Processing Birth Trauma
It was a pretty typical session with my psychotherapist today, that is, until the flood gates opened and the pain of my hospital stay during and after Taylor’s birth shuddered through my body. The casual tone of everyday speech gave way to sobbing, and a yet untapped well of grief poured over the brim of my heart and eyes.
I have been waiting for this moment for almost three years, the moment that marks the beginning of my healing and encourages me to finish writing Taylor’s birth story. The time has certainly come.
Because it has been almost three years since the day of Taylor’s birth, the exact chronology of events is unclear, but the events themselves are undeniably raw and unforgettable.
Lesser Evils
The urge to push came as I braced myself between the car door and Taylor’s carseat in the back of our Highlander. It took everything I had to keep from pushing her out of me on our 30-minute drive to the hospital. And once we arrived on the labor and delivery floor, over and over again, I was told to wait, to wait until such-and-such standard protocol was followed.
Just as I readied myself to push in a standing position, nurses scrambled to find Taylor’s heartbeat, prodding and then finally unsuccessfully poking and screwing with an internal monitor that never attached anyway. Taylor just needed to be born already, damnit!
The midwife told me that I could not push in my preferred position, that I had to push while lying on the bed. Despite the mind-altering, natural hormones running through my body, I quickly assessed the situation, and, from that point on, continued to choose the lesser of evils.
Did I really want to push while lying on the bed? No. My body was telling me to stand, but the possibility of more invasive medical intervention prompted me to comply with her orders. Up on the bed I went. With Jim holding one leg and our doula holding the other, I pushed effectively, but Taylor wasn’t coming out “fast enough”.
Well, gee. Let’s think about this. Lying down with my legs pinned back is one of the least efficient ways to get a baby out of me, yet there I was in that ass-backward, standard position. The midwife then announced that she was going to cut an “Ina May Gaskin” episiotomy. Again, even though I was in Laborland, I figured it was best to let her proceed. I’d rather endure an episiotomy than a C-section. Lesser of the evils, right?
As she cut my so-called “Ina May Gaskin” episiotomy, I couldn’t help but seethe for a moment at that insult. What the fuck is an “Ina May Gaskin” episiotomy?! Is throwing Ina May’s name in there supposed to make me feel better? Or is it supposed to make *you* feel better? Trying to justify this intervention to yourself?
The midwife gave me a local anesthetic and stitched me up as my legs convulsed from the energy surging through my body. Apparently, she didn’t numb the area enough because I felt the last couples of times the needle penetrated my vaginal tissue and the thread passed through.
To this day, my vagina just isn’t the same, as if I was stitched up too tightly. Who knows how this scar will affect future births? Who knows how this surgical procedure will affect my pelvic floor over my lifetime?
Drug Pushers
After I was stitched up like a turkey on my daughter’s birthday, a nurse took a couple of pills out of a paper cup and brought them up to my mouth. I immediately backed away and asked what they were. “They’re for the pain,” she said.
I politely declined, but other thoughts raced through my head. Uh, did you not see what I just did there?! I labored and birthed a baby without any medication (by choice, mind you), and NOW you wanna give me some drugs for pain?! Umm…no thanks. I think I’ll pass. And how about asking me if I even want pain relievers before putting them up to my mouth?
But the drug pushing didn’t stop there. For the next couple of days, the offer of pain relievers continued despite my declining them over and over again. What was even more perplexing was that each nurse who entered my room reported what a low-maintenance patient I was from the nurse on the previous shift. If I’m so low-maintenance, why the hell are you pushing drugs on me (especially when I keep saying, “No.”)?!
Outside the Box
I woke up from a nap with my body covered in hives, discovered welts on the side of my face that came in contact with the hospital’s pillow, and quickly surmised that I was allergic to the hospital’s laundry detergent. What does the hospital staff wanna do about it? Give me Benadryl, which was assured to knock me out and dehydrate me, of which neither option was acceptable to a new mother, or at least, to this new mother.
For one, sleeping until the drugs wore off was unacceptable because I had a newborn to take care of. Two, dehydration was about the last thing I needed with a hungry newborn at my breast. You can keep your drugs (again), thank you very much.
To remedy this situation, I looked outside of the (medicine) box and opted to take a shower and asked Jim to retrieve our sheets from home. Problem solved.
Stolen Moments
The day after Taylor was born, one of the nurses noticed that Taylor looked a little yellow and, with a doctor’s confirmation, off Taylor went to the NICU for photo-therapy in an isolette. On one occasion, the nurses offered to let me use a bili blanket in my room, but after one attempt at nursing Taylor in the blanket, they told me that the blanket wouldn’t work. Back Taylor went to the NICU for ’round the clock light treatment.
I asked the NICU nurses to call me whenever Taylor needed me, whenever Taylor was hungry, but they had much sicker babies to care for, babies in dire need of technology and medication. There were times I arrived at the NICU, and Taylor was alone in her plastic box just wailing, with no one to hold her. Even in her charts, nurses noted how much she cried.
Despite my insistence on nursing Taylor, they fed her formula, thereby introducing unnatural substances to her under-developed gut flora. Not only did they feed her formula, but they also fed her with a bottle, despite my request that they at least use a SNS and a gloved finger instead. Only one of the nurses respected my wishes, and I longed to hear that Korean-tinted accent on the other end of the phone line, “Mee-sus Wag-gonah…Yoh baby ees hung-gary…” Oh, how sweet she was to me and to all of the babies in the NICU.
All those hours Taylor spent wailing in that plastic box, we can never take back. That time is lost forever. Those precious first moments cannot be re-lived.
Even more upsetting, I learned (much later) that what Taylor really needed in those first few days was me, my milk, and a sunny window — quite literally, another “outside of the box” remedy.
Flashbacks
Since Taylor enjoyed watching video footage of herself as a baby, I figured it might be fun to watch the footage from the day she was born. Jim didn’t capture the birth process on camera because we left all of our belongings in the car as we raced up to L&D, but he did grab the camera as soon as he had an opportunity to do so immediately after Taylor’s birth.
So, just before Taylor’s second birthday, I popped in this DVD, and Taylor and I found a cozy spot on the couch together. (On the screen) gloved hands moved a stethoscope onto Taylor’s chest and proceeded to perform other standard procedures, and Taylor (on the couch) screamed in panic, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” and clamored like a little monkey onto my lap. Her body shivered as she waited for me to turn the TV off.
I obviously had no idea Taylor would have such a strong visceral response to seeing this footage, and I still wonder about it to this day. Since then, I have also given more thought to the standard procedures performed immediately after birth.
Does a baby absolutely need to be wiped clean? Suctioned? Bathed? Weighed? Measured? Eye gooped? Needle pricked? And whatever else is “standard” before the mom and her partner can drink in the sweetness of their baby? Before the baby nestles skin-to-skin to her mother for the first time and greets the woman who nurtured her from conception? Before the baby finds her mother’s nipple and suckles for the first time?
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While that formerly untapped well of grief spilled over today, I realize that I have journeyed no further than its surface. The true depth and complexity of these waters remain unknown to me, for now at least. In the meantime, I find peace in the possibility of others learning from my experience and in the availability of birth settings outside of the hospital.
