6/30: Hard things

6/30: What Is The Hardest Thing You Have Ever Experienced?

Instantly I knew what I was going to write about. I hope this day’s post doesn’t make people roll their eyes or feel like I’m a whiner. Because honestly THE hardest thing I’ve ever experienced is something I’ve shared again…and again…and it’s probably become pretty repetitive but it’s something I’m still trying to process and work through. So I apologize in advance if this annoys you or doesn’t suit to your liking. Get over it. It’s my experience not yours.

With that prelude out of the way I do know what I wanted to write about…But then I started to think if there was truly anything else I’d ever experienced that was harder. Not having my parents at my wedding was pretty rough, and though it did take something away from me I still got married and I still have my parents in my life. I also for a split second thought about when I had to leave my sweet heart before we got married. He was staying in Idaho and I had to drive 12 hours to home. That was THE hardest drive of my life! I’m pretty sure I bawled the entire drive home and it was so incredibly lonesome and hard to leave him. I think my sister-in-law Kristen can vouch for that, since she had to drive 4 of the 12 hours with me. I must’ve looked like a bafoon. Even those tough times don’t trump the hardest thing I’ve ever had to experience. And I know this is the hardest because I’m still not over it.

My Induction and C-Section is the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced.

When you’re as big and as miserable as I was at 39 weeks I went in very desperate for some sort of relief and salvation. The only thing is induction was like hell on earth rather than my saving grace. I’ve never gone through so much pain and chaos in all my life. I do not wish induction on even my worst enemy. Seriously. With that and all the interventions came an emergency c-section. The c-section itself wasn’t really that bad; other than not getting to hold and bond with my baby right away. It was the after mass. It got infected. I seriously have never experienced anything worse than having a part of me that is trying to heal be infected. To have the very core of me sliced open and then get infected hurt like hell. To have Dr’s digging deep into the infected pocket to prevent me from having to be in the hospital again not only stressed and frightened me but it was bloody torture. It hurt and I cried and it seemed no one cared. You know…they’re the Dr’s and they’re just trying to help me. Pff. To this day I can’t shake what I experienced. The infection just made me reflect on everything that happen to me and just made me that much more bitter and upset. It sucked.

No one ever warned me that induction would increase my risk of a c-section by 50%.

 No one ever warned me that all the interventions that would more than likely ensue would increase the probability that I would be hauled off to have my baby un-naturally sliced out of my body.

Never did I imagine after my baby was born that my husband would have to do wound care for over 2 weeks just to reduce the amount of appointments we had to go to. He got to be the lucky one to pull the smelly gauze from the pocket and put more in.

Never did I imagine I’d experience such heart break over having a c-section.

Having major abdomen surgery is a big deal, and then you add infection on top of that, and then trying desperately to take care of yourself and your helpless in need of your love, care, and attention newborn is rough. My mom has more than once told me this isn’t how it’s suppose to be, having a newborn isn’t this bad. I hope in the future I get to understand how easy recovery should be. We didn’t get an easy start, but we’re doing okay now, for the most part. I’m still broken inside and still lay in bed crying at night thinking of everything that went wrong and how much it effects ALL my motherly birthing decisions from here on out. I may be destined for c-sections because of that one little 5 inch slice. But I hope not. 

The indentation where it got infected. It's hollow and will forever be there as a reminder.

 It hurt and still rocks me to the core. If you can’t tell I’m not a big advocate for c-sections, and am going to fight like mad to get a VBAC. You could not pay me enough to do another c-section. I’m hoping that someday when I’m able to birth the way I was meant to birth I’ll be able to cover over the painful wound and memories of my c-section. I’m thankful that my son was born healthy and perfect in every way. But to this day I cease to think “what if?” What if I would have just waited a little longer? Would he have come naturally? I know he was 9lbs but honestly I’d much rather have seen what it was like to push a 9lb baby out and tare than to have what I went through happen. I still cry over it, I still get angry, and I just hope someday I can truly look back and say what’s done is done.