My first birth was horrendous. Really truly awful. To the point where when they finally got me to my emergency c section we weren't actually sure if they were going to be getting out a live baby his heartbeat had become so erratic and difficult to find. Thankfully he was alive but I literally saw a tiny bit of his nose as he was flashed in my general direction and then rushed to NICU. We nearly lost him his second night here as well and had to be taken to the dreaded side room for the most awful conversation I've ever had.
Anyway, whilst they were busy trying to medicate him and insert tubes and lines and all sorts I was on another floor of the hospital waiting for my spinal block to wear off. My sole contribution to his first day on earth was a midwife grabbing my breasts and hand expressing some colostrum to put into his nasal feeding tube. I didn't even get to see him until 24 hours had passed and I was told I wasn't allowed to touch him by the most callous HCA I've ever come across. Holding him took another 12 hours. For the rest of the week he stayed hooked up to tubes and monitors on the floor below me. I would be fetched every time he cried and have to make my way as quick as I could down the stairs, wait to be let into the secure NICU (there never seemed to be anyone manning the buzzer either) and pray that he hadn't been getting too distressed in the time it had taken me. There was definitely no 'golden hour' for him!
By contrast, my second baby (an ELCS) was brought straight from my stomach and onto my chest. I had my gown on backwards so there was no barrier between my skin and his. All monitoring equipment was placed out of the way, oximeter on my big toe etc so there was nothing to get tangled up or impede our contact. He stayed tucked into my chest throughout my being sewn up and whilst I was wheeled into recovery. After maybe half an hour/forty minutes he adjusted himself and performed the 'newborn breast crawl' (this is a real thing, search for it on YouTube, my mum who was my birth partner was amazed!) and latched himself on and started feeding before falling asleep. He stayed in my arms for most of that night until exhaustion took over and I had to put him down (still asleep) so I could get some sleep myself.
Now....that second experience was certainly very healing for me. I can empathise completely with the feelings of distress and upset from a traumatic first birth. I had nightmares about it for so long and really really struggled to see photos of friends post birth or hear their birth stories. It is a very real thing to suffer from the lingering effects of not having your baby with you having gone through all the struggle of birth. The guilt stayed with me too even though it wasn't my fault and it certainly wasn't yours!
However.....I PROMISE you. My two babies, born into very different situations, have not had any lingering effects as to whether they had that golden hour or not. Honestly! They're not really 'conscious' straight after birth. They are tiny little balls of sensation and sound, they can't even see properly. Your baby may not have been with you but she WAS with someone. She was looked after. She was kept warm and dry and fed and comfortable and had soothing sounds murmured to her, all the things she needed. And then, once you were better she had you! And I bet you were fabulous! And you grew her for nine months, she would have instinctively recognised your smell, your voice, your heartbeat.
Please don't beat yourself up over something you couldn't have changed or done differently. I do think stuff like this is just another thing for people to beat themselves up with. What are people going to do with this 'golden hour' knowledge? Say 'god I'm glad I know about this now. I was going to pop the baby in the corner as soon as I'd given birth and have a look at them once I'd caught up on my book. Labour really cut into my reading time'. Obviously people are going to hold and cuddle their babies as soon as they've birthed them unless exceptional circumstances mean they can't!