Ironica, johnsmom... I can't tell you how much I needed to read your posts. I am so glad I'm not the only one. They are so similar to what I am feeling I can't even describe.
My 4yo daughter had been included in every MW visit, we watched birth videos together and she used to tell me that she was going to help the MW catch the baby
She plays midwife with my stethoscope on the cat's belly. (
) Honestly, I was more connected to sharing that experience with her than I was to sharing it with my DH. I had never thought to prepare her for if we had to transfer, because I figured the chances of that were so slim it wasn't worth confusing her about. Instead of our carefully planned homebirth, I got to rush to the hospital in the middle of the night at the start of labor. All the work I'd done to prepare my home...all the work to carefully gather special supplies...all for nothing. We woke up dd and had her get in our bed with ds and told her that we had to go to the hospital and that Nana was coming to watch her. We were in such a hurry because of the circumstances that we literally were getting in the car as my mom walked in the front door. This really freaked dd out alot, she kept telling me I needed to call Nana on the on the phone as she will still half asleep and saw us leaving and no Nana there yet
The only experience she's ever had with someone going to the hospital is when DH's grandfather passed away last September. So a few hours after we left, dd asked my mom if Mama was in heaven
I can't tell you how much this broke my heart to hear about that.
We had my mom bring the kids to the hospital in the afternoon but it was really confusing to dd. The next day as we left the hospital my dd saw me get out of the bed and while staring at me belly asked me if I still had a baby in it. Trying to explain why she couldn't hug me was so hard. I told her that Charlie was the baby from my belly and she didn't seem to get it. That day was really hard for her. She seemed very upset with me and confused to where the baby came from. I was absolutely devastated that I didn't get to share her sibling's homebirth with her like we had planned for months. I didn't even know how to explain to her that the baby had been cut out of my belly...that's just not what she knows about. When I finally had a quiet moment with her and talked with her a couple days after Charlie was born, she seemed to finally understand that Charlie was the baby she was so excited about...that he had just had to come out differently and at the hospital. She asked me after that if doctors have knives...said with very big eyes and a concerned look. She adores him now, but I feel she was cheated out of the special bonding she would have had if she had been there at his homebirth.
I grew up thinking that birth was scary and dangerous. I went to nursing school only to hear the same thing. Then I did some reading on my own and slowly came to the beliefs that it is a natural and safe event. It took a lot of work for me to overcome my fears and deprogram myself from that way of thinking I grew up with. I've even made my mom think homebirth is a wonderful thing, which in itself is amazing. I wanted to teach my daughter from her earliest memories that birth is safe, normal and beautiful. I feel so robbed of that. I spent the first week after Charlie was born questioning whether I might have been wrong about birth...because I'd let things happen "naturally" there is a very big chance that Charlie would have died. I felt incredibly guilty about my 2yo's homebirth...what if something had happened to him when I had him at home??? What was I thinking having him outside a hospital!?!?! I'm slowly making peace with the fact that the events that happened with Charlie's arrival do not make everything else I have known before that disappear. They actually should comfort me that in the rare circumstances that back up care is needed, that the system worked perfectly. Its just hard not to doubt the whole process now. I feel rocked to my core as being a natural birth/homebirth advocate is a HUGE part of who I am. I planned on going to midwifery school when my kids are older, but I feel like I'd be such a fraud to do that after my failed homebirth attempt this time. All of my good friends are homebirthers...how do I relate after just having a c-section? I am just so very sad. Grateful...but sad
: to all the other c/s mamas, even if it wasn't the birth you planned it got you your precious lo.
