As a seasoned parent, motherhood was familiar territory and my husband and I were ecstatic to find out we were having a baby girl. I already had a four year old son and felt this was the perfect age gap between the two. My son helped me a lot through pregnancy! He offered to carry in grocery bags and helped out wherever he could throughout my 9 months. When the doctor told me that my unborn daughter was sitting breech (meaning, she was not head down) I began to worry. I was looking forward to having another natural birth as I did with my son. I dreamed about having that “moment” of feeling labor pains and happily grabbing my hospital bag and rushing to the hospital. I was told that my options were limited and I would more than likely have to schedule a C-section. Schedule a C-section?! That meant I would pick my daughter’s birthday, potentially not feel any labor pain and just have a baby on said day and time. I was very upset. I had all kinds of worries. The doctors offered to try to turn her in the womb but in my opinion that felt more risky. If she was breech, so be it. So we scheduled the C-section.
Every day I wished for my water to break. I wished for my own body to send me to labor. That day never came. On November 2, 2012 at 8 a.m. I was walking into the labor ward as if it were any ordinary morning during my pregnancy. My hospital was awesome and offered, yet again, to turn my baby so I could get the birthing experience I truly wanted. At that point I had mentally prepared myself for a C-section. Within hours, I was whisked away, given my IV and spinal block and lay motionless from the chest down on the operating table. The room was cold and visually terrifying. When my husband was allowed in, the atmosphere changed. I felt grateful to have my husband close and such a great team of doctors and nurses. It was odd to feel like a floating head, since the rest of my body felt like Jell-O. My husband talked to me the whole time, making me laugh and assuring me that I would be okay. In what seemed like minutes, I felt slight pressure on my ribs and looked over at my husband. Tears were streaming down his face and he was looking up over the curtain. He told me, “Baby, look up, there she is!” Fully aware, I turned my head up towards the curtain and there was my beautiful healthy baby girl blinking at us.
I was so overwhelmed with emotion. I started crying as she was crying. The sound of her cries were beautiful. Since I hadn't spent 18 hours pushing and feeling pain, as I did with my natural birth, I felt more present in the moment. I was amazed at how quick, safe and painless the procedure of a C-section was. My daughter Sienna Lorelei Sutton weighed in at 7 pounds 4 oz. The cord was wrapped around her neck twice and I was told by doctors that this was probably the reason she was breech. Turning her in the womb would have been far riskier and my decision to go through with the C- section was the right choice. I always say, listen to your gut instincts. We as mothers know best. I share this story because I felt like my C-section would lack the beauty and bliss of my natural birth experience. I was very wrong. I had a beautiful C-section and will never forget “Sienna Eve” a term we refer to the night before her birth that felt very much like Christmas Eve- we could hardly sleep, we just kept talking about being able to hold her the very next day. The excitement and anticipation were emotions I could never forget. A C-section has its perks. With modern medicine and a great crew of doctors, my daughter was born safely. My health was monitored closely and I actually recovered much faster than my vaginal birth. It has been almost 4 weeks since I have had Sienna and if I could do it again, whether vaginally or by C-section, I know that both experiences have a beautiful aspect to them that can't be matched. A healthy baby is all that matters and when I look down at my body, I know that we did this, as a team.