Birth and Rebirth

I have a secret.  I've carried it with me for three years like a tattered teddy bear.  A soggy, dirty, tattered teddy bear with rotted stuffing.  Yet as foul as it is, I have clung to it just like a child finding safety in a well-loved toy.  For three years, this secret has framed my world.  Has defined the whole of my existence. Has defined me.  For three years, I have lived a life of shame, of regret, of pain and fear and guilt and rage and hate.

What is this festering, evil teddy bear secret?

Three years ago, I had a c-section, and it nearly killed me.

Please don't misinterpret me.  I'm not being melodramatic.  I really mean it - having a c-section nearly killed me.  It didn't come close to killing my body, though it certainly felt like it.   It brought me to the brink of complete self-destruction and left me there, alone, to cope or to leak enough of my soul and spirit that I bled out into nothing.

The doctors did their surgical job - they cut me open, delivered my baby, and sewed me back up again. But they left behind wounds that didn't heal, that nobody could see.  Wounds that didn't fall within the purview of their scope of practice.  Nobody talks about these side effects of our c-section epidemic.  We talk about infection rates, numbness at the site, the risk of future uterine rupture should we attempt to deliver without surgical intervention.  Clinical.  Distanced.  Scary enough on their own.  The closest mainstream inquiry gets to addressing the emotional byproducts is to acknowledge that women with unexpected cesarean sections are at greater risk of postpartum depression.

"Depression" didn't even come close describing to my experience.  After my cesarean, I felt destroyed.  Lost.  Broken beyond repair.  For me, being pregnant and having babies was the thing I dreamed about from the time I was twelve.  While most of my friends were fantasizing about dream weddings, travel adventures, and exotic careers, I dreamed about making a family.  Not because I'm so traditional that I wanted nothing more, but because I knew, deep down inside, that I'm a mommy soul.  Mothering - for better or worse - is what I do.  I've never been happier than I was while pregnant, and I was committed to having an empowering birth experience.  It was going to be, as far as my anthropologist brain was concerned, the moment of my ritual transition into the fullness of being me.  

I was induced at 37 weeks for gestational hypertension and threat of pre-eclampsia.  I'd wanted to give birth naturally, but who was I to argue with my doctor?  She told me they needed to do this in order to avoid scarier problems, like organ failure.  That part wasn't so thrilling, but I was elated to be going into labor - I was on track to being one of those obnoxious women who actually enjoys it - and I would be holding my baby all the sooner.  

But the next morning, everything started going wrong.  My body wasn't ready.  This little thing led to that slightly bigger thing, until my baby was literally thirty seconds away from suffering brain damage due to lack of oxygen.  As I watched his heart rate drop and stay there, the minutes ticking by while everyone else in the room chatted on amiably, I started to silently panic.  The nurse arrived, watched the monitor closely, and just as his heart rate began to rise, the doctor arrived, at a run, out of breath, prepared to do an emergency c-section to save him.  That was the moment I gave up.  The negative possibilities of what could happen outweighed the positive potentials.  I didn't want to lose my baby.  Whatever they wanted to do to me would be better.  And so I progressed through the "cascade of interventions" that often accompanies induction without argument, instead of progressing through labor.  At 27 hours, having made no progress beyond 5 cm for an hour, they suggested a c-section.  One more hour and I spiked a fever, and my doctor told me it was time.

I was devastated.  In that moment, everything I was as a person, as a woman, fell apart around me.  My body, the one thing I had always been able to trust, failed me.  It couldn't do what it was meant to do.  It was broken, and therefore I was broken.  My beautiful experience of empowerment, the ritual of giving birth, of transitioning from maiden to matron, died before it really began.  I spent the hour leading up to my surgery trying hard not to sob and failing often.  I made my husband promise to love and cherish and care for our baby without resentment if I died on the operating table.  Because I was sure that's what would happen.  I was dying on the inside, so surely death must follow on the outside.

I didn't die on the outside, but I was strapped down into a nightmare.  I had wanted a natural childbirth in part because drugs and I have strange reactions together.  The drug they gave me going into the OR put me into a weird state of consciousness and made me all too aware of my body while being incapable of communicating well.  My body had a low response to the pain medication, and I felt more than any of them expected.  The third time I was told I should only feel "a few more of these tugs," my coping skills failed me.  Soon thereafter, the anesthesiologist knocked me out.  I woke up to a nurse who wouldn't talk to me, who complained to another nurse that she had to sit with me instead of helping out on the other births happening in happier rooms.  I felt lost, confused, and totally, utterly alone.  

I lived in that moment for three months.

The place I inhabited for the first year of my son's life was dark, dangerous, full of fear and desperation.  I was grieving all I had lost - my sense of self, my womanhood, my strength, my self-belief, as well as my birth experience.  I went through all the stages of grief, but anger ruled them all.  Without a better outlet, I raged at my husband.  He was at a loss to help me, and really, didn't even know he needed to.  I hated him for months for not listening, not holding me, not protecting me.  There was no one else in my daily life to talk to, and I grew more and more isolated, more and more depressed.  Until one night, desperate for sleep, for quiet, for things I hadn't yet realized I was missing - a night when the baby wouldn't stop crying.  (We found out much later that his nervous system hadn't fully developed yet, so he likely spent his first months in a state of over-stimulation.)  An image flashed in my head of laying him in the tub and leaving the water on and the drain open.  Terror set in instantaneously.  My mother suffered through postpartum psychosis with my older brother and I feared I was there, too.  My husband didn't understand.  My family was occupied with their own difficult problems.  I was alone, and now I didn't trust myself to be alone with the baby.

There was no one to help me.  There was only me, my baby, an empty apartment and equally empty bank account.  I had no car to give me a change of scenery and no strength to get far beyond my front door.  The only resources I had were inside me.  Thankfully, I didn't have postpartum psychosis*; I had a mother's instinct trying to kick in, pushing desperately to fire up my protective, nurturing capacity to bond me to my baby.  Its final, frightening push worked.  I relearned how to rely on myself, to trust myself.  To do more than go through the motions of the day.  Unfortunately, in so doing, I separated myself from everything and everyone else.  I resented everyone I had contact with - even through Facebook - for not checking on me.  I was overwhelmingly angry at close friends and family for not reaching out when I was so obviously (to me) struggling to keep my nose above water.  I built myself an iron-barred fortress with a fiery moat and no drawbridge, and no one got to come inside.

My son just celebrated his third birthday, and I'm still not healed and whole enough to be the mommy I want to be for him.  I've completely dismantled my emotional core more than once.  I've blown apart relationships.  I've forgotten who I am and who I want to be.  I lost the ability to connect with others, to trust anybody to see me even when I'm right in front of them.  In many ways, I do feel like I died that day, and have spent the last three years in Purgatory.

Nobody talks about the dark side of birth.  Nobody talks about the aftermath.  Nobody talks about what happens inside a c-section- or complicated-birth-survivor's self as they struggle to regain footing.  When we try, we're shouldered aside because it's uncomfortable and scary.  At best, we're kept at arm's length and pointed to resources that might help.  At worst, we're told we shouldn't feel the way we do because we have a healthy baby and nobody died, and we should look at the bright side.  (Because "nobody died" is the sort of positive takeaway one wants from giving birth, right?)  What we really need is connection.  Understanding.  A hand to hold to help us remember that life is more than that moment when everything collapsed out from under us.  Even with those things, each of us has a long, hard road of recovery ahead.

Today, I'm giving my struggles and those of women like me a voice.  Today, I'm sharing because I've  finally reached a place that isn't shrouded in my own darkness.  Today, I can say the following without feeling like I'm a horribly false liar:

Three years ago, I gave birth.  

I haven't been able to say that before because I felt too disconnected and unimportant to the process.  My son had been taken out of me, delivered into the world by a stranger's hands because I failed, not born through me because I labored hard and triumphed.  Being able to say I gave birth to him is monumental progress.  It means I'm no longer the victim of my experience, that I have grown strong and vital, and fought my way back to the world of the living.  I'm becoming me again, with upgrades.

Today, even though my lower abdomen is still numb, my pelvis is still misaligned, and my lower back still pains me every day, I'm finally healed enough to speak up and share.  I can let go of my festering teddy bear of a secret.  I can say:  I am Mother, I am Woman; hear me roar!  

That makes today a good day.  It makes today my Rebirthing Day.

This is the message I want to send to my fellow survivors: It may take months, it may take years, but eventually the wounds will close, the fear will subside, and the anger will burn itself away.  You may feel, as I did, that you will be broken and living in darkness forever.  But one day, you will wake up to sunshine.  On that day, celebrate how far you've come, because it's been a long, hard road.  Until that day arrives, know that you're not alone.  Thousands of us have walked the same path.  Reach out to us, if you can.  Share your birth story in the comments, if you'd like.  If you can't reach out, as I couldn't, know that we are connected through shared experience, whether we know it or not.  You won't be broken forever, and you're a whole lot stronger right now than you think you are!

Help me celebrate my Rebirthing Day - Go outside and dance, in sunshine or in rain.  Laugh with your children.  Bake cookies and give them away.  Run barefoot through sprinklers.  Hug your special someone.  Have a picnic.  Invite friends out to dinner.  Laugh and love, in whatever way makes you happiest.  I will be!

Here are some quick tips to help women cope after a difficult birth experience:

If you're in the home with her:

- Make sure she's eating and drinking.  After a cesarean, even getting a sandwich or a glass of water can be exhausting and too painful to want to bother with.

- Watch the baby so she can sleep.  Bonus: Sit with her while she sleeps and the baby sleeps on your chest.  This is a great bonding experience for baby, and can provide the mother with a sense of safety.

- Pay attention to her moods; often, women suffering from postpartum disorders can't tell the difference but friends and family can.  Significant mood changes are not normal!

- Talk to her.  Show her you love her and care for her, and what she went through doesn't change how you think or feel about her.

- Help her get up and move around.  It speeds recovery time, and a shorter recovery makes for a stronger, happier mama.

If you're not in the home:  (These are true of all new moms, btw.)

- Drop off meals.

- Offer to babysit so she (and her partner) can sleep.

- Offer to help around the house.

- Call her.  Have a chat about whatever she feels like talking about.

- Send her funny, cute, pretty, or uplifting pictures.

- Invite her out, once she has the go-ahead.  Remind her there's more to life than feedings, diapers, and crying.  If she's too tired, let her know that's okay.  Then - this is the most important part - ask again another day.

* Postpartum psychosis is a dangerous, potentially life-threatening disorder.  I should have talked to my doctor (my PCP, given that I didn't trust my OB at all), but I was too ashamed and my husband didn't make me.  If you or someone you know has any thoughts of hurting anyone within the first months after giving birth, seek help immediately.  More information on postpartum psychosis here.