When I first started planning my birth I didn’t think I would end up with a C-section. I wanted another ideal birth like I had with my son Zack. We were talking one day and he said to me, “Mom it’s not gonna happen like it did before. It’s going to be totally different.” I had such an ideal birth with him that the only thing I could imagine was C-section with every complication. But I refused to think about that until the last 3 months of pregnancy when I kept having visions of a C-section. And my OB asked me if I wanted to have her naturally still even though I’d been in labor for about 20 hours. Looking back I don’t think I had a choice. I think she was tangled in the womb. The OB said she had the cord wrapped around her leg which really should not have posed a problem but in my infant baby’s mind, there was no way she was coming natural. I firmly believe she was avoiding some kind of problem. I will probably never know what but none the less, I am very grateful for the preparation I did. I believe it all helped surgery and recovery go better as well as helped me have a good size and healthy baby without too many complications considering my lung collapsed when I was 6 months pregnant. This is what I did that I may not have done otherwise:

  1. I ate better pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy. I believe the way I ate helped prevent miscarriage because I had bleeding in the first 3 months of pregnancy. After doing a lot of research on nutrition I believe it can help prevent pre-eclampsia, toxemia, and low birth weight. I believe the good nutrition I consumed helped me whether the depletion of epidural medication, anesthesia, pain medications and antibiotics. 
  2. I exercised and continued to exercise even though toward the end it caused me a lot of pain. As the pregnancy progressed and I gained more weight my breathing became more and more difficult. It did not help that I had a flair up of asthma that I never believed I had. After my lung collapsed in the 6th month of pregnancy my breathing was never the same. I had to take breathing medication from a breathing machine. I forced myself to continue to walk regularly. It started out almost daily and then went down from there. I started at 3 miles a day going to down to 1 mile and sometimes only 1/2 a mile. Walking is one of the most important things you can do in pregnancy and before. It keeps you strong, breathing well, and able to endure a long labor.
  3. I got the emotional support I really needed. I took Bradley Husband Coaching Childbirth classes and had already had an ideal Bradley birth so that is what I wanted and was preparing for. I had a lot of fear being an older mother and having used IVF to get pregnant, I didn’t fully trust my body to do what it was designed to do. Because my fear negatively affected my relationship with one doctor. We ended up changing doctors and I no longer felt comfortable talking to any doctor about my concerns. That is when I decided to attempt to have the baby at home which meant I needed a nurse midwife. Even though I had a C-section she was super supportive when I had a ton of questions especially after my lung collapsed. 

Please tell me about your birth plans and if they went as you wanted. Were you happy with the results? Would you do things differently?