Dear Moms, You have Permission

Dear Moms,

You have permission. 

That might seem like a funny thing to say, but I’ll say it again: you have permission. You have permission to have a process in reflecting on your pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood experience. Everyone has their own expectations and desires of how things will turn out, and often, we experience disappointment that things didn’t go as planned. Maybe you desperately wanted to get pregnant but the process took longer than anticipated. Maybe you experienced a miscarriage before having a baby. Maybe you wanted to have an all natural birth but had to be induced. Whatever the case may be, I wanted to share my own thoughts of unmet expectations with my birth process to let you know you’re not alone, but it’s OK, you’re still a mom.

So, here it is. I wrote this six weeks after surgery:

When I think back on what I expected from birth, knowing that birth really is unexpected, a C-section just never occurred to me. People told me I had great birthing hips and my pregnancy had been smooth sailing, apart from needing to monitor my blood sugar.

In anticipation of the birth, I was most concerned about the potential for tearing. I’d heard the horror stories, and some women in my family were rewarded with their fair share of stitches after bringing that large, yet little (such a strange oxymoron) human into the world. I was afraid, but also very much wanted to know what a contraction felt like. How bad was it going to be, really?

The birth I experienced left me with the knowledge of what contractions could feel like, (though I gladly accepted an epidural before they got really bad), the satisfaction of the relief of getting to push...but no actual exit of the baby. Instead, he was surgically removed from me.

I pushed for three hours and the medical staff all told me I was a good pusher. Unfortunately, any progress I made during each push was quickly retracted when Liam’s head raised back up. There are stages in the pelvic area (negative, meaning the upper entrance to the pelvis, and then positive, which is on the way out of the pelvic area/birth canal. Liam and I never made it to the positive side of things. 

Three hours before I even started pushing, the midwife said she wanted to be transparent and let us know that a C-section was possible. After three hours of pushing, the midwife, surgeon, and nurses all stood around and explained the C-section process. They never explicitly said I needed to get it, but it was clear that would be the wise decision in their professional opinions. At the time, I was so exhausted from pushing and having not consumed anything other than liquids in almost 36 hours that it was a relief to know some medical intervention could get Liam out that was not dependent on my strength. Had they told me I was close, I feel confident I could have found it in me to get the job done, but we never made enough progress to even try getting him out with a vacuum.

Now, a little over six weeks out, reasonably recovered, I find myself needing to process the fact that I feel like my body failed me somehow, or I beat the system by still having a baby. Had this been many years ago, it’s very possible either Liam or I, or both of us, would not have made it out alive. A sobering thought, but again, it feels like I cheated the system. Throughout pregnancy, I felt so proud and in awe of my body that it could produce a human being without me needing to be truly aware. After the birth, I think I had been subconsciously holding some shame because looking at pictures of my pregnant self, pictures I used to feel proud of, I felt my stomach knot and it was difficult to look at them. In fact, I almost felt slightly disgusted seeing myself pregnant, which I had never felt in the midst of it.

A natural question after this is, “What will happen with the next pregnancy?” Will the same thing happen again? Can I deliver vaginally? Will I never get to experience birth in that way? If I end up always needing to have C-sections, am I limited to how many kids I can have? 

It’s called a Cesarean birth. It’s supposed to be that I birthed Liam. I feel very solidly that I labored for him, but because he came into the world via surgery, it feels like someone else actually birthed him.

This led me to look up the definition of birth:

Birth: “The emergence of a baby or young from the body of its mother; the start of life as a physically separate being.”

Based on that definition, Liam and I did experience a birth together. He did emerge from my body. I can say I gave everything I could to get him out on my own, but it just wasn’t enough. The C-section was certainly not for lack of trying. I’m still in the process of feeling OK with how it all turned out. Oh, I’m beyond grateful modern medicine helped us both safely emerge from the experience, but I just wish my effort could have resulted with the tearing I was so afraid of, rather than the operating room. How strange to mourn an experience I was terrified of! 

I’m grateful for Liam. I’m grateful for my body’s ability to get pregnant, and carry this incredible human to full term. I’m grateful I can confidently say I gave my all during the labor experience and even more grateful for modern medicine. I’m also grateful that there is space for a process. 

To those women who have gone through something similar: we still got our babies out. We are still mothers. They are still ours. We still got our stitches and have a constant reminder that our bodies were living sacrifices for the sake of those little lives. 

Thanks for holding space for my thoughts. I’m not sharing this to have anyone convince me the way things turned out was OK. If you have a word of encouragement you want to share, by all means, I’ll take it, but ultimately, this is something I have to land on feeling OK about in my own head. I’m OK that it has required some processing. Birth, no matter the experience, is a huge thing! If you have your own story and want a place to share, I’d love to hear it! Truly! Please share in the comments if you feel comfortable. We need to hold space for this.

For the record, I’m now twelve weeks out and still have moments where I wish things had gone differently, but have also breastfed on a mountain, put on a solly wrap without breaking conversation, and single-handedly been providing the sustenance keeping Liam alive and thriving for nearly three months (minus the little bit of formula he needed at the hospital for his blood sugar, but that was after breastfeeding so still a victory). I am still 100% a mom and feel legit. I hope you do too.