Day 5: Let's Talk About Babies
I was born in a hospital in Painesville, Ohio in 1978. My delivery was vaginal, no epidural, and from what my mom remembers, it went fairly smoothly, especially for being her first child. My mom had all five of us through vaginal deliveries, and I'm relatively sure she did not get an epidural during any of them. Her middle child, one of my brothers, was breech at delivery and she had a very hard time with him. Looking back, she says that that delivery would have definitely been a c-section today, and it probably even should have been back then. My brother had some learning disabilities that she think resulted from the problematic birth. (No worries - he graduated from college just fine and now has a great job!)
My parents were born in 1951 in an urban area, so, yes, they were born at the hospital. I'm sure my grandfathers were NOT in the delivery rooms, though, since it was normal at the time for the fathers to stay out.
My children were both born via planned c-section under general anesthetic. I was born with vascular malformations in my left pelvis, groin, and leg, and, unfortunately, an MRI showed some non-symptomatic ones in my spine, too. Any sort of epidural or spinal would be way too dangerous and my risk of paralyzation would be too high. So, my doctor and anesthesiologist decided that this was the safest option. Neither me nor my husband saw our children come into the world, which breaks my heart, but they are healthy and I am NOT paralyzed. During my second delivery, my doctor allowed me to give a small camera to one of the nurses, and she took some GREAT photos of my daughter's first moments.
My first pregnancy with my son was extremely difficult physically and emotionally. I wrote about it on my family history blog last year on his 5th birthday: http://kowalski-bellan.weebly.com/1/post/2012/11/mr-bub-turns-5.html Thankfully, my second pregnancy was almost completely normal.
we were born the same year! thanks for participating.
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