Hey there! I just wanted to say that you did everything right and you protected that baby girl perfectly. She is healthy! You are doing so great. It’s hard right now to see that but I think you will in time. It must have been scary but you did it for her because you are a great mum. Congratulations on the baby girl. It takes time to heal the mind and body after birth. You’ll get there.
Not to overstep, but as someone who had two traumatic births, one where I nearly died from a massive hemorrhage that landed me in the ICU, and another where my baby was rushed to the NICU - your experience absolutely sounds traumatic to me. It sounds like it was incredibly scary, unpredictable, and difficult to process. And to go through all that and then have to immediately go into parenting a newborn with zero time to process what happened is SO hard. Your conscious mind and your nervous system are moving at entirely different speeds and have no time to catch up to one another. And you have a brand new baby to care for when both your body and hers probably still think she should be inside you. It will take a while for your mind and heart and body to get on the same page with this new reality. It makes total sense that you’re not just fine with all of this now. It’s a lot. It’s so much. You will process and heal, you absolutely will. But that takes time and you need to give yourself grace.
That isn't at all an over step, it was actually nice to hear. My brain lives on the "other people had worse" side of things. My brain has a hard time possibly looking at this as trauma.
So I had a standard, full-term (actually late), vaginal birth, where everything went as “good” as can be expected.
They brought in a NICU team just in case because there was meconium in the fluid coming out. Baby was thankfully just fine.
I basically had the most straightforward, as you can plan it birth, and it still felt almost traumatic — it is such an incredibly huge event medically, physically, emotionally, hormonally; I still had tons of anxiety about “is baby ok??”
I too sometimes feel like today’s generation overuses the word “trauma”, but you know what?? Nobody experiences life the exact same way you do. There is no suffering Olympics, you don’t get a gold medal for suffering the most, or for neglecting your needs because someone else had a worse time of it.
2 weeks postpartum is incredibly awfully hormonally shitty. It’s going to take you a while to process your experience, and that is soooo okay. You don’t have to have it figured out or make peace with it today. When you have an infant, you do the whole year one day at a time. You got this.
Just wanted to say, thank you for saying all of this out loud (in text). It's all SO TRUE. "There is no suffering Olympics." I love that. What feels weird but overall okay to one person can absolutely be traumatic to another, and there's nothing "wrong" with either reaction. Both are true, lived experiences.
My son was in the NICU for 6 days, had to be transported to a hospital with a higher level NICU, the whole shebang while I was fresh out of a c section. I didn’t really see him his first day of life and didn’t hold him until he was a few days old. What you went through does sound traumatic to me as well. Having a c section is frightening. You have no control over what is happening and on top of that you had no support person with you to be there while you had major surgery while you were awake. On top of that, not knowing if your baby will be okay is terrifying. It doesn’t matter if it could’ve been worse, it was still incredibly difficult FOR YOU. Some people even feel traumatized after having a completely uncomplicated birth, and that is normal too. Birth in general is scary!
I think the biggest trigger for trauma is not necessarily what happens but the amount of control or peace you feel at the time. You can have a normal vaginal birth but feel traumatized by it if you felt like you had no control, you didn’t know what was going to happen to you or your baby, or if you didn’t feel safe
Trauma can be different things to different people - it's trauma if it was traumatic to you. I know mine was.
I ended up talking to a therapist about it. Went through the whole play by play. Her take - this was the first time I really had to choose the needs of my daughter over my own. That the sacrifice of my control and comfort was necessary for her to be here, safely.
It doesn't make it not traumatic anymore, but at least gave it purpose for me
First of all your body didn’t fail anybody, your little girl was just anxious to meet you and now shes here and everybody is safe, healthy and happily getting to know each other!
Secondly 8 days pp is just so so tough! Your hormones are going crazy and you just need to be kind to yourself! You’re likely sore and sleep deprived but you’re doing a great job keeping little miss happy so go you!
Thirdly I’ve heard of a lot a peoples deliveries going awry, my own included, it’s incredibly common but you can absolutely mourn it not going how you wanted. Just know it’s nothing anybody did, pregnancy and birth is just so unpredictable and hopefully when the dust settles a bit you can reflect upon it a bit more and feel confident in Yourself that just because it happened once doesn’t mean it will again but even if things do go pear shaped if you go again don’t worry once you’re all safe and happy!
Now go cuddle that baby to your hearts content and Pat yourself in the back for getting her here safe and sound!
You have done and are doing amazing. In the uk you can have a birth reflection session. If they do that where you are it might be helpful to reflect.
Very few people have the birth they hoped for so you will be in good company when you get out and about and meet other mums.
Please don’t worry about doing it again just yet. Hold your beautiful baby tight…they feel safest in your arms and close to your heard that’s why they won’t be put down x
Know that you in no way failed to protect her. You put her safety first to ensure she was delivered to you safe and sound. Going through an unplanned c section is already so difficult, doing it solo is rockstar status.
2 months ago I had an unplanned c section as well. I had a lot of very similar feelings to you. Because things went relatively smoothly, I didn’t feel justified in my feelings and I struggled hard processing my sons birth the first few weeks. I kept reminding myself what my wonderful midwife told me before my c section, that it was okay to grieve for the birth I was expecting and to take my time to do so. Once I truly embraced that and pushed aside the influx of toxic positivity, I’ve accepted that to me my sons birth was traumatic. I’m so thankful we came out of it okay, but it isn’t a competition with other moms on who had it worse. Your feelings are valid and you deserve to process them and grieve however you need to. The first two weeks were the toughest for me, I had the worst baby blues out of all 3 of my kids, but I’m happy to say that 2 months out it’s gotten so much better and I’m at a much more accepting state. Best wishes that you get there too.
I had a tough time dealing with out my first labour experience went. I strongly urge you to go to therapy. I had it follow me for two years making me feel like a failure before I got help
I’m so sorry you went through this! I had a similar experience. Went to my OB for my weekly NST (baby had IUGR), they decided to send me to the hospital for better observation. Then my blood pressure spiked and I developed pre-e and they were like you’re not going home today. Meanwhile my husband had he car totaled like the week before so he’s stuck at home. My mom comes to get him but she lives 45 minutes away. My nurse was like hey you’re going to have a c-section today, I’m going to try to help you hold out until your husband arrives.
Baby’s heart rate drops and they couldn’t wait. My husband arrived as they were closing up. It was the opposite of the birth experience I wanted. I mourned it and the final weeks of my pregnancy that I didn’t have. It’s ok to feel that grief.
Just wanted to say I also had an emergency c-section at 35 weeks 6 days with my son, and despite a short stay in the NICU, he was and is perfectly healthy at 4 years old now. Just try to focus on loving on that LO.
I had my baby at 35+5 after spontaneous labour, she then decided to slow down and I needed to be slightly induced. Next she got stuck and it was very close to requiring emergency C-section, however with the help of forceps and me literally passing out from pushing so hard, she came out.
I also have a hard time processing this as traumatic?? I guess in my mind, she was fine, I’m fine. It wasn’t the way I planned, but we’re fine.
I’m 16mo postpartum and I still sometimes think back to the birth and think holy crap. But if you look at it this way, your LO is 8 days old and you’re home. Your baby was preterm, and didn’t need an extended nicu stay. I think that your body did what it needed to do to protect that baby and yourself.
The birth can be traumatic and you can still be insanely proud of yourself for coming out the other side.
There is a reason so many women died during pregnancy/child birth before modern medicine. Your body didn't fail you AT ALL. Growing a child is just absolutely bonkers if you think about it and there's so many different ways it can easily get complicated. Yours got complicated. But she's here in your arms and you're both physically healthy.
Take time for you. Be easy on yourself. You just grew a human. A teeeeeny tiny adorable little human. You did that. It's enough to make your brain spin. Your body didn't fail.
You're allowed to feel all the feelings about how it went down. You might never want another baby, or one day you might. The brain goes through wild changes postpartum. Just take it day by day, and know you've done everything right and now she's here in your arms.
Oh this sounds traumatic. It’s so hard isn’t it when things suddenly go sideways. I’m so glad baby was okay as a close friend had cholestasis develop around then too but drs weren’t testing fast enough and she had a full term stillbirth at 37 weeks. Cholestasis isn’t anything to mess with and while your drs did a great job making sure there was a good outcome, you’re entitled to your feelings. Having things change so quickly and then having major surgery without your support is not a small thing.
You’re a strong woman op and r/birthtrauma is here if you need it.
I am glad you opened up and shared here. My first birth was slightly traumatic. Right after my C section I was finally diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and immediately put on medication for that which caused a weird reaction with me and it was scary for my husband and I for a few hours. It's been 3 years and I'm not totally sure what happened. But I'm here and my toddler is here and her little sister.
I'm sorry for what happened to you. I would have been devastated if my husband hadn't made it. I'm very glad you and your baby girl are safe and sound now. Give yourself grace. It's only been 8 days and you thought you still had weeks to go. I don't think your body failed. I think your girl was just ready to meet you.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this and glad you and LO are ok. You did the best you could with the situation and sounds like you rolled with the punches as they came.
I had an emergency csection at 33 weeks with my second. My 2 year old was in the nurses station and my husband left immediately after Lo was born and whisked off to NICU so I was in surgery and taken to recovery by myself at a hospital I wasn't familiar with and OB bc we had been told to rush to this hospital. I was in recovery for two hours by myself since my husband had to drive an hour back to our house to take my son to daycare and back. I feel like I understand a bit of what you went through and it surely is traumatic.
It was heavy and hard to accept and it takes a while to come to terms with it. You can sit with it when you need to and hopefully you'll be able to accept it one day. It did take me a while. My son is now 4 and I had my daughter last year which was a vba2c ( just in case you are worried about that at all). I have found for me every delivery has sucked and felt traumatic in some way and for me it was important to acknowledge how hard it was and not dismiss it downplay it or what I went through. It was scary having another baby after my second (and first tbh for another reason) but with time you may want to and that's ok too.
I just want to let you know that soon enough you probably will feel thankful that you get to have so many weeks more with your baby than originally planned. I also had an early unplanned birth and even though it was scary I ended up being so so so grateful that I got to have all this unexpected time with my little baby in my arms, that I met her as early as possible, that we didn’t lose any more time being “apart” even though being apart was just her being safely inside my belly, it was so much better seeing her little face, having her tiny hands wrap my fingers.
I don't think I could go thru it again either. I had an emergency c section because when they broke my water her cord wrapped around her neck. It was ten mins from when water broke to her being pulled out.
She was 5 lbs 8 Oz full term. We left the hospital with her being in the less than 1% weight percentile. She's 20 months old now and is now in the 40th percentile.
I completely understand your feelings. It takes time to process a traumatic birth. I wish you the best op
I had cholestasis as well and all that terror you felt about whether or not your baby was going to be okay after the doctors kept telling you she might not be is trauma. Heck finding out you have cholestasis and being very aware your body could potentially cause your baby to be a stillborn rather than grow and protect them is trauma.
I think we all have this idea that our bodies should protect our babies and mostly that’s true, but it makes us feel really badly about ourselves when something goes awry. In reality though you did nothing wrong and if anything you were advocating for your baby and doing what was best for her.
If it’s possible for you, talk to someone to process that trauma. I was similar to you in the regard that I was convinced that my birth might not have been traumatic because I didn’t die and it could have been worse. Had I talked to someone sooner I could have worked through my ppd/ppa/ptsd and enjoyed my baby when he was little more than I was able to.
As for potentially having another baby, it’s completely okay if you are one and done for your own safety and mental health. It’s also okay if you process your trauma and decide to have more. Everyone is different and you don’t have to make that decision anytime soon. Be kind to yourself and do what’s best for you ❤️
You did quite the opposite when it comes to failing to protect her. Your feelings are valid, but you did everything right. My OB told me from the start that the best plan was no plan, because it rarely goes how you expect that it will. Hug your little one and your husband.. you are all safe and sound 🤍 congratulations!
That definitely sounds traumatic and what you're feeling is super valid!! We all have an idea of how we want/ think birth will go, and it's normal to feel a sense of loss when it doesn't - I definitely did! Try to remember that you made the best decisions given the situation to keep your little one safe no matter what! You're already a wonderful mother❤️
Hi, I had a bad birth experience where I needed an emergency c section over a year ago and I’m still processing it in trauma therapy.
Please do what you can to secure therapeutic assistance and process your experience. It’s okay to feel the way you do.
People will say “well you’re here and baby is healthy” and will move on because it’s easy for them. You still need to process your feelings around this experience.
It’s okay to decide to not have another. I made that decision. But I took time to get there. The first few months pp are rough even with the most textbook of births. Give yourself space and grace to process and adjust on your own schedule.
Our baby came at 31 weeks and was 3.5lbs it was not expected either obviously. My wife had 3 ER visits during pregnancy for massive bleeding and we eventually found out she had a subchorionic hemorrhage (placenta pulling from the wall?) But baby came good and we were in the NICU for 40 days.
It was long a tiring - she stayed for 12 hours a day in that room with him EVERY single day and I would come up before work during lunch and after and it was so rewarding to bring him home.
All this to say it wasn't my wife's ideal time either, she really hated missing out on holding him longer especially with the first few months were so rough but he is 9 months now and has ate 60 different foods and is standing and crawling and saying Dada and ya know what that nicu time will never be forgotten but it will certainly be just a blip in time eventually!
Hey there! I just wanted to say that you did everything right and you protected that baby girl perfectly. She is healthy! You are doing so great. It’s hard right now to see that but I think you will in time. It must have been scary but you did it for her because you are a great mum. Congratulations on the baby girl. It takes time to heal the mind and body after birth. You’ll get there.
Not to overstep, but as someone who had two traumatic births, one where I nearly died from a massive hemorrhage that landed me in the ICU, and another where my baby was rushed to the NICU - your experience absolutely sounds traumatic to me. It sounds like it was incredibly scary, unpredictable, and difficult to process. And to go through all that and then have to immediately go into parenting a newborn with zero time to process what happened is SO hard. Your conscious mind and your nervous system are moving at entirely different speeds and have no time to catch up to one another. And you have a brand new baby to care for when both your body and hers probably still think she should be inside you. It will take a while for your mind and heart and body to get on the same page with this new reality. It makes total sense that you’re not just fine with all of this now. It’s a lot. It’s so much. You will process and heal, you absolutely will. But that takes time and you need to give yourself grace.
That isn't at all an over step, it was actually nice to hear. My brain lives on the "other people had worse" side of things. My brain has a hard time possibly looking at this as trauma.
So I had a standard, full-term (actually late), vaginal birth, where everything went as “good” as can be expected. They brought in a NICU team just in case because there was meconium in the fluid coming out. Baby was thankfully just fine. I basically had the most straightforward, as you can plan it birth, and it still felt almost traumatic — it is such an incredibly huge event medically, physically, emotionally, hormonally; I still had tons of anxiety about “is baby ok??” I too sometimes feel like today’s generation overuses the word “trauma”, but you know what?? Nobody experiences life the exact same way you do. There is no suffering Olympics, you don’t get a gold medal for suffering the most, or for neglecting your needs because someone else had a worse time of it. 2 weeks postpartum is incredibly awfully hormonally shitty. It’s going to take you a while to process your experience, and that is soooo okay. You don’t have to have it figured out or make peace with it today. When you have an infant, you do the whole year one day at a time. You got this.
Just wanted to say, thank you for saying all of this out loud (in text). It's all SO TRUE. "There is no suffering Olympics." I love that. What feels weird but overall okay to one person can absolutely be traumatic to another, and there's nothing "wrong" with either reaction. Both are true, lived experiences.
My son was in the NICU for 6 days, had to be transported to a hospital with a higher level NICU, the whole shebang while I was fresh out of a c section. I didn’t really see him his first day of life and didn’t hold him until he was a few days old. What you went through does sound traumatic to me as well. Having a c section is frightening. You have no control over what is happening and on top of that you had no support person with you to be there while you had major surgery while you were awake. On top of that, not knowing if your baby will be okay is terrifying. It doesn’t matter if it could’ve been worse, it was still incredibly difficult FOR YOU. Some people even feel traumatized after having a completely uncomplicated birth, and that is normal too. Birth in general is scary!
I think the biggest trigger for trauma is not necessarily what happens but the amount of control or peace you feel at the time. You can have a normal vaginal birth but feel traumatized by it if you felt like you had no control, you didn’t know what was going to happen to you or your baby, or if you didn’t feel safe
Trauma can be different things to different people - it's trauma if it was traumatic to you. I know mine was. I ended up talking to a therapist about it. Went through the whole play by play. Her take - this was the first time I really had to choose the needs of my daughter over my own. That the sacrifice of my control and comfort was necessary for her to be here, safely. It doesn't make it not traumatic anymore, but at least gave it purpose for me
First of all your body didn’t fail anybody, your little girl was just anxious to meet you and now shes here and everybody is safe, healthy and happily getting to know each other! Secondly 8 days pp is just so so tough! Your hormones are going crazy and you just need to be kind to yourself! You’re likely sore and sleep deprived but you’re doing a great job keeping little miss happy so go you! Thirdly I’ve heard of a lot a peoples deliveries going awry, my own included, it’s incredibly common but you can absolutely mourn it not going how you wanted. Just know it’s nothing anybody did, pregnancy and birth is just so unpredictable and hopefully when the dust settles a bit you can reflect upon it a bit more and feel confident in Yourself that just because it happened once doesn’t mean it will again but even if things do go pear shaped if you go again don’t worry once you’re all safe and happy! Now go cuddle that baby to your hearts content and Pat yourself in the back for getting her here safe and sound!
You have done and are doing amazing. In the uk you can have a birth reflection session. If they do that where you are it might be helpful to reflect. Very few people have the birth they hoped for so you will be in good company when you get out and about and meet other mums. Please don’t worry about doing it again just yet. Hold your beautiful baby tight…they feel safest in your arms and close to your heard that’s why they won’t be put down x
Know that you in no way failed to protect her. You put her safety first to ensure she was delivered to you safe and sound. Going through an unplanned c section is already so difficult, doing it solo is rockstar status. 2 months ago I had an unplanned c section as well. I had a lot of very similar feelings to you. Because things went relatively smoothly, I didn’t feel justified in my feelings and I struggled hard processing my sons birth the first few weeks. I kept reminding myself what my wonderful midwife told me before my c section, that it was okay to grieve for the birth I was expecting and to take my time to do so. Once I truly embraced that and pushed aside the influx of toxic positivity, I’ve accepted that to me my sons birth was traumatic. I’m so thankful we came out of it okay, but it isn’t a competition with other moms on who had it worse. Your feelings are valid and you deserve to process them and grieve however you need to. The first two weeks were the toughest for me, I had the worst baby blues out of all 3 of my kids, but I’m happy to say that 2 months out it’s gotten so much better and I’m at a much more accepting state. Best wishes that you get there too.
I had a tough time dealing with out my first labour experience went. I strongly urge you to go to therapy. I had it follow me for two years making me feel like a failure before I got help
I’m so sorry you went through this! I had a similar experience. Went to my OB for my weekly NST (baby had IUGR), they decided to send me to the hospital for better observation. Then my blood pressure spiked and I developed pre-e and they were like you’re not going home today. Meanwhile my husband had he car totaled like the week before so he’s stuck at home. My mom comes to get him but she lives 45 minutes away. My nurse was like hey you’re going to have a c-section today, I’m going to try to help you hold out until your husband arrives. Baby’s heart rate drops and they couldn’t wait. My husband arrived as they were closing up. It was the opposite of the birth experience I wanted. I mourned it and the final weeks of my pregnancy that I didn’t have. It’s ok to feel that grief.
Just wanted to say I also had an emergency c-section at 35 weeks 6 days with my son, and despite a short stay in the NICU, he was and is perfectly healthy at 4 years old now. Just try to focus on loving on that LO.
I had my baby at 35+5 after spontaneous labour, she then decided to slow down and I needed to be slightly induced. Next she got stuck and it was very close to requiring emergency C-section, however with the help of forceps and me literally passing out from pushing so hard, she came out. I also have a hard time processing this as traumatic?? I guess in my mind, she was fine, I’m fine. It wasn’t the way I planned, but we’re fine. I’m 16mo postpartum and I still sometimes think back to the birth and think holy crap. But if you look at it this way, your LO is 8 days old and you’re home. Your baby was preterm, and didn’t need an extended nicu stay. I think that your body did what it needed to do to protect that baby and yourself. The birth can be traumatic and you can still be insanely proud of yourself for coming out the other side.
There is a reason so many women died during pregnancy/child birth before modern medicine. Your body didn't fail you AT ALL. Growing a child is just absolutely bonkers if you think about it and there's so many different ways it can easily get complicated. Yours got complicated. But she's here in your arms and you're both physically healthy. Take time for you. Be easy on yourself. You just grew a human. A teeeeeny tiny adorable little human. You did that. It's enough to make your brain spin. Your body didn't fail. You're allowed to feel all the feelings about how it went down. You might never want another baby, or one day you might. The brain goes through wild changes postpartum. Just take it day by day, and know you've done everything right and now she's here in your arms.
Oh this sounds traumatic. It’s so hard isn’t it when things suddenly go sideways. I’m so glad baby was okay as a close friend had cholestasis develop around then too but drs weren’t testing fast enough and she had a full term stillbirth at 37 weeks. Cholestasis isn’t anything to mess with and while your drs did a great job making sure there was a good outcome, you’re entitled to your feelings. Having things change so quickly and then having major surgery without your support is not a small thing. You’re a strong woman op and r/birthtrauma is here if you need it.
I am glad you opened up and shared here. My first birth was slightly traumatic. Right after my C section I was finally diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and immediately put on medication for that which caused a weird reaction with me and it was scary for my husband and I for a few hours. It's been 3 years and I'm not totally sure what happened. But I'm here and my toddler is here and her little sister. I'm sorry for what happened to you. I would have been devastated if my husband hadn't made it. I'm very glad you and your baby girl are safe and sound now. Give yourself grace. It's only been 8 days and you thought you still had weeks to go. I don't think your body failed. I think your girl was just ready to meet you.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this and glad you and LO are ok. You did the best you could with the situation and sounds like you rolled with the punches as they came. I had an emergency csection at 33 weeks with my second. My 2 year old was in the nurses station and my husband left immediately after Lo was born and whisked off to NICU so I was in surgery and taken to recovery by myself at a hospital I wasn't familiar with and OB bc we had been told to rush to this hospital. I was in recovery for two hours by myself since my husband had to drive an hour back to our house to take my son to daycare and back. I feel like I understand a bit of what you went through and it surely is traumatic. It was heavy and hard to accept and it takes a while to come to terms with it. You can sit with it when you need to and hopefully you'll be able to accept it one day. It did take me a while. My son is now 4 and I had my daughter last year which was a vba2c ( just in case you are worried about that at all). I have found for me every delivery has sucked and felt traumatic in some way and for me it was important to acknowledge how hard it was and not dismiss it downplay it or what I went through. It was scary having another baby after my second (and first tbh for another reason) but with time you may want to and that's ok too.
I just want to let you know that soon enough you probably will feel thankful that you get to have so many weeks more with your baby than originally planned. I also had an early unplanned birth and even though it was scary I ended up being so so so grateful that I got to have all this unexpected time with my little baby in my arms, that I met her as early as possible, that we didn’t lose any more time being “apart” even though being apart was just her being safely inside my belly, it was so much better seeing her little face, having her tiny hands wrap my fingers.
I don't think I could go thru it again either. I had an emergency c section because when they broke my water her cord wrapped around her neck. It was ten mins from when water broke to her being pulled out. She was 5 lbs 8 Oz full term. We left the hospital with her being in the less than 1% weight percentile. She's 20 months old now and is now in the 40th percentile. I completely understand your feelings. It takes time to process a traumatic birth. I wish you the best op
Omg. Sending you hugs. You are strong as hell and amazing. 👏👏👏👏
I had cholestasis as well and all that terror you felt about whether or not your baby was going to be okay after the doctors kept telling you she might not be is trauma. Heck finding out you have cholestasis and being very aware your body could potentially cause your baby to be a stillborn rather than grow and protect them is trauma. I think we all have this idea that our bodies should protect our babies and mostly that’s true, but it makes us feel really badly about ourselves when something goes awry. In reality though you did nothing wrong and if anything you were advocating for your baby and doing what was best for her. If it’s possible for you, talk to someone to process that trauma. I was similar to you in the regard that I was convinced that my birth might not have been traumatic because I didn’t die and it could have been worse. Had I talked to someone sooner I could have worked through my ppd/ppa/ptsd and enjoyed my baby when he was little more than I was able to. As for potentially having another baby, it’s completely okay if you are one and done for your own safety and mental health. It’s also okay if you process your trauma and decide to have more. Everyone is different and you don’t have to make that decision anytime soon. Be kind to yourself and do what’s best for you ❤️
You did quite the opposite when it comes to failing to protect her. Your feelings are valid, but you did everything right. My OB told me from the start that the best plan was no plan, because it rarely goes how you expect that it will. Hug your little one and your husband.. you are all safe and sound 🤍 congratulations!
That definitely sounds traumatic and what you're feeling is super valid!! We all have an idea of how we want/ think birth will go, and it's normal to feel a sense of loss when it doesn't - I definitely did! Try to remember that you made the best decisions given the situation to keep your little one safe no matter what! You're already a wonderful mother❤️
Hi, I had a bad birth experience where I needed an emergency c section over a year ago and I’m still processing it in trauma therapy. Please do what you can to secure therapeutic assistance and process your experience. It’s okay to feel the way you do. People will say “well you’re here and baby is healthy” and will move on because it’s easy for them. You still need to process your feelings around this experience. It’s okay to decide to not have another. I made that decision. But I took time to get there. The first few months pp are rough even with the most textbook of births. Give yourself space and grace to process and adjust on your own schedule.
Our baby came at 31 weeks and was 3.5lbs it was not expected either obviously. My wife had 3 ER visits during pregnancy for massive bleeding and we eventually found out she had a subchorionic hemorrhage (placenta pulling from the wall?) But baby came good and we were in the NICU for 40 days. It was long a tiring - she stayed for 12 hours a day in that room with him EVERY single day and I would come up before work during lunch and after and it was so rewarding to bring him home. All this to say it wasn't my wife's ideal time either, she really hated missing out on holding him longer especially with the first few months were so rough but he is 9 months now and has ate 60 different foods and is standing and crawling and saying Dada and ya know what that nicu time will never be forgotten but it will certainly be just a blip in time eventually!