After experiencing two miscarries and being 39 years old, I had a high-risk pregnancy. Despite feeling scared I tried to stay positive, and it worked most of the time. Those nine months went quite fast and I was getting more and more excited about the birth. Very early in pregnancy I started preparing for a hypno birth. I was meditating and doing all the recommended exercises. I was sure I will have an unsupported, natural birth. If it was only up to me I would have a home birth. Unfortunately, where we live there are no midwifes who help with home births. Moreover, Dave felt that a hospital birth was safer and more relaxed. Considering my previous experience (and no other option) I agreed with him.

This picture was taken on Monday the 7th September 2022 after I was admitted to hospital.

I had a detailed birth plan. It was supposed to be blissful and easy, lasting maximum 2 hours. I was hoping to experience that post birth euphoria and have my baby girl with me immediately. I didn’t even consider other options.

The first unplanned changes happened during my final ultrasound. Freya was 10 days overdue; she was big (she was estimated to be 4.3kg but was 4.5kg when she was born) and she was in distress. Her heartrate was elevated. The doctor recommended immediate induction. As I truly believe in nature, I decided to wait two more days, hoping that the birth will start naturally. It didn’t. With tears in my eyes I was admitted to hospital on Monday, 7th September.

Instead of having a blissful hypnobirth I suddenly was waiting to be induced.

Excited and positive I was in the hospital alone (due to Corona no one was allowed to be with me until an active labour) waiting for my body to respond to meds. About 12h later the first contractions started. Slowly my body started responding and opening. I was so excited that I could not sleep at night. I held the speaker on my belly playing Freya Dave’s songs. It took another 20h before Dave could join us. It was on. I was laughing, bouncing on the swiss ball and using a warm shower to reduce the pain of contractions. I felt amazing, laughing all the time - almost all the time 😊 But Freya’s heart rate was still an issue. It surprises me now, that I wasn’t worried about that. I guess I had faith in doctors trusting that if there was a risk, they would recommend c-section immediately.

On Tuesday night I was still excited, goofing around, waiting for my little girl to arrive.

I got fluids several times as it helped reduce her heart rate. Totally unaware of the risk I felt calm, until it was time to get to the bath. When I got into the warm water, hoping that in the end my birth plan will happen, Freya’s heart rate went over 220 bpm. I needed to jump out and keep on moving around. It was the first time that I felt scared, disappointed and out of control.

All my birth plans went to the bin. Freya wasn’t doing so well.

I shook off all the worry again and focused on happy and positive thoughts. I wanted to stay in my birth zone. I was looking forward to seeing my amazing baby. I was walking around, bouncing on the ball, laughing and joking again. A few hours later we tried the bath one more time, with a bit colder water. It was 36 degrees and I was so cold there. My body started shaking. I had spasms going through my body that I could not control. I didn’t know what was going on. It was the first sign of my nervous system getting overloaded.

Afterwards I wasn’t laughing anymore. I could not move anymore. I could not tell if I had a contraction or not, my whole body hurt the whole time. When my midwife was testing my dilatation, I was in excruciating pain. I was begging her to help me and asking for c-section. I was done. I could not do it anymore. I could not give birth to our daughter. I failed. I was defeated.

Post c-section I got only a few seconds with my little one. It was one of the hardest moments as she could not stay with me.

Eventually I got painkillers and was asked to get some rest so we could try again later. I was exhausted but hopeful. I didn’t know how I can do it again but I trusted that my midwife will help me. I trusted she knew what else can be done to deliver my healthy baby naturally. But about two hours later the doctors came and decided that it was time for a c-section. Why did they wait so long? Why was I told we will try again later and then just have a c-section? I have no idea.

I was relieved and very upset at the same time.

With tears in my eyes I gave them the remaining control over what should have been an easy, quick and blissful birth of my baby girl.

They were in charge and there was nothing else I could do. They were quick and on Wednesday, 9th September at 9.02am Freya was born, after over 36 hours of labour. Despite all my plans Freya was taken away from me for about an hour. It is what I dreaded the most. She was with Dave, she was safe, but I felt totally powerless and confused. Laying there, waiting for doctors to stich me, without my baby in my arms. I cannot even explain how difficult it was for me.

I still cry when I think about it.

Afterwards, for the next 36 hours I felt full of emotions and emotionless at the same time. I focused on Freya, I loved her unconditionally, but I felt like a machine. Something wasn’t right. I felt some sort of numbness. The day after giving birth, I wrote a message to my friend telling her what happened. It kind of opened something in me and I started to feel normal again. After crying a river of tears, I started coming to terms with what happened during this birth. I started regaining my power back. I had my little miracle and I didn’t want the birth experience to place a shadow on how happy we were when she was born. She was healthy, she was perfect. I knew we will be fine.

Less than an hour after the birth we were finally united.

What happened to me was birth trauma.

We mainly associate birth trauma with what babies go through during birth. Yet birth is one of the most transformative experiences of a woman’s life. It’s a vulnerable act. We’re usually naked and exposed. Our neurochemistry heightens our sensory awareness. In birth we feel and sense more. This affects and influences our memory. As a result, subtle behaviours and position changes can strongly influence a woman’s internal experience[1].

No matter how you prepare for the birth of your child you cannot control or know exactly how the birth will go.

However, women are not always aware, or hardly ever talk and want to admit that they have experienced a traumatic birth. We feel that something isn’t right but we don’t really know what is going on.

First we have to understand what trauma actually means. Trauma is not a concept applied to the event. It’s about how have we experienced the event. It is defined by our body’s ability to metabolize an experience[2]. When our body or mind feels overwhelmed and we don’t know how to deal with it, we experience trauma. Something that is traumatic for one person may not be disturbing for someone else.

According to Brigitte Jordon there are three primary factors that determine a woman’s sense of satisfaction about her birth experience:

Her perception of control,
How supportive she found the birth environment, and
Her prior vulnerabilities (which may include her own birth and childhood, prior abortions or birth experiences, and history of depression)[3]

Therefore, birth trauma includes more than just danger of death to mother or baby.

It also includes physical injuries (pelvic tears or c-section) and the perception of danger as well as feelings of extreme fear, aloneness, disrespect, lack of control, or helplessness.

Birth trauma and PTSD may be more common with women who experience birth injuries, but emotional aspects of this experience have a huge impact as well[4].

Many women who experience birth injuries and trauma suffer in silence, focusing on their babies and families, not knowing what to do about that.

We got home 4 days after Freya was born. This picture was taken 10 days after her birth.

The good news is that our body can experience healing after experiencing trauma by writing your birth story (you may need to focus on one moment at the time if the birth memory still make you feel stressed and emotional - read below).

Telling the birth story is a great way to unveil the meaning within so we can fully mature and move forward.

An experiment lead by Italian researchers Paola Di Blasio and Chiara Ionio[5] shows that the most effective decrease in postpartum anxiety and depression symptoms came when women wrote their unfiltered birth story within fourty-eight hours of the birth experience. However, there is no time limit on finding meaning of the most powerful and significant experience in your life. Here are the directions given in the study mentioned above:

“Once the door of your room is closed write [down] for ten to fifteen minutes continuously, without lifting your pen from the paper, the thoughts and feelings that you had during labour and delivery. It is important for us that you describe also your most secret feelings and thoughts which you have not told, nor would tell, to anyone. Is it essential that you let yourself go and come into contact with your deepest emotions and thoughts. In other words, write what happened, how you lived through this experience and how you feel about it. Everything you write will remain strictly confidential”.

Writing your birth story is also a great way to heal trauma. Yet after experiencing traumatic birth, we have to approach our birth story more carefully. If you notice that your heart accelerates or you start to feel anxious or frantic when considering returning to the events of the birth, then this is not the time to revisit your entire birth experience. Instead work with single moments that you remember feeling out of control. Start with the first one you can recall:

RENEGOTIATING THE BIRTH THAT NEEDS HEALING[6]:

Choose one moment in your birth experience when you felt helpless, overpowered, or out of control
If you feel very high level of activation (your heart rate accelerates, you feel stressed) when recalling the moment, start with your powerful imagination. Imagine what you would like to have said, how would you like to have moved, possibly who you would have liked to have with you at the time. See the whole scene in your mind the way that you would have liked that moment to have gone.
If the level of activation feels medium, write answers to the same questions above: what you would like to have said, how would you like to have moved, possibly who you would have liked to have with you at the time?
Now that you have imagined or written about how you would have liked to react, speak, move or respond in that moment, notice how you feel in your body. Stay with this practice of noticing for at least thirty seconds.
Then let your eyes wander around the room and notice things that catch your eye. Where do your eyes land? Notice what happens in your body and your breath. As you orient back into the room you’re in, become more present in the here and now.

Kimberly explains that rewriting your entire birth story the way you wish it had happened isn’t about denying the circumstances of the birth you had or living in fantasy. This is about giving your nervous system a chance in small pieces to complete the cycle of self-protection that may have been thwarted during birth. The nervous system is sensitive and responsive, so working with one moment at a time is the appropriate peace for a birth that needs healing.

If this exercise isn’t enough and you feel like you need more help healing from a traumatic birth, seek out the help of someone who is a trained counsellor and versed in working with women and trauma. You may also try to work with Somatic Experiencing practitioner.

It is difficult to admit that you feel disappointed or sad after the amazing event that is the birth of your baby.

I didn’t understand why I felt like this and I was ashamed. I was so happy that we had Freya and I was so in love with her. I hope she felt this unconditional love from the very first moment when she was with us in this world. But there was this second, parallel emotional reality happening in my body, related to the traumatic birth experience I had, feeling out of control, helpless and defeated. I feel like I failed even though I was holding the love of my life in my hands. It is so difficult to explain and accept.

One year after giving birth, when I read the book “The fourth trimester” by Kimberly Ann Johnson (majority of information in this article comes from that book) I realised what it meant and how to heal. I realised that me, writing my story and sharing it with friends about 48 hours after giving birth was the first, extremely important step in healing and releasing this trauma from my body. But 20 months later I still have tears in my eyes when I relieve what has happened.

If you experienced birth trauma, if you cannot stop thinking about what happened and continue to feel the emotion of it, if you experience postpartum depression or anxiety or major shifts in your self-image, sexuality or relationship, there is nothing to be ashamed of. This isn’t your fault. These emotions you felt afterwards make sense. If this exercise doesn’t help then seek help from a professional therapist. You will heal after this experience and get closure, uncovering new layers of happiness and finishing transition to motherhood.

With Love,

Karo

[1] “The fourth trimester” by Kimberly Ann Johnson

[2]“The fourth trimester” by Kimberly Ann Johnson

[3] “Birth in Four Cultures” by Brigitte Jordon

[4]“The fourth trimester” by Kimberly Ann Johnson

[5]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236873005_Childbirth_and_Narratives_How_Do_Mothers_Deal_with_Their_Child's_Birth

[6] “The fourth trimester” by Kimberly Ann Johnson

#35: I had a traumatic birth. How to heal after birth trauma?