Not Quite A Birth Story

by Anonymous 

I don't look at it. I could probably count on one hand the times I have ever looked at it over the last 15 months. Sometimes I touch it, feeling the numbness of my stomach and the smooth skin that was stitched together on the day of my daughters birth. Those are really the only times I let myself think about it. Although my stomach may be healed up, I am now just starting to heal emotionally. The first year after my emergency c-section, I feared I would never overcome my fear of child birth. I hated the fact that my body could not deliver in the way God deemed it: vaginally and naturally. I had been so close to doing it, and it was ripped from my grasp. I felt broken. I felt like less of a woman. I felt like the most valuable thing was stolen from me. I felt that I would never recover from my loss.

My guilt still haunts me today. Not only for the disappointment I had in my delivery, but in the irrational corners of my postpartum brain, I blamed my baby for it. It was hard for me to hold her or to comfort her when she cried. She was the catalyst for everything I had lost. Those first few precious weeks with my newborn were lost because of pain, guilt, and depression. I will never get them back.

So, I put it all in a box and filed it away for a later date. As time passed, I was able to replace those dark feelings of fear and regret with love for my daughter. She is so perfect in every way. She is the light that shines in the darkness of her birth. She is the best thing I have ever done. After over a year I am proud to finally say that it was all worth it. (It is embarrassing to admit that there were times when I was not so sure.) I'm not done healing yet, but I am getting there.

I finally have decided I will be okay to have more children. No. Not just okay... I want more children.  I CAN do that. I CAN have another c-section, and it CAN be empowering. That I CAN still have the birth I want within the limitations of having surgery, and it WILL BE OKAY. I may not be all the way there yet, but I no longer am engulfed with the same fear of pregnancy and labor as I once was. And that's something I can be proud of.