018 Feeling like a failure after my caesarean

Feeling like a failure after my caesarean This is an off-the-cuff episode that I recorded whilst sitting in a hotel room early in the morning. The weekend away was a planned bit of relaxation for myself and my beautiful friend MaryAnne (from the You're Doing Great Mom podcast). We had a few glasses of wine in the bar in the evening and got talking about my first birth with George, which was a planned home birth that turned into an emergency caesarean at 33 weeks. Although MaryAnne knew bits and bobs about my birth, she didn't know the full depth of it. She had no idea that I felt like a failure after my caesarean. I told my family that I felt like a failure, that my body let me down, and most of all that I didn't deserve to have children. My feelings were invalidated and dismissed, because I had a "healthy baby". That's not how it should be. Clearly this had been on my mind all night, because I woke up with the urge to record a heartfelt episode to go in depth into the birth trauma and associated feelings that led to me having PTSD. Challenging core beliefs "As a chiropractor, one of my greatest fundamental beliefs is that the body is just perfectly designed, and here I was with a body that wasn't perfectly designed… that had failed me… that had made it so that I couldn’t have a baby naturally. It really challenged every single belief that I have" I really struggled with coming to terms with what happened, and how I felt about it. Not just the birth, but the initial feelings toward my beautiful baby. As pregnant mums, I think we all sit and visualise how our lives will be, and what kind of parents we'll be too. Nobody sits and thinks to themselves, "I think I'll get separated from my baby and not even coo over a photo of him". But that's the reality for many of us. It wasn't this overwhelming surge of love and affection that I thought it'd be. I was scared. Petrified in fact. It wasn't how birth was meant to be. It wasn't how my birth was meant to be. Letting go of the stigma There's SO much stigma surrounding mental health anyway, but although people talk about PND, I'd never even thought that you could get PTSD unless you were a soldier or the victim of a horrific crime. I believe that it's so important to share stories of birth trauma, PTSD, PND and any other mental health issues surrounding birth & pregnancy. While I'm totally in support of positive birth, sometimes things aren't rosy, and we need to validate that. Feeling like a failure after my caesarean, I've since discovered, is not uncommon. I wish I'd known at the time. So, if you can think of anyone who could benefit from knowing they're not alone in how they're feeling, please share this with them. PS - Here's where MaryAnne and I chatted for You're Doing Great Mom Download Episode for Later! Please support the hosting of the show by donating at https://ko-fi.com/purenaturalpregnancy