things that worried me most was that my husband could not enter. I didn't want to be alone in an operating room.
He skin to skin... not that I wanted to take that privilege away from my husband, who also deserves it, but I was so sad to go through the whole pregnancy, that it had been very hard, the birth and not being able to hug them and give them my warmth and my kisses.
And the last straw was not seeing them. I mean, was the whole family going to see them before me? Was he just going to have 2 minutes to memorize his face?
Key date
Thus I spent nine months that became eternal. Between how badly I had a hard time and the mental stress I had, I didn't feel ready for childbirth but, as it should be, the date arrived. I remember that the day I entered my hands were shaking and I couldn't stop crying. I didn't know if I was trembling with cold or nerves, if I cried with emotion or fear but I had never felt so out of control. Everything improved when coincidentally most of the medical team of my first pregnancy was there.
The delivery was taken by my trusted gynecologist but there was also the midwife who attended me with my first child and several other nurses. I was so nervous that I didn't remember it but my husband who has a photographic memory was putting me in the background and telling me their names.
Inside the operating room everyone passed by, caressed my face and treated me with a love that I will never know how to thank. One of the nurses approached me and asked me: "Hey, do you feel like playing music?" And I said, yes! Coincidentally it was Robbie Williams and the song Feel, singer and theme that I adore. They were all signs.
Then the anesthetist came to see me and did not stop talking to me to reassure me. "I don't notice anything anymore," he said. "Sure Sandra, otherwise I would be doing my job very badly," he said with a smile. And then my husband passed. It is something that I had already spoken with my gynecologist and had told me that already in the caesarean sections they were allowing the entry of parents.
Soon my doctor came in, which I must say is one of the sweetest people I have met in the medical field. "Well, let's see Unai and Noa's face, right?" Seeing that the moment was so close made me even more nervous.
There they raised a kind of sheet and at no time I saw absolutely nothing and nobody tied me. I also greatly appreciated that they were telling me at all times what they were doing: "Well, let's open." Without seeing it, I imagined in my head what was happening and discounted the seconds to see the face of my children.
I could make skin with skin
Previously, before entering the operating room I had delivered my birth plan to the midwife. So developed that it looked like an exhibition work. With my first child I forgot to hand it over and with them I didn't want it to happen the same, it specified that I wanted "skin to skin" even though they had already told me it was not possible.
"Unai is going out now," the doctor said. At that moment the midwife approached me and said "are you going to want to make skin with skin with both?" I started to cry, I couldn't believe it, "Really? Can I?" My husband looked at me excitedly. I knew it was my dream come true.
And so it was, Unai went straight to my left shoulder where I received him with a thousand hugs and kisses. He couldn't believe he looked so much like his older brother. It was 11:20 in the morning.
While his father and I did not stop pampering his brother, Noa arrived in this world at exactly 11:23 straight to my right shoulder. I was impressed at how awake I was, how quickly he got hooked to suck my chest. I already knew that this girl would eat the world ...
Quick all the nurses covered us with a kind of sheets and they put us heat pipes so that the babies didn't stay cold and we stayed like this, the four of them the duration of my tubal ligation, to which I decided to submit after seeing that three children were already very well for our family, and the end of my caesarean section.
"We have made the cesarean section of the famous" My gynecologist told me. Not a point, not a staple. When I saw my wound, I basically had a lot of vertical strips that fell by themselves and a kind of thread at the end almost imperceptible to the sight that at approximately 15 days they cut me without finding out.
And the recovery? And breastfeeding? That gives for another post but the experience is still almost as magical as childbirth. It is going to be true that children come with a loaf under the arm and in my case, two.
