Child Birth All Around Us

My first experience with child birth was my own. I will start off by saying that it was nothing that I thought it would be and in my honest thoughts, somewhat dissappointing. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled with the outcome; a beautiful and healthy baby girl! It was the actual experience that was not what I had imagined. I watched several baby birthign shows where mothers got there baby placed on their chest and the mother was smiling and happy and the father was taking pictures, but my experience was nothign like this. My pregnancy was not too difficult. I experienced severe edema all over my body, not just in my hands and feet, gained 70 pounds and worked until the day my daughter was born, but it could of been worse. I went to all of my doctor visits and there was nothing to worry about. On delivery day things started out good, I was dialatign quickly and then suddenly the baby's heartbeat dropped all the way down to zero! The nurses worked quickly to get her heartbeat back up by asking me to lay on my side, giving me an oxygen mask and stimulating her heartbeat by reaching in her hand and rubbing my baby's head. Thankfully all of these things worked and shortly after that I was in the operating room having an emergency Cesarean. It turns out that my daughter got tangled up in her umbilical cord, which in turn hindered the amount of oxygen she was getting. When she came out she was purple, I was scared and vommiting from all of the medication I was given and I fell asleep shortly after that and didn't remember anything else until I woke up in the recovery room to my overjoyed boyfriend, smiling from ear to ear and holding our daughter. Like I said, I could not be any happier about my daughter being born and the fact that she was healthy and happy, but the experience itself was just not how imagined it would be. I sometimes feel like I missed out on something because I am not happy with my actual birth experience, but who knows, maybe better luck next time! :0