What Makes It So Bad

She asked a simple question. at least 2 weeks ago. We never got to the answer - which is anything but simple. The whole scenario has been free-floating in my head. Will tomorrow be the day when it comes up again? I don't know. But I feel compelled to put this down.

"So, what makes it so bad?" (it refers to the boys births - BBB in particular. at the moment I cant bring myself to tell you how they got here)

For me to tell you the answer to that, I have to go back to MyFirstborn's story. In fact, I have to go back farther than that. I had been married for a whole blessed month when The Child was conceived. I can't say it was a birth control malfunction, but neither did I screw up. I guess I have always felt he was meant to be - though I still wonder why. It 5 days after conception - read: long before a missing period - that I first felt like throwing up. I was shocked and yet not really. I was horrified and yet kind of excited. I "knew" I had conceived and so I was far from surprised. But so not ready.

The months of throwing up were awful. In retrospect, I should have been hospitalized at least twice. But the OB said I was just a normal preggy. And furthermore, I was a first-time mom so maybe the whole morning sickness thing was more than I realized. I never looked back after leaving her practice.

The whole sickness thing overran my life. I did nothing fun for ages on end bc was so sick. I turned done lots of invitations bc I was so sick. It is not fun to go somewhere and be unendingly dizzy and nauseous. By the end of my allotted 9 months, I was READY to have this baby and be done being sick. I was retaining fluid at the rate of 5 lbs a week. My blood pressure was rising in equal proportion. I felt awful.

Then came the day when I risked out of the birth center. I was so sad. I cried the whole way home. I had fired my OB and gone on to more my style of care, only to end up back at the beginning. Or so it felt.

So after a relatively easy labor (except for the PIT - that stuff is evil), I nearly killed myself pushing. I pushed for almost 4 hours. And when I collapsed bc I was so worn out, The Child had not moved a whit. I begged the midwife to help me. I don't consciously remember asking for a c-section, but I told her I "need help. I can't do it". She offered me 2 options. In my gut I knew that one would not work and that the other was death to a dream. But I forged on and signed the papers.

I will never forget those papers. They changed my life. Sure, they "brought" my baby. But they brought so much more with them. The pain of surgery lingered till I thought I would just die. The pain of healing was so. so. hard. It was long and arduous journey.

One day I thought maybe I could see the light of being well. Then the pain doubled. And cycled. and redoubled. I hurt so badly I could hardly pick up my baby. He was a blessed 12 weeks old. The reason for this new pain? Ovulation. Or something like it.

The best answer they had for helping my body get back on track and do its thing, was the mini Pill. Now I had always sworn I would not use it for birth control bc I am so freaking sensitive to meds. But, It seemed the right thing to do. So I did. And all was well. Well enough that I got lazy about birth control and just stayed on the Pill bc it was truly easy.

Then came the odd symptoms. The welts. The old lady skin. The heat flashes. The reaction to my hairpins. The itchiness. The need to wash the sheets everyday. I shed so badly, you could scoop skin out of the bed. It felt like salt in the sheets. Finally, the answer to where this was coming from came. And I abruptly stopped the stupid mini Pill. Every hour was a relief. Literally. Day by day, I felt better and looked better.

When the day came that we tried to conceive, I felt even better. Every day of being pregnant was helping undo what that Pill had done. I had morning sickness but nothing like the first time.

But this time, it had been 2 years since we began this journey. It felt like one sickness led to another to another to another. That is the key to remember.

When Labor - that sweet relief - started with BabyBoyBlue, I was so glad. The pressure I was under was about to go away. All big baby scare tactics and VBAC struggles were about to be gone.

Yet, in my heart I knew this was not going to work. I wrestled with what was wrong. I wrestled with what exactly "was not going to work". I did not know. So I gave it my all. I labored like a warrior woman. I was in so much pain. I had never felt anything so strong. I did it until I knew what was wrong. I labored till I knew I had given it my all. I worked till I knew it was out of my hands.

I knew it was a boy. I knew he was a big baby. My intuition was alive and well. So when that moment came that he breathed and cried and looked around, I was done. I could do no more. I could control nothing. I had nothing to look forward to. In that moment the horror of all the pain of the last c-section experience washed over me. It had been nothing but misery from beginning to end and now I was to face it all over again. It was more fear and horror than I could wrap my brain around. Internally I backed away from the moment until I was completely gone. So gone that I have a memory lapse. So gone that my brain is forever changed. I was gone. I could not fathom having to do it all again. Even now - almost 16 mo later- I shudder at the feeling, memory.

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So how do you tell her what made it so bad?
How do you...
How?