This is not the story I wanted to tell…

Photo by Sarah Bach

The story I wanted to tell

I had a perfect story in my head of how the birth of my daughter would unfold. I pictured how pain & joy, tiredness and empowerment, movement and rest would join hands through this unique experience. I saw myself moving and breathing through the waves of contractions - riding with them as a means to getting closer to welcoming my baby into this world. I would listen to powerful music and dig deep to unknown depths of physical and mental strenghts to carry me through whatever this birth would have in store for me. The water of the pool in the birthing house - my preferred location of birth - would help me relax and ease into the waves of discomfort.

I think you get the story that I wanted to tell…

Yes, I also tried to embrace that all other options would be options - if the situation demanded it. I tried to embrace my fears of needing interventions that would bring on more interventions. But if I honestly look back, I was just holding on to the idea that plan A would work out. After all as a yoga teacher I had so many relaxation & breathing tools in my tool box that would support me.

I never expected it to be easy - but the birth of my daughter had a different experience of challenging in store for me. A challenge that came with strong emotions that I worked on (and sometimes still work on) accepting and integrating. I am working on embracing the story of what was, not to re-think the story of what I hoped it would be.

Perfectionist ideas in our heads

So often we have a perfect picture in our minds of how our life paths and events should unfold - be it a straight-forward birth, climbing up a straight career ladder or meeting the “perfect” partner that finally ticks off the boxes in our list. These thought patterns are often getting reinforced (consciously or subconsciously) through the constant snippets into other people’s lives on Social Media. Although we know that they are just small insights of what someone chooses to share, we still might get trapped in optimisation and perfectionism cycles. Ultimately these cycles bring us to the dark depths of “not enough” or stories of “should have’s”.

Whilst I believe that we do have a great amount of influence on how we choose to live our lives, there is also always the great unknown - the mystery of our unique life paths that gift us with challenges that often seem unsurmountable, but ultimately, carry the greatest life lessons. Often we understand our life stories backwards, but we need to live life forwards.

What actually happened

So here is my actual birth story - that I now (nearly 6 weeks post-partum) view as a rite of passage that enabled me to welcome the gift of my beautiful daughter Anouk. A few days after the birth - accompanied by the famous hormonal drop - my emotional response to what happened was very different.

“Maybe I could have relaxed more. Maybe I could have persisted more. If I only stayed in that birthing pool longer.”, replayed the voice in my head over and over again as I was sitting in my comfortable nursing chair, my sleeping daughter in my arms, tears streaming down my face. I felt like I had failed at an event that I so meticulously “prepared for”. Waves of sadness, of griefing what had not been, shook my body. Thunderstorms of anger, of “why me?!”, rocked my body. And in the hidden corners lured shame, who said: “You failed. And you better not tell anyone else, because they will think you failed too.”

“Prepare to be unprepared” read the second chapter of the birthing book I had purchased pre-birth (Transformed by birth by Britta Bushnell). I remember reading these lines and agreeing with the message Britta Bushnell was trying to bring across. But the reality of “how prepared I was to be unprepared” was different.

After a long wait for birth to start my water finally broke at 4 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. I felt excited and very ready to bring this baby out of the belly and into the world. A few hours later waves of contractions started rolling in and out of my body. I welcomed them in a relaxed way, moving and breathing through them with plenty of rest in-between - all the whilst expecting that after a few hours birth would have progessed and I could head to the birthing house.

Day two I still felt relaxed as contractions kept coming in an irregular pattern. Every check-up showed that the baby’s heartbeat was fine, but the contractions were not progressing. During the second night I started feeling a little more tired, but still hopeful that eventually the contractions would come quicker and more regularly. And sometimes they did, just to be followed by longer intervals again.

In the early morning hours of Saturday I had a little meltdown - the deadline had passed for being able to go to the birthing house as the risk of infection was getting too high. On the one hour drive to the closest hospital I remained calm and focused, accepting of the fact that I had to re-write the plan A story in my head, but still hoping for a natural birth to unfold.

After inducing labor and getting a little rest thanks to pain medication, birth started to progress more. Here I was, finally in that birth pool, listening to my birth playlist, breathing and moving through the waves that continuously kept coming and going, when I had to slowly admit that I was very very tired. After 50 hours of contractions my body was tired. As I came out of the pool my body started shaking uncontrollably and I had to slowly admit to myself that it was time for an epidural.

The third night brought us closer and closer to full dilation. Every couple of hours there was slow progress. My legs felt numb, but I was just so relieved that I could rest and recover that it did not matter that much.

In the morning of the fourth day everything was ready for the birth to unfold. I was fully dilated, moving with the push contractions that rocked my body and in higher spirits again to finally birth this baby. We tried and tried. When we realized that the baby’s head was turned the wrong way, we tried every possible position to incite her to turn. After 4 hours, after trying and trying, and a final check by the gynecologist it became apparent that we had “out-tried” all options. The only remaining (and increasingly urgent) option was a C-section.

At that point my only focus was to bring the baby as quickly as possible out of the belly. I felt calm and collected - knowing that this was truly the final stage of this birth. When after a few minutes in surgery, I heard the first cry of our daughter, I was incredibly relieved and happy tears started streaming down my face. What a miracle! My body was flooded with gratitude only to be shaken by the most immense pain I have ever felt moments later. It felt like knives stabbing into a wound in my belly and my upper body started tensing up with every stab. When they realized that my pain medication must have stopped working, they quickly injected some more.

And from here on the rest of that surgery is a blur in my memory. But what I will always remember is the moment when after the surgery I held this little newborn - my baby - in my arms. I have no words to describe the emotional cocktail of tiredness, relief, love and gratitude I felt.

It felt like I had been newly born as well, newly born into a new world and a new version of myself that I have and am slowly discovering in these weeks after this story - the story of the birth of my daughter. A rite of passage. A miracle that is simultaneously connected to pain and joy, tears and laughs.

Final words

I am not sharing my birth story to receive sympathy. I am sharing my birth story because what I strongly believe we really need in today’s world is sharing real life. Sharing our imperfect and simultanously beautiful life journeys. Because as we share our imperfect and yet perfect inner worlds, you can see yourself in me and I can see myself in you. And we understand - we are not alone. There is nothing wrong with me, my birth story, you and your life stories. They just are what they are - stories.