My three children were born by caesarean section. The first was an emergency c-section at midnight, and the second and third were scheduled. But this isn’t a story about how a C-section is or isn’t actually giving birth. (But for the record, it totally is.)
I had a general birth plan for my first pregnancy, back in 2015, but I didn’t really care if I followed it. I just wanted my baby. I envisioned many different scenarios in my mind about how my firstborn’s labor and delivery would go. But one thing I did not anticipate was spending the first few hours after my son’s birth completely alone.
I spiked a fever during labor. Because this could have potentially been passed to my son, the nurses whisked him off to the NICU as soon as he was born. I barely got to see him, let alone hold him, feed him, or do the skin-to-skin cuddling I was so looking forward to for months.
I panicked about my son being alone right after he was delivered, so I told my husband to go be with our boy because I couldn’t. My first look into my son’s bright blue eyes came through FaceTime. His first nourishment was a bottle of formula from a nurse instead of breastmilk, snuggled against my chest. I didn’t actually hold my child until hours after he was born.
I didn’t allow myself to mourn this, or even really register the situation as something I needed to process. I still left the hospital a few days later with a healthy baby. Why should I complain if the first few hours after his birth were different from what I had anticipated?
But then it happened a second time. In 2018, my daughter had fluid in her lungs right after birth. Again, my precious baby was taken to the NICU before I could even touch her or see her properly. No skin-to-skin. No bonding. I was wheeled out of the OR and spent the first few hours after giving birth alone. No baby in my arms. No soft cries. Just sterile lights, silence, and the crushing ache of being alone.
Cue the postpartum depression. Cue the postpartum rage. I knew what I was so upset about, but I didn’t feel I had due cause. I knew the doctors and nurses made those decisions to keep me and my babies safe, and for that I am grateful. But not being able to hold my first two babies right after birthing them deeply affected me in ways I didn’t fully realize until I was finally, finally, able to leave the OR holding a baby. My third.
My husband and I arrived at the hospital on a cold November morning in 2021 for the scheduled c-section of our third child. Rationally, I knew that if my third child also needed to go to the NICU, I would of course want her health and safety to be the priority over my wants and needs. But I also knew that I had a hollow feeling in my gut over missing out on this with my first two babies.
For the first time, my baby was placed in my arms within moments of entering the world. I got to take my first look into her eyes in person, and not over FaceTime. I couldn’t stop staring at her, holding her, snuggling her warm little body. After about an hour, I noticed my husband still hadn’t held our daughter. I gently asked if he wanted a turn, but I felt a quiet sense of relief when he shook his head. I think he understood how much I needed that time to begin healing.
