Most of us probably envision a beautifully calm and peaceful birth. I was flexible with my birth plan, knowing anything could change at any given moment, but mostly? I wanted a water birth with no pain relief except for gas and air. I wanted dimmed lights, a mix-tape of my favourite metal music and perfectly shot photographs of me cradling my newborn in the birthing pool. I wanted delayed clamping of the cord, immediate skin-to-skin and the vernix to be kept on my baby as long as possible.
Instead? I had two failed sweeps, had to be induced at 41+5 days and spent 19 hours in labour before the decision was made that I needed an emergency caesarean. Having never even sprained an ankle before, going in for major surgery was scary, and I was extremely high-risk due to my size and weight, but who knew the surgery would be much smoother than I thought, whilst the recovery would be anything but easy.
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