I think I'm finally done processing Peace's birth.This sounds weird because I had an amazingly wonderful birth with Peace, yet I needed to process it. I talked about it with anybody who would listen. I talked about it a lot. I thought I had done everything I could to prepare for the birth, and it was harder than I expected. It made me feel kind of like a failure, you know? Blah. Blah. Blah.
But then, during Birth Video Night this past Sunday where I screened Peace's birth for the first time, I realized that I am finally done processing it. For good. I don't need to talk about it anymore. I can't remember how hard it was anymore. I can't remember the difficult time I had in dealing with it afterward. I can't remember anything but how lovely it was and how awesome and wonderful birth is altogether.
And as I was watching my birth video of Peace with my peeps, I realized that I made birth look kind of easy and wonderful. It wasn't like how I had lived it in my head. My friend said something like, "I was expecting something totally different by the way you described it. That was amazing."
Yeah.
I guess that's how birth is.
(This is my blog version of my birth. Despite all that I expose here, you all don't need to see me naked.)
Anyway, all this talk of processing birth got me to wondering how other women process their births. I mean, by all accounts, I did have a perfectly wonderful, natural waterbirth in the comfort of my own home. What about women who don't have an uncomplicated birth?
What about women who equate their births with being raped?
What if you had a doctor who performed vaginal exams without your permission? Or a doctor who genitally mutilated your body in the form of an episiotomy? In any other circumstance in the history of the world, these would be criteria for rape. But in a hospital? What the hell do we consider that? (And by "we", I mean everybody else, because I know what I still consider it.)
There is a loss of control, a loss of power, and a loss of a good birth experience. And that all needs to be addressed. That needs to be processed.
Unfortunately, I don't think that most women are able to talk about the events of birth like I am able to with my friends. I mean, my peeps and I get together to watch birth videos like most people watch sporting events. We clap. We cheer. We share in the experience. We process things together.
I wish every woman had that. Every woman deserves that.
Links Within
Pin It
5 comments:
oh my goodness *cry cry cry*
I too had a beautiful home water birth with 15 of my closest friends and family around who all described it as the single most amazing thing they had ever had the privelege to witness, and I too had a lot of trouble processing it, I don't understand why, maybe it was because I was living in my in-laws front lounge room with no doors, a newborn, my husband and my not quite 2 yr old and everytime my baby cried i panicked as i didn't want my mil to come in with her usual, why is my baby crying, why don't you just give him a bottle??
Why don't i just throw this breast pump at you head??
He had a lot of trouble feeding, I felt like a failure as I was tandem feeding my 2 yr old and that went fine, just why does this baby hate me so much??
turns out he had a tongue tie and by the time I figured it out, (not one of the "experts" figured it out!!) he was 4 months old and flatly refused to suck after we got it snipped. *cry cry cry* for 10 months I cried every time I had to give him a bottle. I physically hated him, was disconnected as you mentioned in your other blog and probably didn't really start to connect with him until he turned 2 and a half, i know soo sad, it's devastating but there it is. I feel guilty but can't change the past, we can only move on from here and do things differently. I'm scared to do it again, unless I plan plan plan this time. We are great mates now he's 3 and a half, I sometimes still find it hard to "get him" but I'm unschooling so I have all the time in the world to cherish who he is and have a beautiful life together.
I am very lucky to have a beautiful sister who is "my kinda people" and we process things together. She too is unschooling her 2 girls, we are all natural and organic all the way and are constantly finding out more things that fit with our "tree huggin hippy" lifestyles!!
Lissi - Thank you so much for commenting on this. It is nice to know that other people go through similar things, with no palpable reason as to why. I love what you wrote here. This is us... processing things together. :)
this video does not display.
I did not have the birth I wanted or expected, but hopefully I will next time. We'd planned a homebirth in the water, I won't go into all the details but I got preeclampsia (despite eating perfectly and exercising) and went into kidney failure and yup, ended up in the hospital at 38 weeks and then a cesarean and I still hate it. I hate that my body failed me and my baby suffered because of it. Hate that he was born in a hospital and pumped full of drugs. Hate that what happened was so much different than the birth I imagined in my head. (And I don't use the word hate - so what does that tell you?)
:)Seeing that even when you get the birth you imagined, you can still not get the birth you imagined, makes me feel better about our birth. There were good things and I try to be thankful for those and hopeful that I won't get the kidney failure next time and I'll be able to have a natural homebirth. We shall see!
Rachael - I can't even imagine. I think I would feel the same way you do if that happened to me. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Post a Comment