top of page
  • Writer's pictureMama Bear & Mama Wolff

“I Never Laboured”: Overcoming the Failure Mindset Following C-Section


DISCLAIMER: If you have not yet read my birth story, please head their first before reading this. Everything will just make a lot more sense if you do.



 


If you go anywhere on the internet and search pregnancy or birth, you will undoubtedly find yourself surrounded by tips on how to deal with the different stages of labour. I spent HOURS during the first 38 weeks of my pregnancy studying these lists and articles.

I created a labour action plan.

I had a doula to take photos and help support my husband so he could support me fully.

I had a three hour long playlist of empowering and uplifting badass music.

I had birthing affirmation cards and a bracelet with beads from the women in my life to wear so I could carry their feminine strength in with me.

I had guided meditation and hypnobirthing to listen to.


I was set.

I was (almost, kinda) looking forward to it.


All my life I had heard women talk about the number of hours they had spent in labour. Some complained. Some wore it as a badge of pride. But even the ones that grumbled about it, still had a look of honour in their eyes. It was as much a rite of passage into motherhood as getting your first period was for womanhood. And I wanted that. I didn’t care how long or painful the labour was.


I just wanted to be part of the club. To be worthy of the title of mother.


Even my own mother who birthed me by c-section had experienced labour. But...as you know, my birth story was quite different.

Through all 41 weeks of pregnancy I never experienced one single contraction. Not even those annoying Braxton Hicks that try and trick you. Baby Bear had no interest at all in gracing the world with her presence. She parked herself in my ribs and hung out there, right up until the moment the doctors dug in and dragged her out. Literally.That feeling was gross.



I had a baby. A happy, healthy, beautiful little girl. I was a mother. It was all I ever wanted. But that rite of passage I had coveted so long had been ‘stolen’ from me. By fate or circumstance, etc. And as happy and in love with her as I was, there was a part of me that felt like I didn’t deserve the title. Like I hadn’t even really given birth. Despite the intense badass-ness that comes with willingly having a needle the length of the Nile shoved into the bottom of your spine (which means life long back pain for most women, including me). And getting cut open, having my organs rearranged and stapled back together. I felt like I hadn’t done anything, because everything had been done to me.


Even now almost a year later, I have trouble saying that I gave birth at all.


I never pushed her out. I never felt my uterus contract or her head crowning. I didnt get to catch her. Watch her daddy cut the cord. Or see my incredible 10 pound placenta. None of it. My beautiful dream home birth in water with peaceful music and the support of my doula as my husband held both of us, was gone. And replaced by a giant needle, a bright and cold sterile room, followed by an empty stomach and that one staple that pinched every time I would inhale.


There was not a complete absence of pain of course. Having the catheter removed...that was no joke. I’ll be glad if I never feel that again. Or the excruciating pain in my shoulder from internal, post surgery gas buildup that literally had me writhing in pain and begging the nurse to do something. (She couldn’t do much.) Not to mention that they had me get up and walk just hours after surgery. This is standard practice, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. Oh, and the nausea. Fork me. We had a few visitors following the birth. My parents, a couple of Belle’s aunts. But I hardly remember it because I had my head in a bowl puking my guts out the majority of the time.


By no means was the c-section the easy way out. And every moment certainly wasn’t beautiful.



I think the hardest part for me was that it was nothing at all like I’d pictured or envisioned in all of my manifestation exercises. I am one of those hippie witch types that believe in the power of mind and making your own fate, etc. But in terms of my daughters birth...it was the exact opposite of what I had spent months planning and meditating over.


What it was, (not the details, but the actual c-section birth) was what I had said for years growing up that I wanted. So perhaps the amount of manifesting during pregnancy just didn’t add up enough to counteract my childhood wishes.


 

A few friends and family members have ‘slipped up’ here and there the past year. To no fault of their own, they have said things in reference to me pushing a baby out of my vagina. And despite them being aware of the realities of Baby Bear’s birth day, I can’t blame them. Birth is presented to all of us in one way. And most of our references in tv and movies are natural vaginal births. In fact if c-section births are portrayed from the entertainment world, they are typically blown right over or grossly exaggerated and dramatized.


Not saying there ain’t one around, but I personally cannot picture one single film or show that depicts c-section in a light where that type of birth can also be beautiful.


 

At the end of the day...I am a mother. No matter what. No matter the number of hours we spend in labour. No matter whether we have an all natural birth in a rainforest surrounded by wild animals or we’re surgically assisted by professional doctors. Or somewhere in between. OR we are handed our children by a foster or adoption agent.


WE ARE MOTHERS.



It does not matter how the children we love enter our lives. Truly all that matters is the love in our hearts and our intentions behind the hugs and support we offer to our children.


So, if you are anything like me and there is some level of disappointment from your birth that you still holding on to, try today to let it go once and for all. Journal the crap out of it. Scream from a rooftop. Share your birth story with a trusted friend or family member. Ask them for theirs. Perhaps even try to get a group of mothers in circle and all share together. Rejoice in the similarities and celebrate the differences.


And remember, no matter how life’s circumstances presented you with the title of mama, you are the real deal.


-Mama Bear 🐻


29 views0 comments
bottom of page