Emergency Caesarean - what happens?

[Stargazing]

call me paranoid but this is my worst fear. Birth of dd was beautifully to plan - at home, in water etc - and with ds on the way, can't help but fear that I can't possibly be lucky twice. So, if any of you have had an emergency C-section - how was it? What happened, and was it terrifying?

[youpeskykids]

Stargazing - if it's any consolation, my emergency c-section was 10 times better than my planned one!!!

Honestly though - both aren't terrifying, providing someones i.e a midwife or the anaethetist and explains everything to you as you go along - which happened in both of mine.

[009]

Stargazing, stop worrying about this. If you had a smooth labour and birth first time round chances are second will be similar. Why are you thinking about CS when you deliveryed vaginally first time? Try to stay positive. I had em CS first time but am hoping for normal delivery with second. Anyone with experience of this?

[mrsbabookaloo]

Have only skimmed through other people's posts, but i had a crash cs for dd a year ago, and I really hadn't thought it would ever happen to me.
30 hours of labour with gas and air, little to no progress, had just agreed to epidural and had it put in when dd's heartrate dropped and had to go to surgery immediately.
Obviously I was very tired: I'd been up for 3 days, but I still was aware of what was happening and able to ask questions. It was very dramatic; being wheeled through a corridor like on ER and people shouting "we've got 20 minutes, max!" but like other people said, it's a relief in the end, and it wasn't scary. They were very good, very calm, very quick and I didn't have time to feel scared. Dh was right there beside me and they talked me through it. They put a screen up so you don't see anything, if you're worried about the gory aspect of it.
It's absolutely bizarre that while they anaesthetize(sp?) the area to numb pain, it doesn't actually numb sensation, so you can actually feel them rummaging around inside you!...perhaps that's a little more than you wanted to know, but it didn't hurt, it was just strange, like someone pulling washing out of the washing machine!
The only thing I would advise, if it's important to you, is to ask them to lower the screen when baby is actually coming out. I didn't ask them to do this, and spent the first few days wondering if she was really my baby because I hadn't seen her come out.
As for recovery, you have to wear horrid support tights for 3 days and get extra injections, but i was up and about by the following evening and fine after a week or so.
For me, I think it was hard that I had to stay in hospital longer than I'd planned: it's a strange world and strange to spend the first days as a mother in such a weird environment with crap food, but it wasn't that bad. (The views at St Thomas' are amazing!)
Sorry for mammoth post. i've never posted my birth story on mn before, so sorry for using your thread to do it!

[Klaw]

Youpeskykids I post regularly on another forum, on a fantastic VBAC board. We have a huge number of VBACers, a rising number of VBA2Cers and a VBA3Cer.

Here, I know we have Lulumama and myself as VBACers and quite a few others but my senile brain forgets just who is who (apologies to those who I SHOULD remember). There are, more than I dared hope, lots of us who are Doulas now, mainly because of our experiences.

I watched online as one lady just over a year ago attempted and failed a VBAC due to lack of support and then earlier this year had a triumphant HBA2C at about 42+4 weeks! Her Doula posted online to keep us up to date as she was a regualr poster herself. And we've had quite a few HWBACs.

So I say to you and 009, it can be done, it's best with some fab support to keep you strong and it's wisest to do your own research, rather than just accept whatever the HCPs say, as their protocols and procedures may well be outdated!

Stay strong!

[Hulababy]

I had an emergency c section. I got about 30 minutes prep from knowing I was going to have it to going into theatre, might have been a bit less.

I had had an induction which failed to work, so they made the decision after 50 hours and still only being at 2cm dilated. I had already had an epidural, so they just topped that up. I already had a catheter in place too.

I was relieved in the end. I was very very tired, and although my baby wasn't in distress, it was just not happeneing. I now know that it would never have happened anyway.

The c section itself was a very positive experience. DD was born within 10 minutes of the operation, then here a=was about 20 minutes of whatever else they do. I couldn't see anything or feel any pain. I could feel pulling and tugging, like pressure, but no more.

When DD was born she was brought to Dh and myself - DH was scrubbed up and with me the whole time. We touched her and saw her for about 30 seconds and then she was taken away for her checks. After her 5 minute check they brought her back, wrapped up, and she lay on my bed between me and DH, who was sat right to the side of me, for cuddles and to coo over really.

I did lose a lot of blood and although I did manage to avoid a transfusion, I was very anaemic and neeved strong doses of iron for 3 months afterwards.

However the rest of my recovery was excellent. I was up and about the next morning (DD born at 8:45pm on Friday night), and came home Monday morning. I brought painkillers home with me but didn't really need to use them after leaving the hospital.

I followed all the advice given about taking it easy, resting when I could, getting help where I could and not exercising too much or driving. As a result, I believe, my recovery was very good.

My induction was a horrid experience but my c section was a fantastically positive experience.

[perpetuaphoenixfire]

i had a 'get the baby out NOW' section, it wasnt bad at all actually i was very pleased with it. labour started about 2am wed morn, saw mw wed afternoon as waters were leaking, she said head not engaged so beware that if waters go with a whoosh baby can fall down and trap cord. they went about 4am thurs morn and i got dh to look for cord, there was meconium everywhere. mw came out (home birth planned haha), ambulance arrived, got to hospital. had internal and found i was about 5cm, (2 more than before ambulance ride so going fast), mw said she could feel buttocks. scan showed he was breech and that was that, wheeled into theatre, remember thinking how nice the silver crocs were one of the doctors had on, woke up about 10am. this was baby no 4, has certainly taught me not to be such a smug know all, first 3 were all normal problem free births. however i dont think no 4 was much worse overall

[NKF]

Emergency caesarean just means not scheduled. Crash Caesarean (I think that's the term) is different. That's fast and the baby has to come out like now. One thing I will say is that when either needs to happen, you really do see medical professionals in action. Calm, skilled, trained and just wonderful.

[009]

Calm, skilled, wonderful - oh my word, sounds nothing like my crash C section. I was horrified. I had people arguing over me and referring to me as 'it'. There were some mightly unprofessional professionals on duty that day. TBF only a couple but they stood out.

[helpmeforget]

my c section was not very nice as i come down of gas and air to find myself on an operating table, feeling everything they do, having no idea whats going on. the only thing i could remeber was starting gas and air( 5 hours earlyer), listening to the doctor as he discussis everything that he was doing, and i was feeling it too. oh yer this is my first experience of an operation. ok my labour was bad i did'nt dilate passed 4 cm and the contractions were one on top of the other from the start but having my biggest fear happening to me was not good. no supprise i went into shock, my blood preasure was 64 on arrivel to recovery, my temp was low, and they gave my oxegen to help with the dizzy spells and nousious. i also had to have a blood transfusion the next day( they did not think that i had lossed alot of blood, so they never cheeck my blood till the following morring - i was animic when i was admited to hospital tho), i had to have 3 pint my the end of the day. they also kept me in for an extra day as my temp was up, they said that they thought i had an infection and gave me antibiotics then relest me the next day saying that they could not find the infection and stoping the antibiotics( 10 day's postnatal i found out i had a uterus infection)! im now 7 months postnatal have flash backs most nights still and they say i have postnatal depression. will i ever get contoll of my feeling? will i ever be able to have children, without a fear or get the histerectamy i so desperatly want? please help me x x

[CurrantBun]

My emergency c-section was a pretty positive experience - as much as unplanned surgery can ever be. My labour was going well and I was managing great after 4 hours with just a TENS machine and hubby massaging my back during each contraction.

Was checked to see how far dilated I was and MW explained that she thought she could feel buttocks. A registrar was summoned with a monitor and a scan showed that DS was breech. It was explained clearly and calmly that surgery was the safest option for me and my baby (he was not in any distress at any point).

It then seemed to take ages for them to prep me for theatre and get me down there. Think they had to rally an operative team actually! The worst part for me was having the epidural put in. I'm a slight, athletic build and apparently the spaces between my vertebrae were very small and the anaesthetist struggled to get the epidural in - it didn't help that I was having contractions every minute or so and it's very hard to keep still while that's going on! DH was with me the whole time - in scrubs complete with sexy shower cap! - and was fantastic. I found the whole process quite interesting - it kind of felt like I was watching it and it wasn't really happening to me. I got the shakes after the anaesthetic went in which was awful: I just couldn't keep still.

It probably worked out for the best as I am very small (5'1" and 7 stone) and DS was 8lb 4oz at birth with a 36cm head circumference! I don't think a natural birth would have been that pleasant in the end!

Apparently I lost a greater-than-average amount of blood (no idea why) but I was up and about early the next morning. While in hospital I just took all the painkillers they gave me when they were brought to me. Once I got home (they sent me home with Voltarol and paracetamol and iron tablets) I stopped the Voltarol after a couple of days as they gave me horrendous headaches, made me feel totally spaced and I started to lose sensation in my hands. As soon as I stopped taking them I felt heaps better. I managed on paracetamol and found arnica tablets really helped with the bruising. I also stopped the iron tablets after a day or two as they made me so constipated - I just replenished my iron supplies through diet. I knew I was fine when I stopped feeling tired and shaky by early evening.

I agree with whoever said that being fit beforehand really helped with the recovery. I an my third marathon the month before DS was conceived and managed to keep running until 32 weeks pregnant (not marathons though!) I was back running 7 weeks after the operation and have had no problems with my recovery. The scar is pretty flat and has already faded a lot (DS now 6 months). I didn't rest as much as I should have done after the birth and I was lifting things before I should have been but I think I got away with it because I was so fit before I got pregnant.

If I have another baby I will probably opt for an elective section. At least your undercarriage is left intact!!

[Roskva]

I had an emergency section. Things were going normally, I was fully dilated and pushing like mad, but dd got stuck and wouldn't move, and my blood pressure rocketed through the roof.

Everything just seemed to get really surreal: the room filled up with people, I had loads of forms thrust in front of me to sign, simultaneously with the anaesthetist sticking a drip in my hand and a nurse getting me to a hospital gown, interspersed with a desperate need to push. My midwife stayed with me throughout, and - apparently after a lot of persuasion from the nurses - dh appeared in scrubs looking like he was about to faint .

The thing only thing I was unhappy about was they didn't bring dd to me in the recovery room, I had to wait until I was taken up to the ward, but my midwife then stayed with me helping me to bf.

[VoluptuaGoodshag]

Not read other threads but throughout mine, I felt calm, relaxed and in the best of hands. Was a bit out of it on drugs obviously, and there was a sudden sea of people dressed in green but I was calm. Not traumatised by it at all and they were all lovely, lovely people.

[RedFraggle]

Mine was a crash section and therefore it was, for me, terrifying.
One minute I was pushing thinking "things aren't really moving here" The next a team of people were prepping me and running down the corridor wheeling me to surgery shouting at me not to push!
I only avoided a general anaesthetic as my DH knew the anaethetist. he told me he had time to have one go at the spinal and if it failed then I was having a GA so i had to keep very still. It was less than 10 minutes from the doctor looking at me to them getting the baby out.
I don't think it is worth worrying about to be honest. If you have had one safe delivery then chances are good as far as I'm aware for a second good delivery.
Also, actual crash sections are pretty few and far between from what i've been told. My consultant told me I had just been very unlucky (DD was brow presentation and got totally stuck)

[orangehead]

my csection not nice, i was fully dilated and had been pushing for two hour the doc had been using ventose 4 half an hr to no avail. Im still not to sure to this day exactly what happened but doc examined me and her face literally dropped and she pressed buzzer and shouted that baby needed to get out now, loads of people came running in and literally ran my bed down the corridor and knocked me. I was so scared crying and shaking uncontrollably b4 they knocked me out despite already having epidural in place. The surgeon told my husband afterwards if they had waited a couple more mins ds would of died. i had nightmares and flashbacks for months afterwards. to make it worse i missed my sons 1st breastfeed they did it while i was still unconscious and dont remember the fist time i saw my son.I think one of the reasons it affected me so badly i had not antipated a csection at all. my ds2 labour was just as traumatic but not csection but it didnt bother me at all as after 1st i was prepared 4 anything, so i think u doing right thinking about what could happen but i certainlyt wouldnt worry as if u already had normal birth u more likely to again. good luck, im sure u will be fine

[Meglet]

I had an emergency c-section after totally failing to dilate and having a distressed baby. The nurses and doctors that prepped me were lovely, the surgeon had the tricky task of getting my hairband out of my tangled up hair . There was a posh consultant (i think) in charge of the theatre and he was telling me everything that was going on and who was going to do what to me. I remember a really professional attitude but they were also very chatty and good humoured, saying they had had a boring morning until I turned up . I was told I would need the section at 9:45 and DS was born at 10:14. They lowered the screen so I could see my DS being pulled out. To this day I am still in awe of how good they were. DP still mentions how much blood there was, i think he was more traumatised than I was.

[Meglet]

Have to agree with voluptua about the drugs . And trying to wiggle my toes when i couldn't feel a thing was fun too. Turned out they put in a morphine suppository without me realising aswell

Recovery is not nice though, but you get better slowy.

[CissyCharlton]

This may sound ridiculous but after my emergency section I was shocked upon realising I was attached to a catheter. I also hadn't thought about how much help I would need from other people in the very early stages.

[MKG]

Stargazing--I was like you having had a great first birth and totally worried about the second birth. In the end it went fine and it will for you too.

Everyone I know has a had an emergency C-section and they all say how exhausted they were after. Most had very long labors and were recovering from that as well as surgery.

[beansprout]

Mine was fine, I was relieved when they suggested it (failed induction, failure to progress).

"Emergency" is too dramatic, I would describe mine as unplanned. Consultant perched on the bed, suggesting "we think about it" which meant, yep you need to do this, but there was no running down corridors or anything of that ilk!

I had already had an epidural and it was just topped up. Got to see dh in scrubs (yum) and recovered very quickly.

Am pregnant with the second and am seriously thinking about an elective.

[poppysocks]

I did not even entertain the thought of c/s as I'd had a totally problem-free pregnancy. As it turned out I was too out of it to care (only thing I can remember is an overwhelming sense of relief that I wouldn't have to continue with labour when the mw said she though DD was breech and I needed a c/s asap - 23 hrs in). However, DH is still pretty traumatised by it all as he was with-it and unprepared for it all, especially as it happened v. fast.

I had put in my birth plan that I didn't want an epidural because I didn't like the idea of a catheter. In fact I didn't feel it go in (they did that immediately after the spinal/epidural - not sure which) and it was so great not to have to shuffle down the corridor to the loo for the next 24 hrs! I didn't feel anything but a wave of relief when the epidural/spinal block kicked in. DH joined me in theatre after it was in and was delighted to find 'I was back' rather than the jibbering, screaming wreck he'd left when he went to get togged up.

I did feel a lot of rummaging, but nothing else. They held her up as soon as she was born, whisked her away to be weighed, apgar etc. and then gave her to DH and we gazed at her while I was sewn up.

Not sure whether it should have done, but one leg 'came back' before the other. That was weird. I also itched like crazy from the morphine. Other than that it was fine and I don't think I was as uncomfortable afterwards as some of the others on the ward who'd have ventouse deliveries.

Not sure whether it was just my hospital but the cribs were higher than the bed meaning that putting DD back in from feeding her meant somehow getting up into kneeling position and then lowering her in. THAT was uncomfortable - like I'd done 1000 sit-ups the day before. That only lasted a day or two though and I was home within 48 hrs.

[alicet]

Not read whole thread but happy to share my experience of an emergency section if it will help you...

Had planned hospital birth for ds1 using minimal pain relief (gas and air and tens if not in water) and ideally keeping as mobile as poss and in water - so not that dissimilar to you other than location.

My waters broke at 38+6 and I went in for a check up and was sent home as all was well and I wasn't in labour. About 4-5 hours later things kicked off and I went back in - about 11am.

At this point I was 5cm but when they listened to his heart rate it was dropping after my contractions so they said I needed to be monitored. i was disappointed as I had wanted a water birth but needs must so I was transferred to the labour ward. Kept on the monitor and his hr kept falling after the contractions so they were keeping a close eye on us. Gas and air and tens worked wonders though.

After a couple of hours of watching me they said that I would only be allowed in the pool if his trace was normal for an hour. I knew that that was pretty unlikely and that it was getting increasingly probable that he would need to be born in a rush either by a section or instrumental delivery and I wanted an epidural in order for that to happen and for me to be able to make an informed decision without being affected by the pain. A good decision as it turns out as about 15 mins after this started working his hr plummeted dangerously low and they called the doc in. I was 8cm at that time and he said I needed a section. I was gutted but agreed as I didn't want to risk the health of ds. I was taken round to the operating theatre, given a top up of my epidural so my legs (and left arm!) were totally numb. At this point his trace returned to normal so the consultant advised fetal blood sampling to check on him and that too was normal. He explained that at the moment the changes on the trace could just be his head getting squeezed as he moved down and I didn't need a section yet but that he couldn't promise that wouldn't happen in the end. This process from getting the doc involved took about one and a half hours.

So back to the labour ward we went and after about half an hour his hr plummeted again. The doc came and repeated the fetal blood sampling which was worse. I was 9 cm at that time and the consultant said that ds would need to be born within the hour and because I wasn't fully dilated that wouldn't happen vaginally. He did say that ds would probably be totally fine when he came out which would mean that they had intervened at the right time rather than leaving it too late. So back to theatre for the sction we went.

I was terrified at this point (although strangely enough before I hadn't been) but the docs and mw's were great and I remember being on the operating table and the anaesthetsit telling me 'in 5 minutes you will see your baby'. The one thing I found uncomfortable was when they had to push on the top of my bump really quite hard to help deliver ds which is pretty common but over in seconds. He was absolutely fine when born - had a quick check up then dh brought him over to me and I was able to cuddle him while they stitched me back up again.

I am a doc (actually a surgeon) so I am pretty comfortable in that sort of atmosphere albeit on the other side so maybe thats why until the end I didn't find it too stressful. The staff were fantastic at keeping me and dh fully informed and involved throughout so although it wasn't what I ideally would have chosen ds was fine and that was the most important thing.

I stayed in for 3 nights and was out and about within a couple of days of getting home gradually increasing what I did and stopping when it got sore. But to be honest my recovery was quicker and more straightforward than some friends who had tricky vaginal deliveries.

Have been so happy with my experience that when we were given the choice of vbac or elective section this time I am almost certainly going to go with an elective section.

Sorry to waffle on so much - I hope its been helpful for you. If you have any further questions I would be very happy to answer them - just CAT me. But try not to be too terrified of it. Chances are you will have a straightforward delivery this time too as all was fine last time. But if this ends up happening to you I am more than sure you will deal with it for the safety of your baby and you will be just fine. Fingers crossed for you that it all works out well for you...