Was my csection necessary?

[sonflawah]

I've been having issues with my birth. Wondering if my csection was necessary or not... could it have been avoided?? I didn't educate myself before hand, I wish I had. :(

I went to the hospital in early labor, although I thought it was full blown labor. I was 40 weeks 1 day. After being hooked up to the monitor, they discovered DD was in distress so they gave her a nst ultrasound which she failed because of her tone. They decided to induce me with pitocin, which was more pain than I could handle but I stuck it out for 12 hours. I asked for the narcotic medication instead of the epi but they wouldn't give it to me because her heartrate wasn't good enough. I wasn't dilating and a nurse said that an epidural might help me relax and dilate, so I got the epidural. Her heartrate still wasn't good so they had me roll over on my side and put on oxygen. That didn't help. I had dilated to 4 cm, but then I stopped. They wanted to get me to dilate more so they broke my water. It was filled with heavy merconium. Her heart rate was still not good. They gave me an hour to show some progress, any progress, and I didn't. I managed to get them to give me 2 more hours and they did, but I was still at 4 cm. They turned the pitocin off to try and see if that would help her heart rate but it didn't. They finally did a csection and found out that she was descending hand and head first, which was probably not putting enough pressure on my cervix to dilate and caused my labor to stall. 

Could this have been prevented??? I have problems accepting my birth experience because I always play over and over in my head how things could have been different had I been more assertive or educated about childbirth or perhaps hired a doula. Would it have been foolish to not be induced when the baby failed a stress test? Would her hand/head presentation ended up in a csection or shoulder dystocia anyway? Was the merconium caused by the pitocin or was it causing her original distress that led to the pitocin? I know I will never know the answers to these questions 100%, but do you think my birth could have gone better had I not been induced??? Just refused it, walked out of the hospital against medical advice with a distressed baby... :-/

[erigeron]

You never know what could have happened but imo inducing for the failed NST was a good call and walking out of the hospital with a baby in distress would not have been a good decision. It's possible you could have walked out and gone into labor naturally, but it's also possible it could have gone terribly wrong. If you were barely dilating at all, had non-reassuring heart tones and heavy meconium and nothing helped, a cs sounds like the right call. Sometimes they are necessary, and having the presenting part not putting enough pressure on the cervix to dilate is a legitimate reason.

Were the providers rude or disrespectful? 

[phathui5]

I'm sorry for what you've experienced. Even with a necessary surgical delivery, there can be a lot of emotions to sort through.

One thing that might help you down the line is getting copies of your hospital records and asking your provider to sit down with you and walk you through them, to help you process the events.

[rnra]

A baby who has failed an NST, has poor heart tones, has heavy meconium, and is presenting in a poor position in a first-time mother who is dilated to 4cm after 14 hours of pitocin sounds like one who needs a c-section in order to safely enter the world.  Declining a c-setion in that situation would have a high probability of leading to a baby with brain damage such as cerebral palsy, or even death.  To me, it sounds like you made the very best choice for your baby.

[greenemami]

I'm certainly not a professional, but as somebody who feels pretty strongly about having a  vaginal unmedicated birth (for myself) I would have done absolutely the same thing in your shoes.  It sounds like the medical staff did not rush into the decision of the C-section and tried to see what else they could do, but there were too many signs of distress in the baby.  I would not have walked out with a nonreassuring NST or after the other signs of distress. 

I'm sorry that your birth was not all you hoped it to be though, that can be so hard :(

I agree that going over your records with a professional may be helpful/healing if they can explain it all step by step to you.