I wrote this post almost three months ago, and have battled with myself as to whether or not I should publish it. I've decided to publish it, in hopes that it might help someone, somewhere get through a difficult time. I decided not to re-write it from it's original draft, so it will read as it did when I wrote at at about 6 months postpartum.I've hesitated to write this post, because to be honest...sometimes I feel like maybe I'm silly for feeling the way I do, or rather, did. But the more and more I think about it, the more and more I feel like I need to write it down and share it, because these feelings were very real. I have a physical scar on my body from where I was cut open to have a baby, and I have an emotional scar on my heart to match it. Now at barely over 6 months postpartum, just as the physical scar is fading, my emotional scar has finally begun to fade as well. For months it was like an open wound, but I feel like now I am finally on my way to making peace with the circumstances of Evan's birth. I want to acknowledge that I know that there are COUNTLESS birth stories with actual traumatic events, dire circumstances for mother and child, long-term effects that no one can do anything about. I acknowledge that a C-section is usually not a big deal for most people, and that many people reading this might think that I am positively ridiculous for having felt this way. I know that I am NOT a trauma story and my circumstances were not dire, they were just not my hope or ideal. In a way, being so consciously aware of these things made my depression even deeper, because I felt so much guilt for feeling so emotionally distraught when in reality I am so lucky and fortunate that both I and my sweet baby are healthy and whole. My hope in sharing my experience is that someone somewhere might stumble across this post, perhaps in the early hours of the morning with a crying baby in your arms, your incision area still swollen and tender to the touch, breasts sore or bleeding from trying to figure out how to nurse, feeling hopeless and exhausted and depressed and realize that you are NOT alone. We may not know each other, but I understand what you are feeling, and now that I am on the other side of it, I can offer the hope and promise that it does get better and you can get through it.I think postpartum depression comes in many shapes and sizes. Did I suffer from it? I don't know. I never talked to anyone about it but my husband, and I only let him see little bits and pieces of what I was feeling. I was depressed, and I was postpartum, but I don't know if that qualifies for the label. Should I have talked to my doctor? Probably. I never felt that I was a danger to myself or my child, so I just tried my best to put on a happy face and get over my feelings. And in fairness, it was really only regarding the circumstances of having my baby that I was so depressed. I got over the "baby blues" that usually come after pregnancy within a couple of weeks. But even still, "fake it 'til you make it" is not healthy in these kinds of situations. I am no medical professional, and not an expert in anything, so I want to put out there very early in this post that not all people experience depression the same way, and some situations are much more serious than others or require medical intervention. If you are feeling like you may hurt yourself or your baby, PLEASE ask for help. Contact someone--your OB or midwife is a good place to start--and get the help that you need. It doesn't make you a bad mom. It demonstrates strength to reach out. Again, I want to emphasize that this is my experience.I started feeling depressed before I had my baby. At my 32 week appointment we found out that Evan was still breech, and though we were told that he still had plenty of time to flip, we should start practicing some at-home techniques to help him figure out what he needed to do. My doctor then advised me that if he was still breech at 34 weeks, we could consider going in for the external cephalic version (ECV), which is a medical procedure where they try to manually turn the baby around from the outside (youtube it...it's crazy). I can't say that I have always had my heart set on natural childbirth. Growing up I always thought, "Sure! Bring on the drugs!" but in the year or so before we conceived I did more and more research about natural birth, and by the time we found out we were pregnant, it was what I had my heart set on. Natural labor and birth, channeling the strength that my body had to be able to do this...I was mentally prepared and wasn't even considering other options. If I ended up completely miserable, I conceded that I would maybe consider the epidural, but a C-section was never on my radar. In my head I knew plenty of people had C-sections and had great birth experiences, and that is fantastic...for them. But for me...the thought of a C-section was a nightmare, and at my 32 week appointment I felt the gears start to turn in a different direction, and the birth plan I was dreading started its journey to becoming a reality.I went home from my appointment that day and began researching everything I could about "how to make a breech baby turn or flip." There are plenty of websites dedicated to this very topic with tons of happy success stories and beautiful natural births that followed, and so I began to spend most of my free time upside down, in the various positions they recommended. Through the last 7 weeks of my pregnancy, I tried everything. I tried every upside down position suggested, I put ice on the top of my belly and heat toward the bottom, I played music "down there" while kneeling upside down, I went to a chiropractor trained in the Webster technique. No changes. I went to my 34 week appointment. Nothing. 36 weeks. Nothing. As I began to get closer and closer to my due date, my desperation grew, and my depression started creeping up on me. A breech baby was a guaranteed C-section. (I know that some places doctors allow for breech vaginal births, but even if that had been an option available to me, for the baby's safety I likely wouldn't have gone for it. Too risky, at least in my circumstances.) Though my husband and I had talked it over and originally decided against the ECV, in my desperation in the last few weeks of my pregnancy I decided to try it. I prayed long and hard that everything would go smoothly and that even if my baby didn't turn, he wouldn't go into distress. It was not exactly a comfortable experience and I was sore for quite a few days afterward, but all in all I would do it again if need be. It wasn't as horrible an experience as some people online and some youtube videos made it out to be. Then again, maybe I just had a mild experience with it, or a high pain threshold. Either way...it didn't work. When the nurses and doctors left the room after attempting to turn him, my heart broke. I looked up at my husband and just...dissolved into hysterical tears. I was only 38 weeks, but somehow in that moment, I just knew that he wasn't going to turn, and that my fate was most likely sealed.In those next two weeks, I continued to try everything I could to make him flip. I prayed non-stop, but it didn't take long for my praying to turn into begging, and then pleading, and then angry resentment and confusion as to why I had to go through this. Why couldn't I have the birth experience I wanted? Did God not trust me to do it? Why didn't my baby know what to do? My family and friends tried to comfort me, and for the most part I put on a happy face and pretended that they were helping. My favorite line that people said to me was, "Soon you are going to be holding your little boy in your arms, and he will be happy, and healthy, and you'll see...it won't matter to you anymore how he got here." But it would matter to me. And every time another person said that, I got a little more frustrated and a little more upset, because they just didn't understand. I wasn't going to get to have a birth. I am a mom who had the privilege of carrying her baby for 9 months, but not giving birth. I wouldn't know what it felt like to go into labor. I wouldn't know what a contraction felt like. My birth plan was going to be to walk into the hospital on an assigned day, tell them I was there to have a baby, and then get wheeled into a room and cut open and have my baby taken out of me. For me, that wasn't a birth. It was like my baby being stolen from my body. And for someone who had dreamed of and prepared for a natural birth, it was the most unnatural feeling in the whole world.The day I went to the hospital for my C-section, I felt so strange checking in for a scheduled appointment. I hated that I got to select my baby's birthday. As they were prepping me for surgery I insisted that they take one more ultrasound, just to be absolutely certain that he was still breech. Somewhere inside of me I was still hoping that by some miracle he would have turned in my sleep or something like that, and I would be able to get up off of their table, walk out, and come back when he was ready to come into the world. No such luck. He was still breech, and they proceeded to finish prepping me, and they wheeled me into the OR. That was the longest trip down a hallway I think I have ever experienced, and I cried the whole time. I was overwhelmed by a plethora of emotions. Resentment toward the procedure I was about to have. Excitement at finally meeting my baby boy. Fear for what recovery would be like. Joy for being blessed with a baby. Anxiety about the unknown world of parenthood I was about to be thrust into. I tried to somehow mentally make my peace with the C-section since the it was clearly happening no other way, and as they gave me a spinal tap and numbed me up, I got strapped to the table and told that we were about to begin.My husband was able to stand by my side and hold my hand through it. I of course felt absolutely nothing but a lot of pressure. Brinton says that my doctor's arm was ALL the way up inside of my body to guide Evan out. I had to ask Brinton what was happening because from behind the curtain, I had no idea if I were still pregnant or if I had "given birth" yet. Finally I heard baby cries, and if I'm being completely honest, I got emotional and cried too...but only after a minute of telling myself "you just had a baby...he is here...you had a baby." I had to convince myself it was real because I felt so distanced from the whole situation. My heart was simultaneously bursting with joy and splitting open with heartbreak. After what seemed like an eternity, they brought him over to me and held him next to my head, and I was able to see him for the first time, already wrapped up and cozy, and I kissed him as much as I could. I wanted to hold him, but my abdomen was still wide open and my hands were still strapped down, so they took him to the nursery so I could get sewn up and then taken into recovery.
I was in recovery for at least an hour if not two before I was wheeled into the room I would be staying in. Only after all of that was I finally able to see and hold my baby.
I tried nursing him but he was already in that super sleepy baby state, so it was quite an unsuccessful first attempt. Fortunately I had zero side effects from the drugs they used during my surgery and I was feeling pretty good. In general, my recovery was pretty easy and other than the obvious challenges of being sore and having to take it easy, I had no physical complications recovering from my C-section. The emotional burden got deeper while I was there though. I remember very late one night as one of the nurses was re-inserting a catheter into me (I was still having trouble urinating because of the drugs), I was a bit uncomfortable and was trying to relax as best I could when she said to me, "you need to relax...wow, maybe it's a good things you didn't have your baby vaginally." Now, I know I have never actually pushed a baby out of me, but I have the feeling that it is very different than having a nurse less than gently shove something into your body. We went home from the hospital just a few days later.Being a new parent can be overwhelming. In retrospect, I don't feel like it was. It's funny how quickly some things are forgotten. The first few weeks are such a time of emotional turbulence. A roller coaster, really. I would go from so extremely happy to so extremely sad in just a few minutes. My life and my heart felt so full and so complete, and other moments I would stop and think, "Why on Earth did I think I could do this?!" As I sit here and think about those first weeks, I remember nights sitting up with my baby, trying to figure out breastfeeding, crying because it hurt so much and practically yelling at my husband that "I absolutely would figure out some way to breastfeed because something related to Evan's newborn experience was going to be natural and go as I planned." I was so defensive and distanced, usually at night, because everything becomes magnified when you have had little to no sleep and your breasts hurt so badly that it hurts when the air touches them, let alone clothing. As the weeks passed I started getting more sleep and finally figured out how to help Evan get a good latch, which made all the difference in the world. The topic of breastfeeding really should be its own post (and likely will be some time in the future) but for now, suffice it to say that once breastfeeding actually started going well, everything else started getting better too. I was happier and more relieved, I felt like a huge burden had been lifted off of my shoulders, and I finally felt like motherhood seemed possible. Everything was finally falling into place, except one dark C-section scar shaped cloud that continually hovered over me. I couldn't shake my depression about that one thing, and I felt like it followed me everywhere.I just want to interrupt myself briefly and make a point of mentioning that Brinton was amazing through all of this. Reading back my last few paragraphs I wanted to make sure I hadn't made it sound like I was alone in caring for our son. In fact, I think the only reason I stayed sane and didn't become completely depressed was because he was by my side, somehow knowing when I needed him to help me sort through my feelings and knowing on the other hand when to let me have my distance...and all the while being a champion diaper changer, baby bather, human rocker, and professional cuddle-er, among many other wonderful things.Anyway, though I was mostly feeling back to my normal self, I continued to be defensive and depressed about my C-section. Any time anyone inquired about how Evan's birth, I made sure to always include that he was breech, which is why I had to have a baby that way. Maybe on some level I was afraid of people judging me, as if I had made a choice to have a C-section. Again, I know that C-sections are good and possibly only options for some people, but I just couldn't shake these overwhelmingly negative feelings about why it was awful for me. Every time I heard these beautiful birth stories of women I knew who were able to labor drug-free and literally reach down to pull their babies out of themselves I would cry. Every time I heard about their husbands who so admired them for being so strong...cried. I heard random birth stories of people online, or blogs I followed. I cried. I heard stories of births that were totally different than what I wanted but exactly what that particular person wanted, and they got to experience their version of a perfect birth. What did I do? Cried. I remember one night standing in the kitchen, positively sobbing because the entire weight of my experience and my shattered hope of what I could have experienced had finally hit me like a ton of bricks. My husband sat across from me in the other room, not quite sure what he could say or do that would help me. I just kept sobbing, saying, "I really think I could have done it...why did Heavenly Father not want me to experience this? Why did I not get to give birth? Why did they have to just take him out of me? What if I always have to have C-sections from now on? What if I never get to know what it is like to have a baby?" As I crumbled, Brinton softly said, "Maybe Heavenly Father knew you could do it, but maybe Evan wouldn't have been able to." After completely breaking down like that, his words rang in my ears. After a few deep breaths, I realized that while there is no way of knowing why he remained breech, that small possible explanation helped me to break free of my pity party and start thinking more clearly. Depression doesn't just dissipate overnight, but in the following weeks I was finally able to break free of it a little bit at a time each day.I am now finally in a place where I don't cry or even get sad when I think about how Evan was born. It took me a solid 6 months to get to that place of peace and acceptance, but I did get there. Admittedly, I do still get the slightest bit defensive and always still mention that my baby was breech when I talk about the C-section. I am still a bit frustrated and still feel like I don't have a "birth story," but I am no longer depressed, and I am working through resolving the rest of my negative feelings. Mostly though, I do still feel quite a bit of guilt for having felt the way I did when so many people I care about have had to go through the trial of having premature or micro-preemie babies, or lost babies, or had miscarriages, or are facing challenges with infertility. As I said at the beginning, I almost didn't write this post because of that guilt. But I have come to realize that this was my trial, and for whatever reason, it was something very difficult for me to go through. If you actually stuck with me and read through this incredibly long post, thank you for allowing me to get that all off of my chest. And if you are facing a C-section, or have experienced one and have the same feelings I did--you aren't alone in how you feel. It will get better. And you can find reconciliation in your circumstances. Give yourself time to heal--physically and emotionally. One day, the scar wont be the first thing you see anymore. Still there? Yes. But fading.
