This is the second part to Wilf’s Birth story. If you haven’t read the first part yet, you can see it here.

There were a few plus sides to having a planned Caesarian which I could be happy about, now that the decision was made – firstly, childcare: being able to plan for someone to look after Oscar on the day of the surgery. Also, not having to wait so long, as with Oscar I went nearly two weeks overdue and I was tearing my hair out with impatience. As someone who likes to plan ahead, having a birth date felt freeing, and I did relax somewhat; but it also felt a little bit surreal and deflating, as if a little bit of the magic (nervous anticipation) had been taken out. I was also terrified about the idea of the surgery, having never had an operation in my life. I not-so-secretly hoped that I would go into labour early, and progress so quickly that by the time I made it into hospital the baby would be nearly delivered, so I could have a normal delivery; but with Oscar arriving late I just knew in my heart that this was not going to happen.

The other nice bit of having a planned birth date was that I really, truly soaked every last bit of our family of three up, knowing that we only had a few days left. I had lots of cuddles and one-on-one time with Oscar, took lots of photos and on the night before the surgery we went out for an early dinner, just the three of us: it was perfect. I felt like I was as ready as I ever would be for our family to go through the huge change that was about to happen.

Wilf’s birthday

On the morning of the 2nd January we got up at 6am. It was one of the very few mornings that Ben and I were both up before Oscar, who is an early waker. I wasn’t allowed to eat any breakfast (I don’t think I could stomach any anyway), so I checked my bag one last time, folding the tiny little baby vests again and popping in a little bunny toy to match the one we took to the hospital when I had Oscar. Oscar’s childminder arrived; one of his absolute favourite people from his nursery – his face lit up when he saw her and we knew that we could relax, knowing that he would have a wonderful, fun-packed day with her. I felt too nervous and overwhelmed to get emotional about saying goodbye to Oscar, and in any case he was so thrilled to have Grace all to himself that when we wanted a hug, he looked at us as if to say, “so are you guys leaving or what?!”

Conveniently, we live a short walk from the hospital, so we set off (waddled) over on foot. It was dark and cold outside, the pavements were wet, and the roads were eerily quiet. I felt sick with nerves pretty much from the moment I woke that morning until the moment that Wilf was handed to me; I’m not really sure why, as I knew I was in good hands and that we would both be absolutely fine, but I really was dreading the whole thing and a big part of me wanted to run away in the opposite direction. Once we were in the hospital, on went the very fetching backless gown and anti-thrombosis stockings, and before I had a chance to plan my great escape we were being walked through to the operating theatre on the labour ward. My anaesthetist was someone that Ben and I both know, as Ben works with him, which was both reassuring and also a bit odd. I was still shaking with nerves as a cannula was placed in my hand and the spinal injection was done; I was a little worried about them being painful (a bit silly, in comparison with the pain of labour) but they weren’t at all. Within seconds of the spinal injection going in my legs suddenly felt very warm and heavy, and all the blood rushed from my head. I was laid down on the table and felt incredibly vulnerable; completely at the mercy of the medical professionals around me. Although the whole thing was quick, calm, controlled and pain-free for me, and I am so grateful to everyone who looked after me so well, I personally really disliked the whole experience.

I was irrationally worried about feeling pain during the surgery, so I asked the anaesthetist to check to see if I was numb before making any cuts, to which he replied, “well, they’ve already started, so I guess it must be working!” I started shivering uncontrollably, even though I didn’t feel cold. A side effect of the medication, Ben told me. All of a sudden, I heard a single cry. It was such a beautiful sound and it made me cry out with happiness. I thought Wilf must be delivered, but actually his head wasn’t even fully out – just his mouth, and he simply couldn’t wait to let us know he was there! Ben asked me if he could leave my side to watch Wilf being delivered, and I said, “Sure… But video it so I can see too!” We hadn’t planned to do that, but I love that we have a video of the whole thing for us to remember. I’ll spare you from that video though, as it’s pretty gory! We were also not very surprised to see that after Wilf’s head had been delivered, his shoulders remained pretty well stuck in me, and took a lot of coercing to get out, even though the surgeon had given me a bigger than usual incision in anticipation of this. He was another little sumo baby, like Oscar!

I had asked for Wilf to be given to me straight away, without being cleaned, weighed or having a nappy put on, as he would be if it had been normal delivery. I was met with a bit of resistance from the midwife (it’s not what they ‘usually do’) but I insisted, and apart from a minute of delayed cord clamping time, he was placed straight on my chest, skin-to-skin. The rest of the surgery took about 20 minutes but I really didn’t care how long they took, now that I had Wilf with me.

I was wheeled round to the postnatal ward and had a blissful first hour with Wilf: all the nerves had finally melted away, I had no pain whatsoever, and Wilf latched on to my breast like a total pro after about half an hour of skin-to-skin. I wish that was the end of the drama, but unfortunately it was not. One of the health care assistants came to change my sheets, and on lifting up the blanket covering my legs, she was faced with a pool of blood. I couldn’t feel anything as my legs were still numb from the spinal, so I hadn’t been aware of anything untoward. There was a moment of panic and a flurry of doctors and midwives, and I had to go back to the labour ward for intravenous fluids, a hormone drip and closer observation, but thankfully the bleeding settled down. I lost one and a quarter litres of blood due to my uterus not being fully contracted, and unsurprisingly I felt a bit waffy for a good couple of weeks after that! After all the drama, we realised that Wilf hadn’t yet been weighed! Six hours after he was born, he was finally weighed and came in at 8lb 15oz – this was after quite a number of wet nappies, so was probably a bit less than his actual birth weight. Considering Oscar had two whole weeks more of growing inside me than Wilf, it’s safe to say that he would have been a lot bigger if we had waited for a normal delivery!

Our surgeon came to see me on the ward after the birth to see how I was, but also to deliver a message: that in his opinion, I would have run into trouble if I had tried for a normal delivery, and that he felt we had made the right decision. As someone with years of experience in obstetrics, and someone who is a strong advocate of normal delivery himself unless there is a good medical reason against it, I really trusted his opinion. And of course, after the not-so-wonderful experience of having a Caesarian section, it was a relief to hear that.

The recovery

I spent two nights in hospital and found the recovery MUCH harder than with Oscar. I was very tearful in the days and weeks afterwards due to the pain of the wound, as well as the normal postpartum emotions. Doing pretty much anything was painful for the first few days, I couldn’t walk normally until about three weeks, and it was probably 6 weeks before I felt I could pick up Oscar comfortably (although I definitely did so earlier than this, and then suffered afterwards). If there was one positive point about the harder recovery of a Caesarian when compared to a normal delivery, it was that I was forced to slow down, do less and stay at home. As someone who gets impatient and likes to push myself, I think I really needed this to prevent me from doing too much too early, and I am SO grateful, looking back, that I spent so much time resting, recovering, cuddling and nursing Wilf most of the day and night, and generally looking after myself more. I actually napped in the daytime when Wilf did which I never managed with Oscar! I did actually intend to take things much slower that I did after Oscar was born, and I loved the advice in this book about the first six weeks after having a baby, but it wasn’t until after Wilf was born that I read this brilliant blog post which sums it all up perfectly.

A few weeks ago, Ben bumped into the obstetrician who delivered Wilf at work. Ben told me that he asked how we all were, and asked to see a photo of Wilf. He then said to Ben, “And has Hannah come to terms with the birth yet?”

When Ben told me this, I felt stunned, and a lump came to my throat. Firstly, I hadn’t talked at all with the consultant about how I felt about the Caesarian, so I felt amazed that he clearly knew that I was feeling disappointed and torn when I asked him to book the surgery – and to be honest, really impressed that an older, male surgeon was that perceptive of my feelings. But also, no one had asked me about that since Wilf’s birth. Plenty of people had asked how the physical recovery was going, but I had completely pushed behind me any emotions I felt about ‘missing out’ on the opportunity to have another natural birth. I hadn’t even been honest with myself about it. Even now, as I write, I haven’t yet shed a tear about it all, because I really do mean it when I say that first and foremost I am incredibly grateful and lucky to have another healthy, happy baby. Maybe those tears will come at some point in the future, and maybe they won’t, I’m not sure. But I do know, and it’s painful for me to admit, that when I hear or read about friends’ natural births I feel a pang of envy and sadness. My heart does hurt a little that I will never experience that ever again.

I’ve mostly written all of this down for myself, and it truly has helped me to process it all. And I know that I’m OK. More than OK.

I’ve also written it down because I published Oscar’s birth story on here, and it would be unfair to not document Wilf’s just because 1) it wasn’t all I had hoped it would be and 2) it was a surgical delivery. I love (and still do) reading others’ birth stories but there does, very understandably, seem to be a sway to write about natural births and the ones where it all went well, and omit the gory/less romantic/Caesarian birth stories. Which can fuel the feelings of ‘failure’ experienced by women who need medical intervention during their birth. I say this to myself as much as I do to you: whether you have an unassisted delivery, forceps, epidural for pain relief or a Caesarean section – you still gave birth, and none of these variants should lead to feelings of inadequacy. You brought a life into the world. You gave birth. End of.

I’m feeling super vulnerable pressing publish on this… It’s definitely been cathartic for me to write though and I do hope you enjoy reading it. As always I would love to hear your thoughts!

There is actually one last bit of this story that I will be sharing very soon, and that is a vlog of Wilf’s birth and first few days in the world. I’ll post a link on Instagram when it’s published, so keep a look out for it there!

Hannah x