'I had a planned C-section and loved every minute of it'

Like most women, I had a birth plan, but I perhaps outlined mine a little younger than most. You see, by the age of five, I already knew that there was no way a baby was going to bust out of my vagina when it could just gracefully exit from an incision in my belly, just like I did with my own mother.

Obviously I had little clue as to how major this operation would be at the time, but the stories my mother had filled my head with were more than enough to cement the decision. ¡°Oh Dilvin, it was horrendous! I was in labour with your brother for 26 AGONISING hours before they took pity on my broken body and gave me an emergency cesarean,¡± she would tell me dramatically, likening the experience to ¡®being pulled? apart by wolves¡¯.

¡°But with you, I didn¡¯t feel a thing! They just put me to sleep and when I woke up, you were there all freshly showered and ready to eat.¡± Well, it doesn¡¯t take a genius to work out how I formed my ideas on childbirth.

Fast-forward 30 years and I¡¯m pregnant for the very first time. Working as features director for a (now-defunct) pregnancy magazine, I¡¯m fully aware of all the risks that go hand-in-hand with a cesarean (the risk of maternal death or injury is higher, for a start, as is the chance your baby will end up in neonatal intensive care with breathing difficulties if the baby is delivered before 39 weeks), but I¡¯m so petrified about giving birth vaginally that I beg my obstetrician for an elective cesarean (I don¡¯t mention the wolves, but they¡¯re on my mind).

Once we discuss what I know about the pros and cons and he realises I¡¯m making an informed choice, we sign the forms and lock in the date. It¡¯s only once I have the date circled in the calendar that I relax and realised just how anxious I was about it in the first place (thanks Mum). Of course, everyone around me appears to have an opinion on what I¡¯m doing ¨C the most vocal of which appear to be male.

¡°I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s wrong with you¡± my brother hisses at me. ¡°How are you going to love your baby if you don¡¯t experience giving birth properly?¡± I want to thump him but instead scream, ¡°Why don¡¯t you squeeze a watermelon out of your penis and then come back to talk to me about love?¡± The idea that I will love my baby less than someone who labours through seems ridiculous to me, but it appears to be a common thread I hear over the months in the lead-up to the big day.

On the morning of the birth, my husband and I are excited. Having showered and checked my bags for the umpteenth time, we calmly drive the 20 minutes to hospital in what feels like a glory of sunshine.

We arrive at 5.30am to fill out some more forms and to get dressed into my fetching hospital gown, and by 6.30am, my anaesthetist has given me my epidural so that I can no longer feel a single thing from my chest down. My body begins to involuntarily shiver (a common side effect) and I¡¯m then wheeled into theatre which is fast filling up with enough people to fill a small music festival.

There are doctors and nurses and assistants and happily, one nurse/resident DJ who is in charge of my more detailed birth plan ¨C to have Duran Duran¡¯s Greatest Hits playing during the birth. Giggling to myself at the first twangs of ¡®Planet Earth¡¯, four men in scrubs lift me by the corners of a sheet I¡¯m laying on like I¡¯m some kind of beached whale and place me onto the theatre bed.

I sing loudly, the anesthetist no doubt wishing he¡¯d given me a general to shut me up (turns out he¡¯s neither a Duran Duran, nor a ¡®Dilvin singing¡¯ fan), and just after my obstetrician puts up a little curtain to shield me from seeing? ¡®the business end¡¯, he pops his head over the top. ¡°Don¡¯t get too comfortable Dilvin,¡± he tells me. ¡°The baby will be here in less than five minutes.¡±

Five minutes? How is that possible? ¡°But when will you be starting?¡± I call out.¡±I¡¯ve already halfway in!¡± comes the somewhat muffled reply and I am stunned. Aside from a soft bit of tugging (not unlike the feeling you get when you drink something fizzy too quickly), I don¡¯t feel a thing, and my husband and I talk and laugh for a couple more minutes before my obstetrician calls out, ¡®And here she is!¡± Beautiful baby Cella is held up in the air and I know at that moment I love her more than any mother loves her baby ¨C regardless of how she entered the world.

My recovery, I¡¯m happy to say, is swift. I remain numb for a few more hours after the birth but I¡¯m breastfeeding well, and by the following morning I¡¯m up and walking down to a cafe nearby to get a decent bite to eat.

When I¡¯m sent home five days later, I¡¯m given a take-home kit of painkillers but I find I don¡¯t need them. The experience has been so wonderful that when I get pregnant again four years later, I return to the same hospital for another cesarean which proceeds in an almost identical manner to the first. The nurse/resident DJ is the one and the same and immediately recognises me. ¡°Please tell me you¡¯ve got something else to play today,¡± he says, clearly still traumatised by the first experience. I hand him Duran Duran¡¯s Greatest Hits CD once again. ¡°Nope! It¡¯s show time!¡± Baby Ivy enters a world brimming with laughter and ¡®Save a Prayer¡¯ and she¡¯s the happiest three-year old-you¡¯ve ever seen.

Now I¡¯m not saying cesarean births are better than vaginal births, nor am I saying every mother who has a cesarean will tap-dance their way out of hospital, pain and injury-free. But in a world where women are judged for their decisions and pregnant women are goaded into making choices based on what everyone else wants, I want to share my positive experience of it and to say, you know what?

Cesareans can be every bit as wonderful as vaginal births and you have the right to be as proud as anyone else about the way your baby entered the world. I know I am.