Mom Notices Baby’s ‘Odd-Shaped Head’ After Traumatic Birth. Weeks Later, Her ‘Uneasy’ Feeling Led to a Scary Discovery (Exclusive)

One mom’s journey to welcoming her baby taught her a new level of gratefulness.

Canada-based mom Kazlyn McMann, 23, tells PEOPLE that she had a “wonderful pregnancy.” While it was very different from her first pregnancy, she explains that nothing abnormal happened. She experienced some morning sickness, food aversions, swollen feet and weight gain during the hottest months of the year. But everything changed on the day her daughter Annara was born.

“Both of my children’s births were difficult; however, my daughter’s was far more complicated — 10 hours of labor, two failed epidurals, [and] one dose of fentanyl that also failed,” she tells PEOPLE. “The nurses had to break my water because she could not come down the birth canal.”

“I remember the unbearable pain, the screaming and crying and begging them to make it stop. I could feel that she was stuck on my pelvic bone, unable to descend. The feeling of bone grating against bone,” she adds. “The nurses and my family were wonderful and tried their best to help me, but I’m sure my screaming could be heard clear across the maternity floor.”

McMann shared that her daughter’s heart rate started to drop more with each cervical check. Having exhausted all of the options available to induce a natural labor, the doctors told McMann that she’d have to go in for an emergency C-section.

“Natural birth and a C-section are both hard on the body, but I think personally my experience with a C-section was far worse, mostly because it was so unknown to me,” she explains, referring to her “terrifying” experience delivering her baby. “I had not planned for it. I did not want it.”

The mom of two tells PEOPLE that she has a difficult time recalling some of the exact details of the procedure, due to the amount of substances in her body and her exhaustion from 10 hours of labor. She remembers shaking so badly when the doctors were trying to remove the taps from her back ahead of the procedure and crying into her surgeon’s arms as he told her she’d be okay.

“The sedative they gave me worked, and I felt no pain, but it did cause me to get sick and throw up. I could still feel them cutting my skin open, and I could have sworn I was being sawed in half,” she says. “It was a very nauseating and unsettling feeling as they cut me open.”

“I remember when they brought her to me, seeing her little face for the first time,” she recalls. “I think that was the first time I felt relieved or okay.”

After her “terrifying” birth experience, McMann thought that the worst part of her journey was over. Then, she noticed something strange about her daughter’s head shape.

“She had a huge lump on her forehead like a unicorn horn, and another lump at the back of her head. I know babies’ heads take time to shape out, as the pressure from birth can disfigure them,” she shares. “It was about two weeks after she was born that I started to feel uneasy about it.”

That uneasy feeling pushed McMann to begin researching potential causes of her daughter’s head shape. After learning that her daughter’s head should have rounded out within the first two weeks, she took a deeper dive into her research. Then, she came across a picture that she says “could have been identical to my daughter.”

“It was a picture of a baby’s head from the top view, the same long, narrow head with the same visible ridge down the middle,” McMann says. “I clicked on the photo, and it brought me to a website about craniosynostosis.”

According to Mayo Clinic, craniosynostosis is a condition present at birth that causes one or more of the joints between the bones of a baby’s skull to close before the brain is fully formed. McMann, who shares her daughter with partner Mat Bonazew, 27, tells PEOPLE that she booked an appointment to see the doctor as soon as she made the discovery.

“My doctor took one look at her, heard me out and agreed that her head shape was a little off. She sent me to a pediatrician who confirmed what I already knew,” McMann says, revealing her daughter was diagnosed with sagittal craniosynostosis, which is one of the most common types.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Suddenly, McMann tells PEOPLE the entire traumatic birth experience “made a lot more sense.” Following the diagnosis, her daughter’s doctors started treatment. Since her birth four months ago, Annara has undergone surgery, where they cut open the plates to allow her head to grow normally.

“She’s recovered from her surgery and the next step is now to get her a helmet, which will help shape her head,” she explains. “She will be required to wear a helmet for 23 hours out of every day for up to a year. Her head shape is not fixed yet, but it has greatly improved since her surgery.”

Reflecting on this experience, McMann, who’s also a mother to child Ender, 2, says that she’s grateful for all the precious moments she’s been able to have with her little ones. She also adds how glad she is for trusting her instinct.

“I think this whole experience has made me grateful that we both came out of it healthy,” she says. “Although there were people that were telling me that I googled too much or that I was scaring myself and it was unnecessary, I’m glad I listened to my instinct.”

She concludes, “I’m glad I picked up on it as soon as I had, which allowed for a minimally invasive surgery and a smooth recovery for her.”