I do think it matters how you give birth. Or more specifically it matters how you feel about it. Feeling grateful or relieved for being well and having a healthy baby is separate to the feelings of intense sadness and regret around an event in your life which didn't turn out the way you hoped.
In this sort of situation, you can't really measure your feelings against the experiences of other people. Because 'yabu, vb fucking hurts' or 'I've not even got any children, want to trade?' may be heart wrenchingly sad and utterly true facts of other people's lives but it doesn't lessen the feelings you have about your own situation.
It's such an emotive thing. You grow up being told how it's natural, how women in comas can do it, how you will be I am woman, hear me roar and experience this feeling of brilliance. You know it's not something you will ever replicate in another way. Your body won't do anything that ridiculously, incredibly amazing again. That's how it feels anyway.
But the thing is, nothing has actually changed. Nobody goes into labour with any clue as to what will happen or how it will feel. Most women will find that at least some small part of it will be nothing like they planned. Some women will find it almost the opposite of their hopes and dreams. It's just that for you, the changes are happening now, instead of after hours of labouring. Situations transpire at every point of pregnancy or labour which change or prevent labour's progression. What I've found through long introspection is that the gap between your expectations and reality is the one you fall into. I've been there. I planned a natural, home waterbirth. Well after 2 days of that not bloody working at all, I had a blue light transfer, all manner of panic and an emcs. I too struggled with those feelings of failure, of regret, of anger and a thousand things besides. But in the end I realised that I'd done nothing to cause it, there was no blame to apportion. It wasn't anything I controlled anyway and while I was wasting months and years of my dd's life on ptsd and pnd because of the way in which she entered the world, I was forgetting the enormous, brilliant thing that had happend. Simply, that she was here.
It might not have been a story of gentle breathing and her slipping out into water but it's still a bloody important story and there's more to it than procedure, more to it than spinals and the 2 tiny letters cs. There's this whole story of the first time I touched her, the colour of her skin, the noises she made, the way in which she sneezed, how her fingers curled around my hand the second I held her, how I lay in bed with her all night, her huge, blue eyes fixed on mine curiously and I became a Mum. I did it. It's our story. And it will be the same for you. ATM you feel like it's just something that's happening to you. You feel you've lost an opportunity and you're sad about it. But what will actually happen is that you and your baby will go through meeting each other together. And now that you know it will be an elcs, you can actually look forward to certain parts of it with some degree of planning. You can make a cd and you know the day and you can request certain things like skin to skin. You might even find that those little bits of control help you manage this.
And physically it's fine. I had an emcs after a shocking time of trying to have dd naturally. The procedure was relaxed, the spinal not a problem and I was discharged 12hrs post op with no pain, breastfed dd happily and recovered easily.
I won't tell you not to feel upset. Because I think you have to. You have to grieve for the birth you won't be having. And I think your caregivers sound brilliant. They're referring you on for help according to what might potentially happen and they're on the ball. I'd be very reassured by this. Talk, talk, talk and then talk some more. And please come back and tell us all about it when it's done.
And the baby at the end of it all btw? Ye Gods, you have no idea... 