Emergency c-section parents… am I alone in feeling this way?

[BessieBye]

Hey

My baby girl was born on 21st May via emergency c section. Failure to progress. Not a traumatic experience, in fact, quite special when I look back as the medical staff took photos for us. They were all amazing.

However… I can’t help but feel upset when I see posts or hear about women giving birth vaginally their baby. I feel like such a failure. I don’t even feel like I gave birth… I didn’t do it myself; someone else done it for me.

I love my newborn daughter with all my heart, but find it hard to associate that she was once inside of me and that I gave birth to her. I feel like she literally got given to me and I am here to love and look after her, not that I went through that process of physically pushing my baby into this world and giving her life. I don’t feel like I done anything to warrant the ‘well done!’ comments I got. I listen to people talk about their birth and how exhausting it was and I feel like a fraud. Dont get me wrong, I was beyond exhausted. Most tired I’ve ever been… but that wasn’t from doing anything like pushing.

The Labour pain was unbearable so I went for an epidural. I now have regrets getting that as maybe I’d have been able to deliver my baby naturally.

It also really upsets me when health professionals ask if I delivered my baby ‘normally’ :( once again making me feel like I didn’t do a good job.

Sorry I’m not sure what the point in this is. Maybe to see if I’m alone I’m feeling like this. Why am I not over it? I have the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful tiny human lying on my chest. The love is quite overwhelming, so why can’t I shake off that feeling of being a failure?

Op, I’ve done it both ways, csection then vbac. Honestly, vaginal births are overrated. I had no more control over the situation than I did with my csection, it was chaotic and I was off my face with pain and gas & air. My csection was calm and I knew what was going on at every stage. The only benefit a vaginal birth has is the recovery time. You are no more connected to a baby that you pushed out your vagina than one which was a csection.

I had my one go at childbirth 23 years ago - ECS and still feel like that sometimes! 27 hours, pumped full of drugs, failed to progress (there's that language) ... It was hugely traumatic but SO worth it. Due to the wonders of modern medicine I am alive and I have seen my lovely son grow up. Without it we would both have died. And my bits are all still in good working order and I don't pee when I sneeze! You're doing fine.

I had an emergency c section and I look at it like this. My job as her mum was to get her into this world safely, she was not progressing and in fact i reverse dilated from 9cm to 7cm. Instead of sacrificing her health to carry on labouring after 12 hours I instead chose to sacrifice my body and my 'ideal' birth to be physically cut open to get her into this world happy and healthy. I lost a lot of blood and was minutes away from a hysterectomy but compared to having her safely delivered none of that mattered. I look at my scar and I am reminded of this and that amazing day. That's what being mum is, willing to sacrifice anything and everything to put your child first. I also know that had I been giving birth even 60/70 years ago we both potentially would have died so I am so thankful that we have such amazing doctors here that got us both through.

C sections are not the easy way out no way, while I would have loved a vaginal birth I really just wanted her here safely in whatever way that had to happen. I will actually be electing a c section if we have another. I think it's just incredible when I look at my scar and think wow my body is amazing to have done that and recovered so well.

Two emergency sections here and a definite feeling of failure. I don't consider myself to have given birth and still get irrationally angry when anyone tries to tell me I did. I was fully dilated and pushed with dc1. My uterus tore during my 1st section and they advised repeat sections (dc2 didn't agree with the date they gave) and her delivery felt like failure too.

Not helped by my notes, failed vaginal birth and failure to descend and the way people spoke to me. I swear my mum is upset my kids don't have allergies, asthma and obesity yet. I'm the only person in both mine and dh's families to need a section...heard it all basically.

@BessieBye I’m really glad you’ve saved it and I hope it brings you as much comfort as it has me! For me now, it doesn’t matter how they came out of my body - I am theirs, and they are mine. I tortured myself for so long about all my failings as a mother (ivf, cs, bottle feeding) and it was so cruel looking back - I didn’t achieve the ‘perfect’ experience but to my babies I am perfect. Same for your DD, you are everything that she needs.

I totally understand what you mean about finding it difficult when people make out sections are rare and easy. I’ve had two people tell me I’d not really given birth and that I’d cheated giving birth because of having an elcs. Luckily they were on strong days for me and I gave them short shrift, but some people really do not engage their brain before speaking!

I really do wish you all the best 💐

I don't know if this thread is still active, but I have felt exactly the same...I had to have ecs and wasn't able to hold her due to the shaking. I couldn't have skin to skin, she was wrapped up and given to hubby. I felt anyone could have been her mom. Think this was made ten times worse by the fact that she wouldn't latch and become poorly with jaundice so had to be given formula and after that she had no interest in breastfeeding and since been exclusively ff which I cry about every day. I really don't know if I'll ever be able to get over the breastfeeding. She's 12 weeks now and has bad silent reflux and colic. For a while I genuinely didn't think she was mine, it's a weird sensation being handed a baby when you didn't see or feel them come out of you. I feel completely broken by the whole experience from birth to now if I'm honest x

@Livvi2021 I’m here! I feel you completely.
Breastfeeding wouldn’t work for us either and I got no support in hospital. My milk also never came in so that was another thing my body couldn’t do. I know everyone complains about the pain, but it’s part of having a baby.. but I never got to experience it. Another thing I missed out on and another thing that made me feel like I ‘didn’t give birth’ I still have days where I can’t put two and two together… like, she was in my tummy? I actually made her? It’s quite nuts.

So, I got you. I understand completely where you’re coming from.. you’re not alone. I am here to speak to if you need it. I always find it reassuring speaking to someone that I can relate to in terms of similar experiences.

Take care xx

@BessieBye thank you xx

I think my experience has been made worse by the fact that both my sister in law and friend also gave birth quite recently and both had text book births (their second, first births were fine too) and both have been able to breastfeed. Just highlights my inadequacies and also it's so sad I can't be around them it makes me too sad to see them breastfeeding while my baby is screaming waiting for the bottle to cool. I know exactly how you feel with feeling as though she didn't come out of you, it doesn't make sense does it. How can she be in there one minute and just on the other side of the room the next. It sounds awful but I so miss the closeness of being pregnant with her, I feel I've lost that closeness with her now which may be my imagination but its how it feels and I'm so sad xxx

I had an emcs, I felt like my body had failed to do what it was supposed to do. I had no connection with my baby & couldn't bond. The whole experience left me suicidal, I had been in induced labour for 60 hours before the induction failed. It took me a good 10 years to come to terms with it in any way & 17 years on I still haven't fully come to terms with it.

@Lou573

Op, I’ve done it both ways, csection then vbac. Honestly, vaginal births are overrated. I had no more control over the situation than I did with my csection, it was chaotic and I was off my face with pain and gas & air. My csection was calm and I knew what was going on at every stage. The only benefit a vaginal birth has is the recovery time. You are no more connected to a baby that you pushed out your vagina than one which was a csection.

I have had both too, although in my case it was 2 x vaginal births (both with their own complications) and 1 x emergency c-section, in that order.

I fully agree that vaginal births are overrated. I carry scarring and injuries from mine, the first one in particular. I had an episiotomy and still tore badly. I had so many stitches and the wound was so stubborn to heal that I still felt some discomfort sitting down 6 months later.

I will always remember a few weeks after my traumatic birth with DD1 when I was still suffering pain from my stitches and still rather shell-shocked. A well meaning young woman who was herself pregnant with her first baby said to me "At least you gave birth to her vaginally." I nodded, shrugged and said nothing because I just wasn't able to view it that way. I still don't 26 years later, and if I had my time again I would have all three by c-section.

With my c-section the recovery was so much quicker even though it had been an emergency. I was sore at first of course, but was well recovered in about 2 or 3 weeks.

A caesarean section is still a birth. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't. If I hadn't had one for my DD3 then she certainly wouldn't be here now, and possibly I might not be either.

Going much further back, if my own mother had not had an emergency section back in 1966 then I would have almost certainly died then. My mother felt the same way as you for a while, but by the time she had my sister 3 years later she had accepted and gladly went for an elective caesarean.

I understand how you feel. I felt really detatched from my baby after my emcs, as if he'd just been magicked up and I was never really pregnant at all. Then he was taken straight to scbu so it just felt like the whole experience was a dream.
It took me a long time to process the trauma and bond with my baby, and I wonder if some of what you're feeling is trauma related? The therapist I had told me that it's quite common when you're in a traumatic situation to dissociate, and feel like you weren't really there. I felt I had no right to be traumatised as my section was fairly calm, but I realised that actually it was major surgery and it really had scared me.
Could you benefit from some therapy?
Another big healer is time. I spent ages feeling weird about my birth and like a fraud. Three years down the line, I barely think of it x

I had exactly the same experience when my ds was born 21 years ago. You are not a failure and have nothing to reproach yourself for.
I think the language used by the healthcare professionals is inappropriate. What is a normal delivery? Imo it’s more appropriate to ask if delivery was vaginal/ straightforward/without complications etc. There is nothing abnormal about a c section.