While the vast majority of the time birth goes (or SHOULD go!) smoothly, occasionally a family doesn’t get the birth of their dreams. A mother wrote her wise and beautiful reflections on not getting her dream birth, and how the first year of her child’s life taught her so much about parenting and about birth and about processing it all. Maybe some other parents can relate? Thank you to this mother for sharing her story! For more birth stories, click here.
Guest Post by a mother reflecting on her home-birth-transfer story.
The birth of my son did not go as I had hoped. He was not born into mine and his fathers hands. He was not born in the comfort of our home, with only the few people we carefully picked to be there. He was not in my arms right away, skin to skin, where he belonged. Instead he was born in a bright and sterile room, surrounded by strangers with masks on. He was taken out of me, and put on a cold table to be cleaned and checked. I had him in my arms for only a few minutes before he was taken away again.
I didn’t get to have my dream birth. Sometimes, I don’t even feel like I really gave birth. It happened to me, I didn’t do it myself. I feel like this BIG, HUGE experience was stolen from me. There are so many ‘what-if’s’ floating around in my head. Although I know that I can’t say that I didn’t try. I did. I tried REALLY hard. For days! But part of me still wonders if I could’ve/should’ve done something different.
I remember telling my sister that I didn’t even feel like a mother, after he was born. He was in the NICU for observation. I wasn’t allowed to feed him. I wasn’t able to hold him whenever I wanted. During shift change, I couldn’t even get into the room at all. So I was in my room, a new mother, with no baby in sight. No nursing. No skin to skin. No bonding.
It wasn’t love at first sight, as I’ve heard so many other mothers explain it before. I mean, there was love. A LOT of it. I loved him as soon as I found out he was growing inside me. But I wasn’t IN love right away. That happened a little later. (And when it did happen, it happened HARD). But the first thing I felt was protective. I knew I wanted/needed to protect him.
When we finally got home, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. We were finally free to get to know each other in private, without all these strangers trying to poke, prod, yell, or tell us how things “should” be done.
But even then, things weren’t as I had expected. We had a really hard start to breastfeeding. Not being allowed to nurse him for a couple of days after he was born, set us back. I thought about giving up many times, but this was the one thing I seemed to have some control over, and I wanted at least that to go “as planned”. So we kept at it, and about 5 months later, he latched for the first time without any help. I’m so proud of how far we’ve come and that neither of us gave up.
For some reason I thought that I should have it all figured out within a few days… not quite sure why I ever thought that. I think with everything going almost opposite to “plan”, my world was flipped upside down and it took me a while to catch up. Although, I quickly learned that even when you do “have it all figured out”, the little babes like to switch things up just to make sure to keep you on your toes 😉
So a year later, I’m sitting here thinking of all the things that didn’t go according to plan, and I wonder.. maybe this WAS the plan. Maybe this is our perfect, imperfect version. Our bond sure is stronger because of it all. Our love sure is deeper because of it all. Becoming a mother isn’t a simple thing. Why should my feelings about it be so simple? It’s a crazy, messy, life changing, mind blowing, overwhelming, exhausting, exhilarating, magical thing. And it’s never ending. It’s never going to be straight forward. And it shouldn’t be. This roller coaster is amazing. I don’t ever want to get off of it.
To my child: my love for you grows EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. You are so sweet, and funny, and curious, and gentle, and full of love and full of life. Your spirit is infectious. I wish I could put into words how you make me feel. Thank you for being my son. I love you with all that I am. Always and forever.