Writing your birth story

[Gray's Mommy]

I am struggling with writing Liam's birth story. We planned a home water birth & ended up at the hospital with a c-birth. That in itself stinks. I keep thinking that I can get it written, but then I try to write a few lines & keep drawing a blank.

Is anyone else having a hard time processing their birth? I am only 12 days postpartum, but didn't have this problem with my other two births.

[Happiestever]

Well I am a month out tomorrow and still haven't written mine. Mostly because I don't know if I really want to sit down and write it out with three kids needing my attention and second being there isn't really much to it. I had contractions, but it didn't really get interesting until the very end. With at the moment I don't care to think about: the massive amounts of blood, followed by me passing out, so yeah... Not sure I want to relive those moments just yet.

I think at some point it is important to write our stories. It may help you process, it may help you heal, and it may help others. But it sounds like right now isn't the time. Losing a dream is never easy, I feel for you, I do! Maybe just take a break from trying right now and then perhaps all the pieces will come together. And you birth story doesn't have to be only about the birth, it can be about whatever. Peace and love our your journey!

[Usually Curious]

I am having a very hard time with it. With my others I was able to immediately write my birth stories, but this one still won't come. I have been avoiding the DDC because I just don't want to think about it.

[Mawood]

Me too. I also felt the pressure to write the birth story or like my doula recommended to write to my OB. I couldn't get to it but felt pressured. Right now I just let it be and allow myself to go with the daily needs which are challenging too. I have never been so sleep deprived in my life so I try to get extra sleep whenever I can - instead of sitting at the computer. I do talk about my birth with my friends a lot though and I sit with my feelings about it whenever they come up. Sometimes it is a CD I am listening to that brings it up or just while I am nursing. And then I just sit with it for a while. I already feel much better than I did in the first week postpartum when my hormone levels first dropped. I know I will be writing it down at some point, in my pace of time.

[Usually Curious]

my midwife asked to read my birth story. i think that's one of the reasons i don't want to write it.

[jtrt]

It is so hard. Hard hard hard. Edelweiss is 2 months old today and I am seeing her birth a little differently-finally. I wrote about the medical details but not about the emotions of the event. I don't like to think about how I felt. I would like to put the feelings of the last 18 months in a trunk, fill it with cement and sink it to the bottom of the ocean.

Let me preface with this: I am grateful to have my healthy baby.

I just realized the other day that I never got to hold Edelweiss and look at her from the safety and comfort of my husband's arms. I really miss that. It was days and days before we hugged each other. I keep wanting to snuggle naked in our bed with our baby but the moment is gone. Nothing about her birth resembles any of our previous experiences. There is so much I miss. There is no getting any of it back.

I have a healthy, precious baby via an unwanted but necessary c-section. The two facts are not separate from each other but they certainly do not feel joined in my mind. I cannot relate what I went through to birth as I know it.

No wonder it's hard to write about!

I wish peace, comfort and healing for all of you sweet mommas.

[Usually Curious]

I cannot relate what I went through to birth as I know it.

That's good. That's similar to how I feel about my birth.

[NSmomtobe]

I felt a lot of anger after my birth and that prevented me from writing my birth story for a few weeks. In the end, I wrote a watered down version that focused on the events and minimized the most traumatic part(s). This version was shared with friends. Then I posted my true feelings in the Healing Birth Trauma forum. I felt better after that. I didn't post all the annoying details, but I did get to vent my feelings.

[JayJay]

I wrote out Bella's birth story on the 14th - Thursday - she was born on the 12th. It took me all day to write it out! But then I LOVED the birth I had with her - it was incredibly, incredibly healing. I wanted to remember and write down every detail so I kinda stuck at it even through a rather serious post partum migraine.

But with Josie, who I lost during birth, of course the feelings were very different. I had a cesarean that time, and it was very traumatic. I did actually sit down and write it out pretty soon after she was born though - I think the Sunday or the Monday after she was born - maybe the 12th or 13th of October. The first place I posted it was in MDC pregnancy and birth loss subsection. Then when I started my blog, I put it there as well. If anyone wants to read, it's the very first post of my blog I think - you can get to it by clicking on "Here is the event that changed everything" link on the left hand side.

For me, the birth experience and cesarean was something I mourned side by side, but separately from the death of Josie, so I complete understand the losing of the birth experience - I felt violated by the cesarean and the needles and catheter and all of that ER procedure - it was really, really traumatic. I felt like my womanhood had been kinda cut in half... I remember the feelings well: they were really hard to come to terms with.

The reason I didn't wait long to write down the story was because I knew that I wanted to get all the details out properly so that I wouldn't bury any of them, you know? I'd had previous counseling sessions and knew from my own experience that for me to deal with the facts, I'd have to get the facts out, so I did - I wrote them all down. I think because of that, it was easier for me to process everything - I didn't have to worry about containing all the details in my head any more because they were out on paper. I could "visit" them when I wanted to, you know?

But anyway, that's my take on that. It did take me quite a while to finish the story though, and I was pretty tired when I got to the end of it.

*HUGE hugs* mama - you can get through it. It's hard, I know, but you can do it! XXXXX

[Usually Curious]

I'd had previous counseling sessions and knew from my own experience that for me to deal with the facts, I'd have to get the facts out, so I did - I wrote them all down. I think because of that, it was easier for me to process everything -

i may write it out for this reason, thx!

[Dea]

I still haven't written Hudson's birth, and I'll have to check my blog, but it took me about a month or so with Trixie's too.
This birth was hard for me to process becasue it didn't go down the way I wanted. I have A LOT of issues with my inability to have a natural labour at home. (and issues with not being able to get pregnant without help and not being able to breastfeed... sigh)
Now I"m almost ready to write it out, but now I am a little bothered by Hudson's twin who only made it to 9ish weeks into my pregnancy. I keep seeing twins and it makes me sad. There was a spot on Hudson's bag that was the remains of his twin and I was able to see it, since it was still attached to his placenta and I asked to see the placenta. Until recently it didn't bother me, but now it really is. Sigh.
Soon I'll write it all out, and you'll all get a link to it!

[~Christina~]

I had the same outcome for my birth, Mary. Eventhough in the end it was a very positive experience for me, it still took me almost 3 weeks to get through writing it. I didn't feel like I gave birth. I still don't. They took her out of my body. And, while it was a good experience, I don't feel like I birthed her. I sorta feel like I got in a car accident and now I have this little person to care for.

[Gray's Mommy]

I gave myself an ultimatim...I have until Sunday night to write out my birth story. My main focus is that I want to write MY memories & thoughts about Liam's birth without other people's thoughts clouding mine. My doula brought her version of his birth over yesterday & I won't allow myself to read it until I wrote mine down...I really, really want to read her version though

[ivymae]

I'm DDC crashing, but I found 'telling' my birth story to be easier, so i set up the video camera and told it "to" my daughter. I told myself going in that I could edit it/retape it if i wanted, so I didn't feel like it needed to be perfect or even sensitive - I just had to be honest. I planned to take the video and write out the story from it, but once I had it all out, I realized that i wanted to save it just how it was. Good, bad, touching, ugly, celebratory, rambling, interrupted, bad lighting - it was what it was, just like her birth. Dressing it up as something it wasn't (or denying what it was, which at times was really lovely) wasn't really our story, but it is what i kept starting to do when I would sit down with pen and paper.