HISTORY OF A DEHUMANIZED CAESAREAN SECTION

When we got pregnant one of our most recurring thoughts is the birth of our baby. We dream of a respected birth, we look forward to everything going well and we think about what will be in our hands to make the time come.

But suddenly, there comes a day when the doctor starts talking about the possibility of a C-section because the baby is not correctly placed and although there are still weeks left for childbirth, the word resonates strongly every time you go to a new revision.

The pregnancy of my oldest son was a very dreamed and tremendously meditated pregnancy that came after years of uncertainty and medical tests because of a uterine malfunction that, initially, did not seem to make things easy for me.

But when I got pregnant and the weeks began to run smoothly, I was able to get rid of the ghosts and fears that had accompanied me for too long.

And suddenly, one day ... "Your baby will have to be born by caesarean section"

At the seventh month of pregnancy, the gynecologist warned me that my baby was not placed. "He will have to be born by caesarean section because it comes from buttocks" - He told me bluntly.

Caesarean section was a possibility that could be expected due to my uterine malformation and I had thought about it at some point, but I was not expecting such a blunt sentence several weeks after giving birth.

For days I was finding out what it was in my hand to do to make the baby turn and could be born naturally. I gave these findings hopefully to my gynecologist but he took away the illusion of a stroke and rejected the idea of the external cephalic version that I also raised.

I wanted to trust my doctor at all costs, but it gave me courage to think that there were several weeks ahead when my baby could still turn around, I was not even given the opportunity to fight for a natural birth.

Cesarean section

Three weeks before my probable due date, the gynecologist scheduled caesarean section. I was going to a routine consultation but I left there with the consent papers and the day indicated on the agenda. I was at the beginning of my 37th week.

I asked them to wait for the delivery to be triggered before practicing caesarean section but "they were bad dates"- the gynecologist told me textually. It was August and everyone was thinking about their vacations.

That was how with 37 + 3 weeks, and despite having had a good pregnancy, a baby with excellent weight and normal fluid levels, they decided to schedule my C-section several days before my probable delivery date.

The way events were unfolding was not being respectful to me. But she was a first-time mother, not well informed and afraid. I felt stunned and let myself go

They summoned me at the hospital at 10 in the morning, in fasting food and liquid from the previous night and with the suffocating heat of August stuck in the back of the neck. The caesarean section was scheduled at 12 noon but I was not taken to the operating room until eight in the afternoon. Almost 20 hours without drinking a drink of water ...

Dehumanized caesarean section

The Caesarean section of my first child was protocol, mechanical and dehumanized. Some time later, the caesarean sections of my other two children would reconcile me with the healthcare staff and with myself, but this first intervention will be forever recorded in my memory.

I tightly tied arms across to the point that I asked on more than one occasion to loosen my hands so that I could scratch myself because the epidural was causing itching in my face.

"I will not let you go, I know you" - The anesthetist told me - "Tell me where it stings you that I scratch you". The little dignity I had remained on that stretcher. Tied in a cross, without mobility and with a doctor who snorted with fatigue every time I begged him to scratch me.

When my baby was born they showed me a few seconds above the sheet and took it. It was not until several minutes later that they showed me again, already bathed and completely dressed, without even offering us the possibility of doing skin to skin with dad.

Again I asked to be untied to be able to caress him but the anesthetist's response again was blunt: "With those tremors you have, I wouldn't even let go!"

"Give him a kiss that goes with dad"- The pediatrician told me hurriedly. My kiss was fleeting. I could barely stop looking at him, speaking to him or filling him with kisses. The phrase was literal;" a little kiss ", and They pushed him away from me until hours later.

I cried when I saw the doctor walking away with my son in the crib because he hadn't even given me time to notice my baby. "Don't cry, woman, if you're going to have a lifetime to be with him" - I was told by a nurse looking to comfort me - but I only managed to repeat in a loop that I couldn't welcome him as he deserved.

I don't remember how long I was alone in resuscitation, shivering like a sheet of paper and crying without comfort. Beside me was another mother who, like me, had just given birth by caesarean section.

We both looked at each other with tears in their eyes but without saying anything. It was not necessary. In our eyes you could read the grief of the separation and the inhuman helplessness we were suffering

That experience marked me so much that from that moment I began to investigate, read and seek support. If I had to face future caesarean sections I wanted to be prepared and informed.

And thanks to that, as I said before, I managed to make the caesarean sections of my other two children human and respected, and I could live their births with the fullness and joy that I always felt that I was robbed in the first moments of the birth of my oldest son.