Cody's Birth Story

I promised myself that I would write up Cody's birth story... ahhh what to say. It was so long ago, in a time in my life when I simply wasn't doing well over all. To set the scene, I had gotten engaged to get married in May 1994, literally weeks before my graduation from high school. I was pregnant by the time we got married on 6/24/94. I had only known my husband a few months before we got married. Looking back, I think that I was more in love with the idea of being in love, than actually in love with my husband. Its so hard to tell now. I just realize looking back that I didn't know him, or myself, at all in those days. I was still trying to understand what my place was, in the world. For some reason, I had a romanticized view of marriage and family. Perhaps because my parents were always so good to me growing up, and my family extended was full of many siblings and very few divorces or single parents (on my father's side, almost everyone had 2-9 kids, my cousin homeschooled her 9, my other cousin now has 4 or 5, my aunt and uncle have 7, and on my mom's side, which is less "warm and fuzzy" my grandma still had 7 or 8 or 9 kids). I just thought that what women did when they grew up was get married, stay at home and have children. Looking back, it was more like "playing house" than actually doing it.

During my pregnancy, I don't remember really feeling pregnant. I remember feeling big, even more awkward than my pre-pregnancy high school awkwardness (which was a LOT), and just not feeling well at all. I didn't realize what a big thing being pregnant was, and my baby was going to be the first baby that I had been around since I was a young child (we'd moved away from all of those large families that I modeled myself after). It was a struggle to get up every day, and I spent the first part of my pregnancy in a home no bigger than a camper, with no air conditioning. I remember it being so hot that I just laid on the couch with a fan blowing right on me, and wouldn't even use the bathroom unless I couldn't wait any longer, because of the heat. It was such a dismal situation. We moved around a bit during pregnancy. Paul had a lot of trouble holding down a job, and I'd never even had one. He didn't want his wife to work, so I was all too happy to accomodate him, thinking that I was getting a free ride out of it all. We moved in with my parents towards the end of the pregnancy. I had been diagnosed with "toxemia" and was told to take it easy, rest a lot, restrict my activity. During this time, my husband tried very hard to cheat on me, or so I was told. A friend said he had stopped by their house trying to hook up with someone, and complaining about how I wasn't putting out anymore. Between living with my parents, sleeping on a pull out couch together with very limited privacy, and being 6 or 7 months pregnant atleast, him lying to me and acting suspiciously, I closed up completely. I was still shocked and horrified to learn that he had shared that though. I guess from that point on, I always knew I couldnt trust him. But it set the scene for a very negative birth and post partum experience. He was a truck driver, and randomly worked "over the road" so there were points during my pregnancy that I didnt see him for a week or two at a time. I was so young and nieve. I really needed him there with me... or someone. All of my friends had their own lives to live, most planning for college, while I was planning a baby. My mom and I didn't have a very good relationship at the time. I guess I was still defensive and resentful over some of the problems we'd had when I was a kid. I blamed my parents for so many things. It took me years to realize that they did the best that they could, and their best was better than most. It makes me want to cry to think of what I put my mom through back then. She came from a very messed up neglectful and abusive household. It was wrong for me to expect her to be perfect, when she had no role models to go by. I'm proud of her now, for doing as well as she did for us, and I love her for it very much. I just remember back then, feeling so alone, and so confused and nieve.

When I was 30 some weeks along, the doctor told me that I should consider having a cesarean. He told me that it would save me the pain of labor, and out of terror at the thought of pain, I agreed. I was such a wreck at all of my prenatal appointments. Any time the slightest thing happened, I would burst out crying, and just be terrified. I wished my husband could go to them with me, but he always seemed to be away. The doctor gave me a list of symptoms and told me that if any of them happened I should go to the hospital. He also wrote me up for a ton of tests (glucose, blood work, in hospital monitoring, etc) and I had to go to the hospital for each of them. It ended up seeming as though I was "in and out of the hospital" all the time. If my tests came back the least bit "off" he'd make me stay in the hospital over night (of course he wouldnt talk to me himself, just relay this to a nurse and have her tell me). On more than one occasion, I showed up in the early afternoon for my couple hours of monitoring, and they would want me to stay "one more hour" and that continued until about 7pm, at which time the doctor just had them keep me over night. MORE than once, in doing this, they refused to give me dinner "because I was going home soon" and in the end when it became apparent that I wasn't going anywhere, they said "sorry the kitchen is closed now so we cant get you anything... but we have some broth and jello and juice in the fridge if you want it". On one of those occasions, I went to bed hungry and in the morning woke up to a mis-requested plate of what looked like gel or slime or something, it was their "easily digestible fare" accidentally requested because they thought I was there for surgery, and I was just there for bedrest. I tried to tell them they were wrong, but nobody would listen to me. Probably the thing that sums up my hospital experiences the best is "nobody ever listened to me". I ended up shoving the tray away saying I wasn't going to eat that crap, and the wheels on the tray hooked on the underside of the bed. My tray went FLYING across the room and into the wall. It was pretty funny thinking back on it. My poor mom cleaned it up. I know she wanted to help by being there, but I was so untrusting of my parents in my youth. She just felt like one more person who was trying to tell me what to do, and not listening to what I wanted. She was trying to be the mom, and I thought I was too old to be told what to do so completely refused to talk to her about anything she said. (my poor mom, :( )

On January 24th, 3 weeks before my due date, and about a week before my scheduled cesarean date, I woke up around 4:30-5am, nausious. I threw up, and that was one of the "signs" that I should head to the hospital. I got my mom and dad up, and we headed to the ER at Spring Hill Regional Hospital. My bp was high, they said (although I have no recollection of what the numbers were). The doctor decided to schedule the cesarean ahead of schedule. I think I kinda snapped at some point, because I refused to let them touch me until my husband was there. He'd been in Miami when all of this happened, so had to drive back. He showed up in the late afternoon, and the cesarean was performed at 6:30pm. Cody was born at 6:59pm. During that day, everything is a blur of rude nurses, invasive and painful "preparations" and uncontrollable fear. They weren't letting me eat again, the lady used a "larger than normal IV needle, in case they had a problem in surgery" and hurt VERY bad, putting it in. This is the same woman who told me I couldn't eat throughout the day (making me dislike her from the start), shaved me, did an enema and put in a catheter... Never once asking, or warning me ahead that she was doing anything. Just showing up with random scary torchure device. (keep in mind that I have NEVER been in a hospital before this for anything, beyond the ER) I remember getting my spinal just before the operation and then commenting during delivery to the anesthesiologist that I'd rather have 5 more spinals than 1 more IV placement. I hadn't realized at the time that the nurse who did the IV was assisting during surgery, until I heard the doctors laughing and "picking on her" for it.

The operation went without issue, and I saw my son briefly before he was taken out to the nursery. I was pretty drugged, and throwing up during the whole surgery (not sure what I was throwing up though since I wasnt able to eat or drink anything). I remember going to my room and passing out from the drugs. At some point, they brought the baby in, and I was just so amazed that the surgery I had ended up with a baby. I really don't think I ever made the connection between pregnancy-cesarean-baby. Recently, I've compared it to having bladder surgery and then being handed a baby... it was just so disconnected for me. I didn't want to let anyone hold him. I just kept staring at him and touching him, trying to convince myself that he was mine. I think I was so intent on forcing that bond that I just didn't want to let anyone else touch him. Plus, I was so young, it felt like I was still young enough that people could tell me what to do... this was the first thing in my life that nobody else had any control over. He was mine and nobody else's. I remember before the birth being worried that he would be ugly and that I wouldn't be able to love him. I don't know why I had that thought. I guess it was just a side effect of being unfamiliar with birth, and being so young. He was a beautiful baby. But I still had a really hard time accepting that he was mine.

I remember being in the hospital for almost a week. Cody was there as well, having to stay an extra day for a "cold" in his lungs. They let me stay until he was discharged. I thought it was so great, that I was able to stay there, not because I was with my son, but because I could just lay there and not do anything all day, or worry about anyone other than myself. Cody was with me when I wanted him, and they took him away when I wanted to sleep.

When I got home, I was staying with my parents again. I wasn't breastfeeding because my husband thought it was "gross". Everyone was helpful, and I stayed at my mom's for the better part of a month before moving into our new home (we were buying our place in Crystal River… a trailer on an acre in the middle of nowhere, for a monthly mortgage of $150… my mom set it up through a friend of hers) I remember running out of pain killers a few days after I got to my parents house, and being in SO much pain. It was worse than anything I had ever dealt with in my life. I was begging for pain killers. It was a day and a half before the doctor got around to prescribing new ones for me. God I hurt so bad.

We eventually moved to our place in Crystal River. My incision was infected constantly. This went on for years. I remember living elsewhere when Cody was big enough to have a regular bed (and not a crib/toddler bed) and still having to clean the infection that kept the whole area moist. They had no reasoning for this. I lost a lot of weight, and started working at a club on the strip, and even when I was down to 140lbs and very active, I still had this nasty stomach that I was so self conscious about. L It made me so unhappy about my body. I remember telling my best friend at the time that if I didn't have that one problem, my ego would be out of control, because I thought I was "all that" except for my tummy.

The first 6 months of Cody's life were really hard on me. Its hard to tell what I really remember, and what just *seemed* horrible. It seemed like he would cry ALL the time. He just never stopped, and I never knew what to do about it. Eventually I had to put him in day care because I couldn't handle listening to him cry all day long. I was so depressed. I had gone from a fun loving kinda reckless high school girl, to a married woman with a baby, living in the middle of nowhere alone, inside of a year. My husband was driving over the road again. I remembered begging him so many times not to leave me alone anymore. One time, I begged and cried and pleaded, and he got mad and kicked or hit the fan, and it flew into a thousand pieces around us. I was sitting on the floor in our room, and he just walked out. The baby was crying in his crib, and I was laying in a fetal position on the floor in the next room, sobbing uncontrollably. I lost track of time after awhile. I cried and cried and cried until the sun went down. Eventually the baby stopped crying. He was safe in his crib, but I have no idea how much time passed before I went in and got him. I felt so alone… I kept trying to find resources, not realizing that a doctor could help me, but looking for free counseling or post partum depression help, and never did find anything. I felt like I was loosing my mind constantly. I wanted to die. I wanted to rewind the clock. I wanted to understand exactly why I put myself in that situation. I didn’t have to get married, I chose to. I didn't have to get pregnant, I chose that too. I didn't have to move to the middle of nowhere, an hour away from anything familiar… I chose that. Of course during all of this, I hadn't realized that I chose the cesarean… I just thought that was what I needed to do.

Thinking back on it now, so many things were wrong back then. I've forgiven myself for the bad choices I made. I just wrote them off and tried to learn from my mistakes. Up until the middle of my current pregnancy, I thought that "learning from my mistakes" was just accepting that I wasn't the "mom type" and not reproducing again. I don’t hate my ex-husband for cheating on me, or treating his son and I badly. I don’t hate the doctor for performing my cesarean, or the nurses for not having a better bedside manner. I just don't want anything to do with my ex-husband, and will never set foot inside of Spring Hill Regional again, and wouldn't use my OB from that period for so much as a birth control shot. Was the cesarean unnecessary? Yes. Did I do it out of fear? Yes. But I won't make that mistake again. What I've come to realize though, is that it wasn't just having a cesarean that made the experience so traumatic. It was the way that I let people push me around, and let myself be a ragdoll, moved and poked and prodded without thought. The whole time that they refused to feed me, even when they were wrong to do so (the nights that I wasn't there for surgery) it never occurred to me to just get up, walk out, get in the car, and drive to McDonalds. I was young and nieve, and didn’t understand my rights… and nobody around me understood them either, and why should they? We grow up in a society where you are required to "listen to the doctors" and "doctors and nurses have our best interest at heart". It was nobody's fault really. IT was just an experience I needed to learn from. It took a long time to learn that lesson, but I have learned it, and won't ever forget it again….

Addendum:

I was really traumatized (by my birth experience, particularly being tied to the table during surgery "to protect me"). I have actually tried toget my tubes tied 3 or 4 times in the past, because I didn't ever want to go through it again. Even after I met my husband, we almost didnt marry because I knew he wanted kids of his own, and I didn't want to go through it again. It wasn't just that one part of it,but the whole experience. I just thought that if I was a "good mom" and had been able to "just focus on the happy baby" I wouldn't be so unhappy about the whole thing. I figured since I was a bad mother I wasnt cut out to have children, and wasn't going to have any more. I had other things happening besides just the cesarean though... my ex-husband cheated on me (with women who I thought were friends) while I was pregnant - pretty much ruining any possible enjoyment of being pregnant...even now I have problems with myself esteem. Thank god for my soulmate...my husband who reminds me a hundred times a day how beautiful he thinks I am. And I had post partum depression really bad. My ex-husband left me alone a lot right after my son was born, taking a job driving a truck across country (we had just moved an hour away from my family 2 weeks after my son was born) It wasnt until I was over 5 months pregnant with this baby, that I realized that it didn't have to be that way. I was having a VERY hard time even thinking about the fact that I was having a baby again. I was so miserable and afraid... I can't even put it to words. My husband wanted kids, and was completely upfront about that, but I fell in love with him anyways. But getting pregnant was my way of "getting it over with" something I was suffering through "because I love him", not something I thought I could ever enjoy or want to do myself. I was starting to really blame him for everything. All I saw was a halt to my life. During my morning sickness period I was crying everyday, and wishing for someone else's life. So afraid that my life was at an end...again. I was afraid that my husband wouldn't see me the same, and that I would be ignored and controlled and become less of a person for 9 months, again. I had even tried to talk my husband into adopting a baby so that we could have a beautiful baby without my having to "suffer".

Once I found ICAN, and my UBAC list, and started to do research though, I realized that it wasn't the baby that I was afraid of, or my body, or the process of being pregnant and giving birth in itself. It was the way that it was handled, and the feelings of helplessness and fear I had, that I hadn't let go of. It was like a lightbulb finally came on after all this time. I am so calm about it now, that it almost seems like another life, having had the experience I had with my son. I feel like I just became pregnant when I realized these things. I guess thats why I am not quite ready to have her born yet. We have some catching up to do. I giggle when she kicks me now,and spend so much time just talking to her, rubbing my tummy. And I think the most amazing thing of all... I catch my husband staring at me kind of in awe sometimes. When he sees me looking he always tells me how beautiful I am, and tells me how much he loves me...and then he leans down and his voice goes up a few notches and he says "hello brianna!! Hello in there!!" :)

I don't know if being strapped down itself traumatized me any more than anything else. It was either too much to handle, or the one final thing that put me over the edge. I just remember the feeling of utter panic and dispair that I associated with the nurse strapping me down. For some silly reason, I really didn't think I had a choice about that, or any other part of my son's birth. I was so young and nieve back then..