How to accept traumatic birth

[LivingForTheWinter]

I have two children, they are now 5 and 7.

Through some therapy I've been having for other reasons I've realized how traumatic I found labour (particularly my second).

I meet so many people who had traumatic births and then went on to have a better one and have said how healing they found it.
I so want a third but it won't happen and I wonder in part if why I want one is to help heal that trauma (I'm not saying that's a good thing!)

I know I need to get over it, our children are happy and healthy etc. but it still genuinely hurts when I see positive birth stories, it feels like a grief. I am so sad I'll never have that birth experience.

I’d really recommend seeing if you can get a birth debrief - I found it really helpful for processing my sons birth and understanding/contextualising the decision making

They've told me they don't offer that service but have said they might be able to answer questions so I can do that.

I think you have two separate things to deal with but they have become fused together and this is adding to your feelings of trauma.

There is the traumatic experience of giving birth and then there is the fact your husband has decided he doesn't want more and that is a really difficult point in your life.

You were probably at least slightly pinning your hopes on doing it again to have it go right this time, and it's been taken away from you. I didn't have birth trauma exactly but I did have an extremely rocky obstetric history and lost a baby at full term so this was definitely a factor for me.

When my husband said he didn't want another I had to face the fact I had to reprocess the experiences again in a new light. It was no longer about "next time" Childbearing was now in my past, and in some ways I had to re-grieve again in a different way. When you go back to square one like that, it can feel like you are right back at the beginning but honestly you are not. I found once I was able to accept no more babies, it helped a lot and I realized the really raw grief of the loss had actually healed. It was bloody hard to get through at the time though. Moving forward resolutely with our complete little family really helped.

For anyone on this thread, you might find this podcast with Illy Morrison, a full-time birth debrief midwife, worth listening to:

https://pca.st/episode/23207d99-0685-4b65-a23b-b1acc45e1fe0