WARNING: not a happy post. And not directly about Quinn, but definitely related.

It's nearly midnight and I can't sleep. That's really nothing new to me. I've had trouble sleeping most of my life. It's one of the reasons I list thinking as a hobby. What else would I do when I'm just lying there? Unfortunately, at this point, there is an awful lot that I really ought not to dwell on. One of those things is the fact that I am really mourning my uterus. Yes, I still have it, but it is permanently damaged. The primary female organ that identifies me as a woman is now scarred. It's amazing how within seconds injuries can break something that was perfectly functional. With just a few strokes of a knife, I was broken. I'm not getting into whether or not the cesarean was necessary. That's a discussion for another time. The bald fact is, I feel damaged, physically, mentally, and spiritually by this surgery. I had been an excellent candidate for homebirth. I had two uncomplicated births under my belt. Both labors were on the long side, but not exhaustingly so. And then my body failed me. And adding insult to injury, or vice versa in this case, I had to be gutted and my baby extracted, in what I can only conceive of as the dead opposite of the birth I had pictured. And I'm not willing to do it again. I don't ever want to have another surgery. Even though I've been told a planned c-section is infinitely better than an emergency surgery, the recovery would be the same. And as if I didn't feel broken enough by the surgery itself, every day of my recovery so far has only served to make me feel like a complete invalid, incapable of doing most things I once took for granted.

I know I'm not alone in these sentiments. But the psychological aspects of cesarean birth are so often shoved into the corner, and down-played by well-meaning comments like "At least you got a healthy baby." or "At least yours was truly necessary." It doesn't change the feelings, and in fact might just make the whole situation worse, because then I add guilt to my feelings of violation, that I'm not grateful enough for this debilitating, life-altering, permanently-scarring surgery. Yes, I'm grateful my son is alive, but that doesn't totally negate the feelings I associate with the day he was born, which honestly was easily the worst day of my life. There was so much worry, and I couldn't process it all as I came out of the drug haze, having only had the barest glimpse of Quinn before he was taken away, and then going for hours on end without hearing a word about him, while people around told me I needed to rest, all the while poking me to see if I was still alive and recovering at the expected rate. I didn't have the energy to tell them to go to hell and for the love of all that is holy, tell me what happened to my baby.

And then there's the impact on potential future pregnancies. VBAC does exist, but the mere fact that a woman has had one c-section increases her odds of another. The most commonly thought of complication is uterine rupture, which according to most sources occurs less than 1% of the time with a low transverse scar, and between 1 and 7% with a low vertical scar like mine, although those numbers are far shakier, with less research to back them up. But there are other complications worth knowing about. Placenta previa, where the placenta partially or completely covers the cervix, is 50% more common in pregnancies after c-section. Placenta accreta, where the placenta attaches to the scar tissue, making it very difficult to detach after birth and possibly ripping the scar open, is rapidly on the rise as the c-section rates climb. One reported rate was 1 in 533 births in 2005, up from 1 in 19000 in 1970. And then there are the hospitals that ban VBAC altogether. Guess what folks, if that's the case, that hospital as much as admits it can't handle any emergency, and you aren't getting what you went to the hospital for in the first place. The current c-section rate in this country is around 30%, nearly one third. I was chilled to realize that corresponds to my children, two of whom were born vaginally and one surgically. I'm now part of the national statistic, and part of me is physically sick over it.