Confession

I'm not Catholic so there's no need for a priest here and my God forgives my human-ness and silly nature, I  know.

Thats what some people would call what I'm about to say: silly. They'd tell me how I did all I could and it just happened how it was supposed to. Maybe so. Thank God, Dante turned out okay because that's all that matters. But something has been haunting me since he was born and I have to get it out, even if it is into just webspace.

When I went into labor with Dante, I knew I would have to have an epidural. With my chronic pain issues, it was a non question. I accepted that bit of medical intervention. I spent nearly 24 hours in labor with him, much of the night that I can remember spent clutching my bedrail, breathing, trying to be quiet so I wouldn't wake up my husband, and modifying my breathing to mantras that made no sense and probably sounded about as logical. Just singing thoughts going through my head, since singing always makes me focus on my breathing, making me focus on bringing this baby into the world, seeing his face, hearing his cry.

By morning, when I knew something was wrong, the pain had gotten so severe that I know I was very loud, if not screaming. Even with the epidural, that I now know wasn't working fully thanks to the nerve damage I had happen several years back, the intense pressure just didn't feel right to me. Something was wrong. When they found that he was stuck in my pelvis, that I was stuck at 8CM, when they told me I would have to have a c-section, I was okay. I reassured my husband, called my father, waited for the doctors to come while Chad went to make some calls and do the necessaries before they took me in. It was after he left that I lost composure.

I had failed him. My son. My body had failed to do what it was CREATED to do: deliver him. I couldn't do it. I thought "I'll still see him when they take him out. I'll still hear his first cry."

I don't. I got into surgery and felt them cutting me open. White hot pain and they had to give me drugs, ketamine exactly, that put me into a dream state from which I still have nightmares. I heard someone saying "here's your baby; look at your baby." I couldn't see him. I was trying to, so very hard, but I couldn't. I didn't hear him cry. I didn't see him in full protest from being yanked into the world in such a fashion. Not until after recovery, an hour later, did I see him and then it was in a metal cart being wheeled into my room.

Did I overreact? Should I have kept waiting, dealt with the pain of the c-section to see him, hear his first moments? Was what I felt what I was supposed to feel and I overreacted, which cost me those precious moments with him that every mother cherishes? Should I have kept quiet?

I know this is more about me than him compared to the fact that my body failed to bring him into this world the way it should have, the way I should have been able to...Nothing told us there would be any reason I wouldn't be able to deliver him the way I wished. I fought so hard to keep him healthy while I was pregnant, do everything I could including the GD diets and resting and seeing more doctors than I cared to... everything. Why couldn't I do this one last thing for him before he entered a world much too harsh?

Why couldn't I be a mother in every sense?