C-Section: "I had an amazing experience even though it was rough"
Name: Devon Honeycutt
Baby Name: Kenzi Honeycutt
Weight: 7 lbs 14 oz
Legnth: 22 inches
Birthday: September 29, 2017
Gestation: 41 weeks
Time of Birth: 6:24 pm
Location of Birth: Easton, MD
My doctor said they wanted to induce me since I was about 6 days past my due date and to call the hospital that morning (September 28, 2017) to see if they had a bed available for induction. I did and they said they had space and to come on down around 7 am. We arrived at the hospital and got all checked in and they decided they wanted to start me on cytotec (which is a tiny little pill they had me put between my gum and my cheek for 30 min to dissolve and supposedly is supposed to start contractions) which did not do what was intended and nothing happened. About 3 hours later they told me they wanted to start pitocin and I said before we do that I wanted to take a bath because my room had a jacuzzi bath and I really wanted to use it and once I started pitocin they wouldn’t let me. Anyway after my bath about 20 minutes later we started pitocin. It didn’t really do anything to me at first and my midwife decided to check my cervix to see if I was dilating and she noticed that I have some scar tissue preventing it from dilating (from a previous surgery I had a few years ago) so she tried to manually break up with her fingers as I writhed in pain. After it got to be too much she said “well I’m not in the business of torturing people so we will just wait until you get your epidural and try again.”
In the meantime she wanted to use the balloons to try to pry my cervix open to at least 4 cm. Basically they put one balloon on the inside of your cervix (you have to be at least half a cm dilated to do this) and the other balloon on the outside of your cervix and fill them with sterile saline and wait for it to come out on its own which would tell them you’re dilated to a 4. Every so often a nurse would come by and give it a tug to see if it was ready to come out and after a few hours of this she gave it one really good rug and it basically shot out! I was not expecting that.
Anyway after all that around 5 pm on the 28th my midwife came in and said I don’t want to rush you but if you want to get an epidural the doctor is here now and will be leaving soon. I was like “ok better get it now then” even though I really wasn’t in any pain at the time. (I wish I had waited until I actually needed it though because it is less effective the longer you have it) Later that night probably around 8 pm I was having really bad neck pain. So bad that I couldn’t move my head from side to side at all so they ended up calling the anesthesiologist back from home to talk to me about it bc they thought it had something to do with the epidural. (It didn’t, I guess I was just tensing my muscles all day and that’s what it was) after talking to him it started to feel better out of nowhere so he left.
That whole night I didn’t get any sleep because every 20 min or so a nurse would come in and make me turn to the other side because baby’s heart rate wasn’t good. So basically we just kept going on like that until about 2:30 pm on the 29th when the doctor said I was 10 cm dilated and that we can start to push. My epidural was wearing off at this point even though I kept pressing the button for more every 15 min so I felt immense pressure. My neck pain had returned at this point so I couldn’t get in the right position for pushing so they just told me to do it however I could. So I tried for 3 hours to push and nothing.
Then my doctor came in and said he wanted to try the vacuum and I said fine. He tried for 30 minutes with no luck. He looked at me and said “I don’t think this baby is going to fit” I said “I don’t think so either so are you thinking c-section then?” And he said “if your ready to make that call I’m ready to make that recommendation” I said “let’s do it because I’m done”. They prepped me for c-section and we were off. In the room I was still having that intense neck pain and kept complaining about it to my husband and the anesthesiologist and he said you shouldn’t be having any neck pain. Then my doctor made the first incision and I asked if he did because I felt some stinging. The anesthesiologist said “ you should not be feeling that at all” I said “well I did” and he said “ yeah, I’m just going to give you some ketamine” and it knocked me out completely. I didn’t meet my baby for about 45 minutes after that.
All in all I had a 36 hour failed induction resulting in a c-section. It was rough, but recovery wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was up and walking 12 hours after surgery and I had the baby walking around the mall with me 5 days later. What I learned about myself through this whole experience is that I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was or would be. Truth be told I had an amazing experience even though it was rough. The staff at the hospital and my doctor were amazing. So was the hospital food lol I loved it.
