Mourning My Section
It has been over six months and I still sometimes cry when I think about the caesarean. I cry when I see scenes of vaginal birth with the head coming out, when I see the newborn placed on the mother’s chest.
I didn’t get that. I was cut open. My children were removed from me. I was sick. It was affecting them. It was absolutely the right choice to make and I would make it again instantly. That reality doesn’t mean the caesarean wasn’t a loss.
I didn’t get to feel them being born. I didn’t get to see them being born. I have only hazy memories of their birth. Someone held a baby over the curtain for me to see. Was it J.? Fi.? I think I remember both but I can’t be sure. Can’t be sure. It was the most important moments of my life and my memories are spotty. I remember J. crying. I remember the doctor putting the needle in my spine. I remember B. sitting by my head and me talking about Macbeth. But I can’t be sure whether I remember F. being held up for me to see. I think I can. I think, but I am not sure.
I don’t remember holding them for the first time. I don’t remember feeding them for the first time. All of that is lost to me in a morphine haze. I have bits of memories. I have pieces. I have some scattered photographs. But I don’t have a coherent narrative and, without that, I feel fragmented. Some small part of what it means to be a mother, a woman, I don’t have. And we don’t get to do it again. I will never get a vaginal birth, now. I will never push a baby out. I will never be aware of holding a newborn.
And so I mourn my section, looking at my babies and trying to tell myself the story of their birth, trying to remember what happened next.
Stumble it!
Donate to the Zoë and Lennox Simpson Memorial Fund
and the 529 college savings accounts get a kickback.
January 22nd, 2007 21:08
I used to idly flick past any c-section depictions, now I watch them intently, trying to pick up on what I missed. I had an emergency c-section on general anathesia and didn’t see my babies until they were in the NICU. I don’t mourn my c-section, but I do wish that I was there for it. This feeling pales in comparison to my joy that all three of us are here.
January 22nd, 2007 22:05
I mourn mine too. I was lucky enough to have the first twin vaginally but the second one was an emergency C-section. I ended up with general anesthesia too so I don’t remember anything for several hours.
Nothing is more important than having them both here safely, but it still makes me sad.
January 23rd, 2007 13:53
Me too. I had an emerg. section/ local anesthesia and then didn’t hold or feed either boy until 24 hrs later in the NICU. The cloudiness of it all, the separation from the experience and from my boys, honestly makes the memory of their birth day a bad one. I too mourn not having a vag birth. That is not to say that I don’t appreciate that they are here at all. I would have done anything I could to make sure they were born and thriving. Still, knowing that I will likely never have an experience I dreamed of all my life is, to say the least, disappointing.
Found you through Our Life Voyage blog. Glad I found you.
January 23rd, 2007 21:08
I think it’s part of the whole idea of lost feminisma that we were talking about. That idea of what we’re promised as women and how we redefine ourselves when it’s taken away. I’m sorry, sweetie. It sucks. Would it help to talk to the doctor? Nurses? Record as many memories from other people in an effort to jog your own and have the recording of those moments?
January 24th, 2007 18:55
Thank you for posting this. I mourn mine too and feel guilty about it because everyone says that all that matters is a healthy child/children. And that’s true in the larger scheme of things, of course we would all have a section in a heartbeat for our children’s sake. But I have trouble telling Zoe’s birth story because I feel I have so little to offer. Zoe was born, but I don’t feel that I gave birth, if that makes sense. I definitely mourn the loss of that experience.
January 25th, 2007 12:02
You are not alone. I’m actually being interviewed by our local paper regardin this very thing. I mourn it everyday, and people keep saying “enjoy your baby’… I can do both.
It’s even more hurtful to the infertile sometimes,as we had to mourn our conception also.
March 9th, 2007 05:17
I’m with you on this… I felt terrible about mine and have written a dozen posts on it… people tell me to get over it but I can’t… here’s just one of my posts on it.
http://themadmomma.blogspot.com/2007/03/and-we-have-time-and-date.html
I have a linky up on the right side of my blog.. would you mind posting this post on it? or may i do it? either way, do let me know. and know that you are not alone. i have my next c-sec in 5 days.
March 19th, 2007 11:34
I haven’t experienced this, but my sister is dealing with the same feelings about her two births. I DID experience this fog with the first 4 months of life with the twins. Every day was a nightmare & I felt shellshocked. Then suddenly it was gone & I have never stopped wishing I could remember it just a little bit more.
June 28th, 2007 16:16
I came to your post via Mad Momma’s blog via a family member’s blog and I know I’m a bit late, but I want to thank you for saying these things. Just this morning I asked my husband in the car on the way to drop off our 6 month old “do you remember when I first held C.”? You see, I don’t really remember it. I don’t remember what I said to her. I don’t know how much time passed between when she came out and when I saw her, and I don’t know what happened in between. And I hate that I can’t really remember my first moments with my first baby. I had an emergency c-section under general anesthesia two hours after I got to the hospital. C’s heartrate dropped with every contraction and wasn’t coming up. When my labor suddenly kicked into high gear I had the contraction that wouldn’t end and her heart rate stayed frighteningly low. I got wheeled out of the labor room with my butt in the air, leaving my husband completely alone with no idea of what was happening to us. Sometimes I accept it. Sometimes it makes me really sad. Sometimes is just plain pisses me off. Your post makes me feel less alone in those feelings. Thanks.
July 20th, 2007 20:59
Hi there, I’ve found your site via the Blog Round-up.
Firstly, congratulations on the little ones.
I am so sorry their mode of entry into the world was not what you desired, but, you know, at least we live in a modern age/first world where the technology for safe delivery in difficult circumstances is possible. I understand this is hardly helpful information, but I guess it’s my best ‘glass half full’ approach to the situation.
take care
J
July 20th, 2007 22:59
I was so out of it after mine that it didn’t occur to me to ask where Gabriel was until they brought Soren in the next morning. Until they brought Soren in, it didn’t occur to me to ask where he was either, That can’t be the natural reaction after giving birth, and it still really creeps me out that drugs could make me forget my children.
I remember Soren’s birth clearly, and holding him afterwards, but not Gabriel and the post-section. That and his NICU time made it harder to bond with him than with Soren, and I have tremendous guilt from it still.
July 21st, 2007 01:54
Found you because of the roundup . . .
I’m sorry the birth didn’t go how you hoped it would. You still gave birth and you were wise enough to choose a cesarean when it was needed and you have every right to grieve the loss of a vaginal birth.