Healing from a c-section...more than just physical

When I talk to people who have never had a c-section about the emotional healing I've had to do, there is usually some look of confusion or even disgust. I get the "well, your baby is here and healthy, so what else matters?" attitude. Make no mistake, having emotional scars from my c-section doesn't mean I am any less grateful for my beautiful daughter, or the fact that she got here safely. I am grateful not to have encountered anything dangerous during or after her birth. But that doesn't erase what was lost. It doesn't minimize the feeling of failure.

In my particular situation, my body never progressed past 4 cm. I never contracted well on my own, and my body didn't even really respond to pitocin. Sure, I spent 24 hours "in labor", but nothing happened. I was labeled "failure to progress" and have spent the better part of the last 2 years trying to understand why that happened. Why my body failed at the most basic and essential job it was designed for. It made me feel like less of a woman. To not be capable of bringing my child into the world? Failure.

I saw my daughter's first hour of life in pictures. There was no squirming baby placed on my chest, no looking into her face as she took her first breaths. I heard her first cry from behind a curtain. There was no watching my husband cut the umbilical cord, or getting to count her fingers and toes. I was paralyzed and cut open, staring at the ceiling of an operating room. I wasn't the one to change her diapers in the hospital, I wasn't the one who got to be with her during her newborn tests. I had to have someone hand her to me, I couldn't go to her.

Physically, it's hard for other women to understand what a c-section means, too. Having someone you barely know shave you to prep you for surgery, being naked on a table in front of a team of strangers, staying in bed until you can feel your legs again, someone having to help you shower. I couldn't get out of bed in the middle of the night to pick up or change my daughter. It leaves a physical scar that never goes away, and will have an effect on every single birth you have after that.

All of those things most people take for granted. I would have given anything to be able to have all of those moments, even the poopy diapers. I was embarassed by the physical challenges.

So no, for me a c-section is not "just another was to give birth" or "no big deal". It comes with a lot of emotional and physical baggage, a lot of why's and why not's.

When I got pregnant with this baby, I found a lot of those emotions welling up again. Those same feelings of failure came flooding back, along with fear. Fear of another potential surgery, fear that my body would fail again, fear of trying to VBAC.

I realized I had to come to terms with Amy's birth, and get past these things...I had to heal emotionally. And for me, that meant learning. I threw myself into learning as much as I could about VBACs and c-sections. I educated myself about the risks of both a VBAC and a repeat c-section. I learned things about the state of our medical system today, and how most doctors don't even follow the recommendations of their own organization (ACOG), when it comes to what they recommend to their patients for birth after c-section. Our society has gotten so sue-happy that doctors are afraid to allow women to try VBACs, even though it is regarded as the safest method of birth after c-section. I learned about the benefits of vaginal birth for the babies themselves, and about the importance of the baby's position during pregnancy and labor. I learned more about labor and the textbook "definitions" applied to it. I read, and absorbed, and asked questions.

I thought I was prepared for labor and birth with Amy, and now I feel more than that...I feel informed. I feel like I can make choices and decisions regarding my prenatal care, and even the treatment I receive in labor. I read my operative report yesterday, and found out that Amy was posterior (or "sunny side up"). Having the understanding I do now about fetal positioning, I know that many more of these babies are delivered by c-section, and many are labeled failure to progress because they can't move down into the pelvis well enough to help with dilation. But I've also learned that posterior babies can be helped to turn during labor, that women don't always experience back labor, and that the common "interventions" used in labor these days are not always necessary.

More than anything, I finally feel like I didn't fail. And that was the biggest hurdle of all.

I still want this VBAC. I still want to have all those experiences of a vaginal birth. I still want to know that my body can give birth the way God designed it to. But I also know now that if it doesn't go that way, it's ok. I have truly done everything I can to prepare myself. I will not feel as though I didn't do enough. I will not feel like I failed.