Kate Mara Shares ‘Devastation’ Over Emergency C-Section but Wouldn’t Change a Thing

Like many moms-to-be, Kate Mara had every detail of her birth plan mapped out long before her due date. Although the actress was anticipating an unmedicated home birth, her diagnosis of cholestasis and an emergency c-section squashed those dreams from ever panning out. She opens up about her initial “devastation” and “disappointment” on an episode of Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast, and how she eventually came to terms with it all.

Things started taking a sharp turn when Mara tested positive for cholestasis at 36 weeks after experiencing intense itching. Cholestasis of pregnancy usually develops in the third trimester when bile is blocked and fluids build up in the bloodstream. The first sign of the condition is often crazy-intense itching in the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.

At this point, doctors determined that Mara had to be induced and administered an epidural, which was something she didn’t initially want. A few days after, she developed 102 fever, which is what led to the medical team’s decision for an emergency c-section.

“I kept really calm for most of those three days, but right before I went in for the c-section, that’s when I sort of [felt] the devastation of it and the disappointment of not being able to experience a birth any way that I had hoped,” she recalls during the podcast.

Like lots of women who have an emergency c-section, Mara was scared. “I was genuinely terrified of what that meant and what could happen and all of these things, and then of course just being tired made me that much more scared, I think,” she admits. “I was just super sad.”

Aside from some “shakes” and excess bleeding afterward that led to a blood transfusion, the procedure went relatively smoothly for the new mom. And although she says her birth story is “not at all what I imagined it would be,” the moment she held her daughter in her arms was “totally comforting.”

In the end, Mara says she “wouldn’t do anything differently” because it’s what gave her her beautiful, healthy baby girl. “We really did do everything in our power to make it as peaceful and natural and easy for our baby to come out as possible.”

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