Birth #2 The One I Didn’t Know I Could Say No To
After my first birth, I told myself I was fine. But underneath I was unsettled.
I stepped into my second pregnancy still trusting the system- once again giving my power away. I hadn’t yet found the language to ask for something else, still in the mindset of “Dr knows best”.
So I went along with everything, the check-ups, the appointments, the monitoring.
I went to hospital thinking I was in labor, I didn’t know anything about the stages of labor back then- I just thought I was doing what was right. What I had been told was safest.
They examined me.
I was 1cm dilated. I wasn’t in labor.
And then………nothing.
I was left in a room with just my husband for hours. No one explained what was happening (which was , nothing) Just silence.
Instead of suggesting I go home and come back when labor started, eventually a team of midwives and my Dr came in and said, “It’s getting late. Your baby is big. Best we just go ahead with a caesarean.”
So, once again, I agreed. I was taken down the hall, into a cold, bright operating room, once again a passenger in my own birth.
Again there was separation, fear, loneliness, no transformation. Shock at what had just happened, again.
I went home to try to settle in to life with 2 little ones. The silence I felt in that hospital room stayed with me through the silence in the nights when I was feeding and crying and pretending everything was ok.
I didn’t know how to ask for help. I thought I should be coping. I thought this was just how it is.
But somewhere in me something had changed, there was a deeper knowing that things didn’t have to be this way. That birth and Motherhood, could feel different.
I didn’t see it at the time, but the seed had been planted.
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