To ceaser or not??? By Raks

One of the most controversial topics that I have come across is this one of c-sections.  Did you know that more babies are born abdominally than people lose gall bladders and tonsils?  For me personally it was never a choice.  No not because I had to have an emergency ceaser but simply put I believe very strongly that there is no need for me to sit under the proverbial tree and push out the watermelon after 40 hours of what I can only imagine is excruciating pain.  So yes I choose to have what we like to term a “planned” c –section.  Tut Tut.  Some of you may well believe that does not make me a woman but here’s the truth – I AM TOO POSH TO PUSH!  I have no idea who coined that term but it suits me to a tee. 

I am a consultant who had spent the last 3 years setting up and running a programme management office for the world cup in South Africa.  My life is about planning.  I write lists.  I tick off those lists.  Control freak you say? Hell yes! So I liked the idea of “planning” when the baby would come.  Granted I had some reservations.  I am not a believer in organised religion but the one thing I do believe in is Karma.  It has bitten me in the ass more times that I care to share so let’s just say it has worked its way into my book as the most important dogma to live by.  So here was my dilemma.  If I planned the date which my baby was born would I somehow be messing with its destiny? I mean I had a choice of dates and I picked the one that would make the baby a Sagittarius and not a scorpio so was I somehow messing up the circle of life? 

Like I said in my last blog, the plan was never to go into labour.  It was to check into the hospital like you do a hotel, get unpacked and test out the bed.  Things don’t always go accordingly to plan and for a crazy freak like me well of course sod’s law I somehow triggered the onset of labour.  The only thing I can think of was that I had sat in the pool the whole day before because it was the only place I could feel less like a whale.  A contradiction I know because in a skimpy bikini at 8.5 months pregnant I mean how could you not look like it right?  But the weightlessness of the water was just divine. 

So I wake up at six the next morning with a peculiar sensation I really can’t describe.  Ok will try...it was like a dull ache in my tummy like I had eaten too much poussin chicken and needed to go for a number 2 but I somehow couldn’t push.  My hubby was sure I was in labour but I was still convinced that I just needed a good dump!  So I went to get a cup of tea hoping to stir my bowels.  Nothing.  Every few minutes I would curl up cramping and was convinced I just needed a buscopan to cure me. After one hour of this back and forth my hubby announces that my contractions were 7 minutes apart. It was a good thing one of us was awake during those ante-natal classes!  So he picks up the bags  to put in the car (yes I told you I am a planner so they were packed down to the infinitesimal detail like which CD to play in theatre) Side bar – see you can even choose what music your baby hears with planned c –sections!  I just stood there and said “no way” we are not putting those bags in the car!  I am not looking like an eejit walking out of the hospital having had Braxton-hicks contractions or false labour.  I don’t intend to be one of those couples that regales stories of what a drama queen I was and how I had to rush to the hospital oodles of times because I wasn’t paying attention in class!  Besides I missed the whole lesson on Lamaze breathing because I was certain I was having a caesarean.  Turns out he was right.  I was in labour and the baby was coming.  So much for karma, destiny and all that planning! 

As I am being prepared for surgery, which entails basically dry shaving your privates – yuck, and having all sorts of needles stuck in you I realise that I have forgotten the camera!  So I refused to go into the operating theatre until the camera arrived. As we waited for the camera to arrive like it was precious cargo, my waters broke and I swear I was so embarrassed. I was sure that I had somehow lost complete sensation of my bladder and had pissed all over the gurney! I quietly whispered to one of the 8 nurses that I had pissed myself and could I get up and dry off but alas it was my waters.  Camera in hand we get wheeled into theatre.

Now normally epidural’s are quite effective, mine not so.  I felt the doctor literally sawing at my abdomen muscles but it was totally worth it for the morphine high I was plyed with.  Turns out I had placenta previa and they had to get the baby out quick as my placenta was already smothering him! So in twenty minutes out pops this baby and truth be told all I could think was “Its ugly man – put it back!!!”