Louis’ Birth Story - A Beautiful Caesarean Birth
Today a dear friend of mine, Gabrielle Clark is so kindly sharing her son Louis’ birth story. Gabrielle gave birth to baby Louis during the COVID-19 pandemic via caesarean section at 38 weeks. Gabrielle’s story highlights how beautiful birth can be and shines light of the experience of a caesarean section. Thank you so much Gabrielle for sharing your story. I know a lot of women will enjoy reading it as much as I did. x Megan
Written by Gabrielle Clark.
Pregnancies can be tough, births can be tough, but that bundle of cuteness you get at the end makes those tough 9 months totally worth it. My pregnancies were hard, you name it, I have probably had it. With my first pregnancy I had 9 months of nausea and vomiting, pregnancy insomnia, constipation, reflux that would make me vomit, swollen feet and high blood pressure. That all culminated in a 10-hour induced labour and emergency caesarean section, but that’s a story for another time.
Pregnancy number two had all of the above and throw in a sprinkle of pelvic instability and a dash of fluid retention and some horrific left side rib pain. I was 38 weeks pregnant measuring at 42 weeks in so much pain and exhausted because I hadn’t slept in what felt like a month. Instead of going for the VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean), like I had hoped, we opted for a planned caesarean section at 38 weeks – I did not have another two weeks left in me.
Boy was this caesarean different from my first. I was having a baby in the middle of a global pandemic and while I guess I knew what I was in for this time around, it was a completely different experience (thankfully). I woke up (after taking a restavit) got to say goodbye to my beautiful little girl, Zoe, and off we went to hospital. Zoe wasn’t allowed to visit in hospital, so I was quite sad leaving her. We were booked for 10.30am, we got to the hospital and got weighed (cue, utter shock! more on that later) and taken to our maternity suite. We got the run down, I got changed into a gown and then we waited. At 10am I was being wheeled down to theatre, I was getting quite nervous at this point. I was scared of the spinal block, Sam (my husband) was not allowed in with me during this procedure, so there I was squeezing the hand of my obstetrician and paediatrician while curling over a pillow. I’m not going to lie this was pretty awful, and admittingly, I thought ‘I’m never doing this again’ but once the anaesthetist got the right spot, we were good to go.
This time around I was so much more aware of everything going on, Sam was next to me chatting to me about our honeymoon and all the places we visited, Amalfi coast, Santorini, Rome etc. The obstetrician and anaesthetist were talking about another surgeon they didn’t like, while I was trying to block out the sound of ‘snipping’ and the smell of burning (cauterizing blood vessels). I was in no pain though, and while I knew exactly what was happening, which made me feel quite nauseas, the excitement to meet my baby trumped all of that. 20 mins later our little Louis was born, the obstetrician described my womb like the Daylesford day spa, there was that much fluid, they even struggled to catch him as he kept floating back up toward my ribcage – there was that much fluid. He came out with a roar, and Sam got some wonderful photos right as he entered this world. I immediately got to have a hold as they began stitching me up. This was only for a few minutes before he was taken off to be wiped down and Sam got to cut the cord with what he describes as being ‘children’s scissors’. Sam and Louis were taken into the recovery room while they finished stitching and I got to have a little bit of shut eye while daydreaming about my beautiful son that was just born.
I was then wheeled into recovery where I got to spend about 20 minutes cuddling little Louis while they checked my blood pressure before we were headed back to our room. I weighed myself post caesarean section and I had dropped 10kgs. My baby weighed 3.4kgs, so I was carrying an extra 6kgs in fluid! No wonder I was in pain! My recovery this time around was a lot quicker and 10 weeks on as I write this, I am back to exercising and jumping on the tramp with my toddler! While I never got to experience ‘pushing a baby out’ I still have some beautiful photos of both my kids coming into this world via the ‘sunroof’. They are both happy and healthy and both experiences have been very different, but I have learnt a lot through both and how resilient and how amazing our bodies are. And I definitely think I could do it all again!
