Remember
Guilt free in One Three...it's my mantra this year
. I'm slowly working through a list of things I need to let go. But the biggest, most suffocating guilt I've carried for the last almost eleven years is that I failed to birth my babies naturally.
I'm four foot eleven and Ben is six foot one. Someone near and dear to us has always said (in good humour) that Nelwyns* shouldn't marry Daikini's*! But we can't help who we fall in love with, right!? I certainly wouldn't have it any other way. In any case, this was my chance to breed some height into our vertically challenged family.
You can't imagine how enormous I was in the later stages of pregnancy with my first born. I was so ridiculously massive that people winced when they saw me. Stepping into the supermarket I could clear the aisle in seconds....folks would see that tummy coming towards them and run! It was apparent to everyone (all except me and my doctor surprisingly) that the baby I was carrying was indeed BIG and most definitely a Daikini! To add insult to my pregnancy discomfort, baby decided to stay snug in his cocoon for ten days past the expected due date!
Like most first timers, I had high hopes for a tranquil natural labour. I was well informed, confident and determined. A good friend tried to prepare me for a scenario that ended with a C-section delivery, but as far as I was concerned, that was her experience and I was different and without a doubt far more tenacious. *Sigh*, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Without giving you a minute by minute run down....the gist is....what began as a text book induction extended into 48 hours of labour, culminating with an extremely wrung-out mum-to-be, a baby suffering foetal distress, a severely potent (and miscalculated) epidural and an emergency caesarian delivery. I was exhausted, bruised and battered (literally), but thanks to the marvel of modern medicine, my darling boy Harry was brought safely into the world, weighing in at a whopping nine pound one and incredibly, fifty seven centimetres in length. He never entered the birth canal...and the midwives were, on reflection, relieved he hadn't. Although I'd dilated fully, I never experienced pushing sensations of any kind.
I know a healthy mother and baby is all that matters - I know it could have been worse. But for me (and my shell-shocked husband) it was stressful and traumatic and not such a great start to parenthood. And it damaged my state of mind in more ways than you can imagine.
For a long time afterwards, well meaning people reminded me that it didn't matter how my baby arrived in the world - a healthy baby and mum is all that matters. The logical part of my brain knew what they said was true, but my heart didn't believe it for a second. My heart, in fact, has taunted me over this failure...for years. My heart it seems is really loud, in this case its' overpowering noise drowned out any logical thoughts that filtered through. Until now.
I still get teary thinking about Harry's birth. During the first 14 months of his life I was miserable - I loved and adored my little man of course, but many days were a struggle. I was plagued by weariness, anxiety, sadness, and while I didn't know at the time, was most definitely suffering post natal depression. It was hard to articulate how I felt and even those close to me had no clue of the extent of my suffering. The only way I could explain my feelings was to say I felt as though my body started something that it never got to finish. My body knew what to do in labour, but it didn't see it through. I carried an overwhelming and crushing sense of incompleteness.
Harry is a week away from turning eleven. He is a tall, strong, healthy and wonderfully intelligent boy. Whilst I'll always carry a sadness about childbirth, I'm no longer riddled with guilt. To be honest though, making a conscious decision to ditch the guilt has been harder than I ever anticipated - when you live with certain feelings for such a long time, you come to rely on them even if they are damaging. Writing about it has helped immensely, even though my emotions are once again raw and tears have been shed, even after all this time has passed. Words as therapy? I should have done this a long time ago, but I suppose I wasn't ready.
Harry is a gift, a part of me. I'm his mum no matter what and I doubt anyone will ever ask him how he came to arrive in this world!
* Remember the movie Willow?
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Imagine you travelled a long forgotten country road that led to a small rural hotel. Oh dear....with a start like that you may be thinking I'm leading you through a guided meditation...although come to think of it, if that were the case I wouldn't be guiding you to a pub, right?.jpg)
