Dear C-Section Mamas

Dear C-Section Mama,

I think I know how you’re feeling right now. As the heavier medication wears off and you start to put the pieces of what just happened to you together, there is a lot to process. Remember that birth plan you wrote? So much beautiful idealism. You watched “The Business of Being Born” and made your husband swear he wouldn’t let anyone intimidate you into unnecessary medication. You read “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth” and informed yourself enough that you weren’t afraid of what is a beautiful, natural process. You believed in your body and your strength as a woman that you could do what women have been doing since the dawn of time. And then what started in the most natural of ways went all wrong.

And at some point when the contractions didn’t stop and your baby was turned all wrong and the room filled up with medical strangers and your midwife started to look worried and you couldn’t even open your eyes because you were concentrating so hard on just surviving the pain, that’s when your mind dreamed for a moment of the sweet relief that would come if you could just let go of it all and die. The fierce desire to see the face of the Little One you’d known only in your dreams and in brief movements and flutters was the only thing that kept you tied to this earth and fighting to bring his life to your arms. It was then you realized while this is a natural process, it is not always safe. While women have been laboring and birthing babies since the dawn of time, many of them also died in that process. Mother graves beside baby graves. Women laboring in Africa today who will still be laboring tomorrow. And the next day. And soon their bodies will bring forth lifeless babies who could have been saved with a surgeon’s skilled hand. Or women in generations past who labored too long with babies in distress who were born with brain damage from the oxygen deprivation of an extended and complicated labor. This was the moment you were initiated into the sisterhood of women throughout time who have realized birth was not going to come easily or naturally for them, in spite of their best efforts.

Your priorities started to shift.

And your midwife pointed out your baby’s heart rate on the monitor and said, “He’s not happy right now.” and she said, “You’ve been so brave. You tried so hard. You can be proud.” and she said to your husband, “It’s time.” And you grieved a little. That you weren’t going to be the strong, empowered woman who would face labor bravely and conquer  it. But it was time. And you knew it. Nobody knew it more than you.

And remember the sounds of his first sweet cries? And you strained to see past the blue curtain to know the face that went with the most beautiful sound you’d ever heard. And you cried. And the anesthesiologist asked if you were in pain, but you were just so happy that it was over and you both had survived. And as they placed your baby in your arms you knew peace for the first time since labor had started. . . or maybe since you first saw those double lines on a test that meant a new life was forming.

But when they wheeled you back to your room you had to ask your husband, “Did you tell my mom it was a c-section? Did you prepare my family?” and in your heart you felt like you were announcing your own failure. That somehow the birth of a healthy child might be eclipsed by your inability to control his arrival. But there was so much joy in the faces of your family as they welcomed this baby into their life. The surprise of the c-section delivery faded, but as the drugs began to wear off, the reality of the c-section set in.

When that first nurse asked you to try getting out of bed and the ripping pain of a body cut apart and stitched back together seared through you, you realized the irony of anybody who talks about a c-section as “the easy way out.” You felt the frustration as it became clear when your baby needed to be fed, you couldn’t even walk over to the bassinet and lay back on the bed without assistance. You couldn’t bend down to pull up or down your own pants. You struggled to find a position to nurse that didn’t bother your raw incision. The exhaustion of a long labor plus a surgery recovery makes the through-the-night feedings a waking nightmare. And through it all you are thinking about how weak you must be compared to your natural childbirth friends who birthed their babies into their own waiting arms and then didn’t even need a Tylenol for the pain. Somehow your stooped walk down the hospital hall to figure out if your body is functioning normally becomes a walk of shame past the rooms of women who didn’t need to take the “easy way” out.

Mama, take a look at that beautiful baby in your arms. It’s okay to forgive him. You know he didn’t mean to mess up your birth plan and cause you all this pain, but you still might need to come to terms with his involvement. It’s okay if you’re frustrated. It’s okay if you’re disappointed. Your baby only needs to know you love him and this will someday be a story you tell him to show how hard you fought to bring him life. And how hard it feels today will fade. Your body will heal. You will move past the very raw emotions that feel like failure even as you hold the peaceful, precious, perfect body of your baby in your arms.

There will be women who don’t understand why you feel upset. They will think a birth is a birth, no matter how it happens. They don’t realize they’re minimizing your very real pain. They may say insensitive things without any understanding of your grief. They don’t know you hesitate to even use the phrase “gave birth” about your experience because you don’t feel as though you “gave” it at all. It feels much more like birth was taken from you. Mama, give them grace. They haven’t had to learn your lessons and there is beauty in the way they see the rightness of your baby’s arrival. Sometimes people don’t understand what they haven’t experienced and maybe your story will help them be more validating the next time they run across this situation.

There will be women who will make you feel judged. When they hear about the birth of your baby they will shake their heads knowingly and say, “mmmmm” at whatever point they assume you and your doctors went wrong. They will subtly (or not so subtly) imply their midwife or doula or hypnobirthing class is what has helped them avoid a similar fate. They will reference the same books YOU read and documentaries YOU watched and mantras YOU repeated as the reasons behind why they would never be in that situation. You will want to cry, “You weren’t there! You aren’t my doctor! You aren’t ANYBODY’S doctor! My baby is alive and healthy—why do you need to analyze what you perceive as my failings to make yourself feel better?” Mama, learn to give them grace. They don’t know the lessons you’ve had to learn. God has asked you to walk this path because it was right for you. Maybe they will experience this humbling in some other area of their life, but know God has shown Himself faithful to you through this.

There will be women who make you feel like a bad omen. When they ask for your advice about childbirth and you begin to tell your story, you can see their faces fall. They don’t want to know the reality of what you’ve experienced and maybe they feel if they don’t know such things can happen, those things can’t happen to them. Mama, learn to give them grace. Some women struggle with fear. Maybe the anxiety they’ll struggle with isn’t worth knowing what possibilities lie outside of our hopes and wishes for ease. The birth of your child was a beautiful event you struggled through and it has made you wiser and stronger. You don’t need to cast the pearls of your wisdom before those who aren’t ready to receive it.

Mama, what I most want you to know is YOU ARE STRONG. You battled and you survived. This c-section stuff isn’t for wimps. You are brave. You fought for the life of your child with all you had in you. You are wise. When it became clear dramatic interventions were needed, you trusted those who knew what they were doing and had  your best interests and the best interests of your child at heart.

(And ALL my love and respect and compassion for you mamas who battled for the life of your child only to find God had a different plan. You are in my heart. Heaven looks much sweeter to those of us who have children playing with Jesus today.)

Mama, this is how motherhood starts. It starts with a loss of control and a belief that God knows best. It’s a good lesson to learn before you start to think you can make your child be who you want him to be. It’s a foundation that will serve you well, along with that added humility you picked up while you couldn’t pick up anything over 10 pounds for a couple weeks. You’re having to learn to know your resources and depend on those trusted friends and family around you—so important for those parenting trials headed your way over the next 18 years.

You will make it through this. You didn’t choose this c-section, but you can choose who it makes you and how you see it. Give yourself some grace—with your body as you endure the slow and painful recovery, and with your emotions as you come to terms with things not going as planned.

You’ve got a big job in front of you. You’ll need all the grace you can get.

(You can read my introduction here)