Why I Chose a Planned C-Section

Before I got pregnant, I never really understood the seeming innate need for mothers to overshare and explain all the gory, explicit details of their delivery. Now, on the other side, while I absolutely avoid speaking to these details to those who do not wish to hear it, I finally understand the need for solidarity when it comes to labor and delivery stories. I’m not going to lie, I was completely unprepared for pregnancy and delivery alike. Blissfully unaware; perhaps voluntarily naive even, for all that was about to occur.

There are so many things nobody talks about. Certain things miss documentation in women’s pregnancy narratives because they are flat out gross or embarrassing yet others because, in the greater picture, moms forget they even happened. All this to say, I now understand why women, first time moms in particular, NEED to hear other women’s birth stories. We need to know what to expect, how to advocate, how to make decisions. In reality, no delivery is alike; truly they are all wildly different to the point that hearing other’s stories in many cases may be pointless. Nevertheless, they seem to comfort and help prepare us for the unknown. And while no pregnancy or delivery is the same, there are absolutely issues that overlap and we can learn from the experiences of other women. With that said, I felt it important to share why I made the decision I did. I know plenty of women who might disagree with me, but I hope this sheds some light on not just my experience with a planned c-section but empowers this audience to trust their gut and make the best decision for themselves and for their children.

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While debating if I should have a planned C-section, I spent countless hours on Reddit (yes there is a whole thread dedicated to all different delivery methods) and bombarded family members and girlfriends with questions about their experiences.

I should note, I went into pregnancy with no birth plan. To be honest, birth plans are pretty much bogus. The only birth plan women truly need is simple. This was my mantra:

“I want this baby to come out as safely, painlessly and quickly as possible (and in that order of importance).

Simple right? One would think so. It was a great guideline, but with it came a decision that I had to make for myself, a decision that the doctor wanted me (us) to make. There was a gray area - a choice to be made: Would I attempt a vaginal delivery or opt for a scheduled (planned) c-section?

Here were the facts:

Early on in pregnancy, near the end of the first trimester, it was discovered that I had a placental abnormality: Marginal Cord Insertion. This condition is relatively rare (about 9 occurrences in every 100 pregnancies) and is when the umbilical cord attaches to the side of the placenta and not the middle. This can cause issues since the sides of the placenta are much weaker and may not be able to support the cord. It can later escalate into a more severe issue and also can prevent the fetus from getting nutrients in the womb. Fortunately, getting nutrients to little Clark was not an issue; the thought is frankly laughable if you were lucky enough to be graced with my very chubby presence while pregnant. We were both incredibly well fed (thank you donut and ice cream cravings)!

While the growth of our baby was not affected by this oddity, we wouldn’t know if it would cause an issue during labor until…well…labor started. My doctor explained to me that during labor, the mother is basically shut off from giving nutrients, etc. to the baby. This is where the placenta steps in and supports the child. If the placenta is, as my hilarious and amazing doctor put it, “a piece of garbage,” it becomes apparent very quickly and the heart rate of the baby will drop immediately. If that happens, an emergency c-section is imminent. Therefore, one option is to plan a c-section in the first place. While this discovery happened in the earlier stages of pregnancy, it was food for thought. While I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have a human come out of my hoo-hah, I also wasn’t jazzed at the thought of a knife cutting through to my uterus, ya know?

Fast forward to the second and third trimester. Each time we went in for an ultrasound, we were delighted to see how well Clark was growing, however, we all became increasingly concerned with his particularly large noggin. Each time his head was measured, he was in the mid to high 90th percentiles. Keep in mind, people, I am not a large person at just under five feet tall…90th percentile baby….10th percentile mom…

For a fun visual, I gained 50% of my body weight.

I shit you not.

I was basically a walking bowling ball with two oversized, water-logged legs. Complete the package with two club feet, carpal tunnel and the weakest bladder this side of the Mason-Dixon, and you have the poster child for birth control. Before, I was around 110 pounds soaking wet. Walking into delivery I was over 160. All this to say, I grew a big ass baby for my 5 foot nothing frame.

At our 30 week ultrasound and visit, the three of us (doctor, Ben and I) had a pow-wow. In addition to the placenta abnormality, we were now talking about the large head. While the doctor dazzled us with the starting details of a fourth degree tear (trigger warning: that’s a vagina to booty-hole tear, for those wondering), he was moreso concerned that Clark’s big ol’ head wouldn’t be able to fit through my pelvis.

The truth of the matter, and one that kind of surprised me, is that these ultrasounds and all the percentile numbers are really more guestimates than hard facts. We really didn’t know for sure how big his head was or whether it would fit. We didn’t know how much my hips and body might adjust later in pregnancy to accommodate for this big baby (or not accommodate, for that matter.)

I asked the doctor what he thought we should do.

“The other doctors in the practice may disagree with me, but if you want a planned c-section, I will absolutely sign off on that.”

To be honest, I was slightly taken aback. First, because I wanted my doctor, the medical professional, to tell me what to do. And second, why would the other doctors in the practice disagree with a planned c-section? So I asked just that.

“They don’t have 40 years of experience seeing all that can go wrong yet.”

I was floored. It wasn’t a smug comment or a dig on the other doctors. It was genuine and heartfelt. It was true, most of the other doctors were in their early 30s to mid 40s, and here was my doctor, damn near 70, telling me all I really needed to know.

C-sections get a really bad rap. Mostly because we tend to only hear about them happening in emergency situations, that are already inherently more dangerous because of other factors. Our doctor explained that he actually found that morbidity and mortality rates for mother and child were slightly less with planned c-sections than vaginal deliveries. Really think about that. We hear all these scary stats about c-sections being riskier, yet most of those statistics being cited are comparing all vaginal deliveries to all c-sections, where most c-sections for first time mothers occur during intense, emergency situations.

I cannot speak to statistics about all vaginal deliveries nor am I a doctor, however, I have a plethora of anecdotal stories from friends with traumatic vaginal birth stories. Often times, they end up laboring for hours or days and end up having to have the emergency c-section anyways. Afterwards, these women opt for planned c-sections their next time around; all of them saying how much better the experience was. There are also many dangers for the baby when a vaginal delivery goes wrong. All it takes is a brief moment without oxygen and the child could have issues for the rest of his or her life. If you don’t have friends or family with first hand stories like this, I assure you, you will.

This begs so many questions:

Why do we do this to ourselves? If there’s any risk to us or our child that we know beforehand, why do we feel like we need to prove something by pushing? Why do some women seem to feel like labor pain, contractions, episiotomies, etc. are this rite of passage; a badge of honor?

Honestly, fuck that.

To be clear, if my pregnancy presented no complications, I would have opted for a vaginal birth. In my mind, if one can choose a perfect vaginal delivery vs. a perfect c-section delivery, the best and safest choice is always vaginal. The problem, however, is again, all birth stories are different. Labor isn’t always simple or easy - get back to the mantra: I want him out as safely, painlessly and quickly as possible.

I’d be lying if I said I made the decision quickly or easily. I really labored over it (ha, pun intended). I even asked my mom, who had an emergency c-section with me, if it was a cop-out to bypass it all and schedule it. Was I selling out knowing I’d never feel a contraction? Was I taking some sort of “easy way out?”

You see, I, too, had fallen victim of the “woman trying to prove herself by pushing a human out of her vagina.”

Why are we like this, ladies? I don’t get it. Like, pushing a human out of your vagina is bad ass, but so is being awake while a doctor, quite literally, takes your uterus OUT OF YOUR BODY to delivery your child safely. No delivery, I assure you, is the easy way out.

Ultimately, as I struggled with what to do, I waited until the last minute of the deadline that my my doctor gave me for making the decision. As I sat there on the exam table, I told him we wanted to go ahead and schedule the c-section.

He smirked and told me he already had us on the calendar. “I knew you would,” he said while assuring us that he would be there to safely delivery our baby boy. I choked up with a sense of relief not that a decision had finally been made but that our doctor had silently made it clear he was happy with our choice.

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While I plan to write out Clark’s birth story in a later post to help commemorate the occasion, I also hope it will provide anyone contemplating a scheduled c-section with helpful insight into how it all plays out. For what it’s worth, the build up is much scarier than the procedure itself. Much of the surgery is a blur, through I remember very clearly feeling the pressure relieved as they pulled him out. Hearing your baby cry for the first time is an otherwordly experience I will never forget. As the doctors worked to stitch me back up, I remember hearing the nurses tending to Clark behind me; shouting out his stats for height, weight, heart rate, etc.

“How big is the head?” Ben asked.

“50th percentile,” a nurse said back.

Average.

As I laid there on my back, numb from the waist down, I remember feeling a sense of failure, like I had made a needless decision. His head wasn’t even remotely as big as we thought. Maybe I could have pushed. Maybe I should have?

As they cleaned him up, my doctor came around to the other side of the sheet.

“You made the right call,” he said through his mask. “Your pelvis has an unusual tilt to it, like a funnel. His head wasn’t remotely in the right position and we would have had to do an emergency c-section.”

I cried in relief; very real, heaving tears.

I always knew, deep down, that my body wasn’t built to birth a child that way - perhaps mother’s intuition. And as I laid there, I realized: I will never feel a contraction, get an epidural, or vaginally deliver a child. Ever.

I will never do those things and I don’t care.

I spared us both the disaster of attempting a vaginal birth. I spared us both the risk of the placenta failing us. I spared myself two recoveries: a failed labor and an emergency c-section.

I did all this and I birthed the most perfectly beautiful baby boy.

Clark William Grombala

July 16th, 2022

9:27 a.m.

6 pounds 14 ounces

19 inches long

And I have the most beautiful scar to prove I did the right thing.

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