Caesarean ~ How did you make it an empowering experience?

[AnyDream]

Beema, my CS was both empowering and also deeply healing for me. This is in the context of having asked for a CS for DD2 after a deeply traumatic first VB experience with DD1.

Some of the the things that made a difference to me:
I had a birth plan in place for my C/S - kept it brief & quick to read on a single page. Handed it around and the staff paid me the respect of reading it and also placing a copy in the very front of my file.

In my birth plan I stated my intent to heal my previous traumatic experience. I think the staff responded to that.

It was important to me for DH to not see my insides. This felt like reclaiming some respect & dignity. While it meant they kept the drape up after DD was first born, they were quick to get her to us.

I asked - religiously every time I went to the hospital - if I could breastfeed & have skin to skin contact in theatre. I received every answer under the sun from yes, no, it depends, I don't know - but on the day my intent shone thru and while i didn't get to breastfeed her in theatre we had skin on skin contact and she stayed with me the whole time except for about 10 mins when we were in transit to recovery. The theatre midwife knew how badly I wanted to offer that first feed AND the hospital had the BFing best practice guidelines of offering a feed as close to birth as possible, so she hung around longer in recovery so I could feed DD, even though they were paging her to get a move on LOL.

I asked to see and touch my placenta, as this was something I missed during my first birth. They were unable to do this in theatre because of everything else that was going on, but the same theatre midwife kept it for me in a bucket and brought it up to me (in her own time) at the end of her shift. What a darling.

I was really worried about being left alone with my baby and unable to cope (after experiences with DD1 when I needed help in the middle of the night and couldn't find anyone for several hours) - so I asked for DH to be allowed to stay for the first night or so. In the end they allocated me a single room (even though I would normally have shared) so DH was able to stay the entire time. This helped enormously as I felt like I had support and assistance, unlike with DD1 when DH wasn't allowed *any* time off work (yup, only legal to deprive someone of parental leave if they work in defence).

Ok so a lot of these things won't necessarily apply in your situation, but the important thing is to think about the birth you want and really distill it down to the things that are most important to you, get that into your birth plan and let the staff know WHY you want it that way. I was also quite vocal about needing reassurance on the day because I was terrified (for a number of reasons), and I don't know if they're like this for everyone, but they really did go that extra step to care for my wellbeing, rather than just getting the procedure done.

And the best thing? My little darling was born with none of the distress and pain that DD1 had, she was calm and fat and rosy, and now as a 2 yr old, she has a much greater tolerance for pain than DD1 had at the same age, which I think is a reflection on the calm way she entered the world.