When Birth Doesn't Go As Planned.

The range of emotions felt by a birthing woman must be greater than those felt at any other point in her life.  Then those emotions are magnified hundreds of times because of the hormones surging through her body. 

1. Get support.  Find women who have had similar experiences to you.  I was DEVASTATED after my attempted VBACs.  I was confused, I was hurt, I was angry, I felt like I'd failed.  I felt like something was wrong with me.  I grieved for the loss of what I wanted and I didn't have a soul to share it with...not anyone who 'got it' anyway.  Then in 2008, I attended an ICAN meeting.  All of a sudden, there were other women who not only understood what I had gone through, but they wanted the same things as me.  That meeting literally changed my life....and I know it's greatly because of the OB who stood there and spoke that night.  But I've stayed involved in ICAN since then.  I've seen the lives that are changed daily because of the support, the encouragement, and the love.  I am so proud of that group of women.  EVERY woman needs this type of support, no matter what the outcome of her birth is.

2. Forgive yourself.  It's NOT your fault that things didn't go as planned.  You must make peace with the decisions you made and/or those made for you and forgive yourself for all of it.  Having the right support system will help with this.  It's ok to be angry about the situation, but you can't take it out on yourself.

3. Write out your birth story and CRY.  Start by just writing down what you remember, how you remember it.  The way you felt.  Share it with someone and allow yourself to cry.  Do NOT be afraid to cry.  You lost something you wanted, something that meant a lot to you.  It's not silly or trivial.  It was the way you pictured the birth of your child....a life-changing event.  Crying is good for you.  It is emotionally cleansing.  It's part of the grief process and you feel better after doing it.  If your birth was especially painful or traumatic, and you don't want to share it quite yet, tuck it away for later.  Don't hold onto the pain, you feel better once you let it out.

4. Find something good about your birth experience.  It may not have gone like you wanted it to, in fact it may have gone in completely the opposite direction, and if you can't see the good things in the big picture, start breaking it apart.  Find ONE great/peaceful/beautiful/funny/pleasant moment and write it down.  Do this until you can't do it anymore.  Try to change the way you are thinking of your birth by seeing small victories in the journey.  This was difficult for me at first, but I was able to turn my negative birth stories into something that I felt good enough to tell my children about.  I wanted to give them a positive account of their births.  This may take some time...Don't rush into it or you might get discouraged.  It took me 13 years to find some positive things about my first birth experience. 

If you know someone who didn't get the birth they wanted.

Shut up and listen.  Mothers need validation.  She needs to know that you hear what she is saying.  That you understand that she lost something important to her.  Listen 1000 times if you have to and validate her even if it seems trivial to you.

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words." - Rachel Naomi Remen

Try to point her to the right resources.  If you don't understand her loss, put her in touch with someone who does.  Know the signs of postpartum depression and when to get help.  Part of the problem is, in my experience, the only people who really push to get information about birth out there are women who have had very successful, very satisfying natural births.  There aren't a lot of stories about realistic accounts of pain and the raw work that labor and birth is.  No one really publishes the birth story where she didn't feel all that connected to her baby afterwards...or where she felt the pain was too much and she was resenting her body for not doing 'what it was supposed to'.  We have to be able to be honest about birth and support each other through the difficult or 'imperfect' times.  We need to be able to reassure each other that even if things don't come together at first, you can still be a fantastic mother.  There is a stigma in the natural birth community that if you don't have a drug-free natural birth and your baby is not put directly on your chest and you don't feel instantly connected then you did something wrong.  You screwed up.  I'm here to tell you that while the way your baby comes matters, it's not everything.  In the grand scheme of things, it's not going to change who you are as a mother.  We need to let go of this unattainable ideal of 'natural birth' so our births can unfold on their own, in their own way and be perfect for us as individuals.  The worst thing you can do is compare one birth to another...to say that one birth is better or worse than another.

I had, what some would consider a terrible birth.  I had all kinds of painful intervention.  However, because of where I was in my journey, that was the greatest birth I could ever think to have.  That doesn't mean that I enjoyed the forceps or the placenta removal or being sewn up.  But I love the fact that my water broke on it's own (first time, fourth baby).  I love that my whole family was there supporting me.  I love that things came together like a melody.  I LOVE that I finally got to do what I had planned to do 4 times beginning over 13 years prior.  I love that my girls got to see their sister being born and actually thought it was pretty cool.  I have not a single regret, or twinge of sadness for things not going as planned for this last birth.  I would never choose those interventions for my birth but when they happened I was truly, truly in a place where I was accepting of them.

It wasn't about what happened during birth for me, it was about feeling supported and loved and lifted up.  It was about validation.  Birth is hard, it can pretty much suck.  It can be very scary.  We will do amazing and difficult things for our children.  We will go to war for our babies.  No matter how your baby gets here, you are strong, and capable and deserving of motherhood.  Please, let the guilt go, let yourselves heal, love yourself and speak to others about your experience.  You will heal yourself and help others in the process.

Maybe my 12 year old daughter said it best.  I asked her what she thought about the difficulty of my last birth, if she thought I should have just had a c/section instead of trying for a vaginal birth.  She said "Isn't it the difficult parts that make it more special?" 

Anyone can feel uplifted and encouraged after a 'perfect' birth, but it takes somebody special to deal with extraordinary cirucumstances or pain or disappointment and still be the best mom she can be.  Maybe your birth wasn't everything you wanted it to be.  Maybe you have to work a little harder to build that relationship with your baby.  I tell my kids that it's often the things we work hardest for that end up being the most rewarding in the end.