Birth trauma: mourning your birth experience

“Well at least the baby is healthy” “There are plenty of women out there that would beg to be in my position” “I prayed for this baby, not a perfect labor”
These are just some of the guilty thoughts that run through our heads when we try to mourn our birth experience. We experience trauma and try to guilt our way out of feeling it, such a mom thing to do. I found this quote from @thedouladarcy and it resonated with me right away. I’m grateful, I am obsessed with my son but I’m also deeply traumatized by my birth experience and even his NICU stay. Neither having to do with nursing staff or location, just ways our bodies failed us and ways that our plans were shattered before our eyes and we just had to roll with it. I’ll share my whole story one day but I’ll say this much, my Labor Day started as a regular check up appointment and ended with me being transported by ambulance an hour across town for an emergency csection where I lost a lot of blood and had almost 7 lbs of fluid drained from my body. It was scary, it was traumatic and I didn’t really get to process any of it until recently. And as I process it, it’s blowing my mind. So I give you permission mama, talk through that traumatic birth story, process it thoroughly, mourn that loss of experience and don’t for one second feel guilty about it.