The Trauma of Becoming a Mother

TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains mention of mental and physical health issues, as well as a birthing tale from a mother with post-traumatic stress disorder. This story may invoke uncomfortable and powerful personal emotions or strong emotions about women’s health in America. Proceed with caution.

The doctor’s voice trembled on the other side of the surgery partition as she pulled my baby out from my flayed abdomen - “He’s here, he’s here.” There was a slow, long silence. The quiet filled the room, drowning us in silent terror. What seemed like minutes was only seconds. Finally, sweet relief came with a wail.

“Is he okay?” I ask, panicked.

“He’s perfect, we’re just cleaning him up,” the doctor coos as the baby screams once more. Before long, the baby appears in my husbands arms as I lay in a sleep-deprived grog, anesthetized. All I could think were two things: one, my body needs rest, I need rest, and two, after all this work, all this pain, all of this struggle, I wasn’t even the first person to hold my baby, to welcome him into the world. Tears streamed down my face from deep grief, trauma, and pure exhaustion. The anesthesiologist continued to prod me awake repeatedly each time I’d drift into sleep, attempting to escape the personal hell raging all around.

The beaming white fluorescent lights on the moving ceiling flashed one by one past my eyes as my body was wheeled down the corridor after surgery. I kept them closed as I got back to the hallway where the recovery room waited. A jumble of voices became clearer upon our approach; I recognized them, but they weren’t invited. My body began to tremble and my anxiety heightened, but because I was so physically exhausted, I just laid there, breathing. In and out, in and out. The voices were jubilant and excited, chomping at the bit to receive their turn to interact with the new baby. Why had all these people felt as though they had the right to show up now, to greet my newborn child, when very few had made it a priority in the past to show up for me at all?

Meanwhile, I waited. Waited for rest, waited for comfort, waited for someone to recognize that I was drowning in the fresh trauma of birth. Waiting to finally meet my son, the soul for whom I endured the worst experience of my life. No one saw me. Though my eyes met theirs as I lay writhing in pain and sorrow, no one saw me. Of the thirty-some-odd people who filed in and out of the room, not one offered me rest, or comfort, or even acknowledgment. Congratulations echoed one after another to the vessel of the mother, but no one saw Sunny at all. Not only was I traumatized, I had been dehumanized, reduced to a human incubator. I lay there softly crying and no one came.

Each one filed in and out, one behind the other, in a single file line that directed each of them to the baby in his cradle for them to ogle and praise. After that, the line curved around to my bed where people came to gift us their sentiments. The congratulations flowed like wine but the energy in the room was clear - the intent of their visit was to see the brand new baby, the first in our families to be born in several years. Our baby had become everyone’s baby with no further discussion and no further consideration. No one had even noticed that I still hadn’t held my own son.

Finally, I mustered up the strength beyond the crushing weight of grief to squeak out, “Can I hold my son now?” Of course, everyone scrambled, embarrassed that they’d overlooked this massive error. As I held him for the first time, people made a b-line directly for me. Could they not see my red, swollen face, twice its size? Could they not see the pile of blood, sweat, and tears that occupied this bed? Did they not notice my absolute disdain for their presence?

“Do they have to be here?” I remember asking my husband of the spectators. Reassuring me that it would be over soon, and that I was doing great, I was dismissed. But, I was not doing great. Couldn’t he recognize that I was, in fact, dying? My spirit left crushed, withering beneath the weight of a birth gone awry, a pregnancy that had been plagued with depression, and little support up to this very moment? Was it really necessary to put me and all of my trauma on display for the world to watch in real-time? In and out of consciousness with a newborn baby attempting to suckle my neck, I prayed for rest, for peace, for relief. Must I continue to endure the ongoing parade of shame I experienced in becoming an exhibit at this human zoo?

“Aren’t you just over the moon?” they’d coo at me, expecting me to perk up, as my current demeanor as a woman in need tainted the entire room with discomfort. Everyone in the room had demands desired of me, spoken and unspoken. The staff wanted me to stay alert for medical examination. The visitors expected my full attention. My husband anxiously anticipated a partner in helping with the new life resting on my chest. They all needed me to carry the false narrative of a nothing-but-joyful childbirth to satisfy the great expectation of the self-sacrificing martyrdom of mothers, and I refused. I already bore the weight of the world on my shoulders. Instead, with a newborn on my chest, eyelids fighting to stay open, and arms dangling at my sides, I begged for my new husband to remove the baby and the guests from the room. At 22, he felt as though the narrative I refused to uphold for mothers was not a strategy he intended to invoke as a new father. Devoted to keeping the peace, he supported the baby on my chest as my arms lay dead beside me, attempting to quietly encourage me between visitors. With no hope of having my needs met and no hope of escape, my body forced itself into a shutdown mid-conversation. The last thing I remember was the warmth of this fragile little body cradled against my skin.

The first night was a blur, really, filled with beeping machinery and intermittent bright light. I hoped and prayed in between bursts of rest that tomorrow would be a new day, a better one for us all. Hope within me remained against all odds, even after this terrible experience forced me into becoming a sidelined participant of my own life. How did I end up here, from anxiously expectant mother to shell of a human being?

It began on a warm September day, three days from my baby’s due date. Swollen ankles had become my new norm for weeks with every joint in my body under strain from a fifty pound weight gain. Our thirty-nine-week appointment had arrived, and I was excited to see my baby boy for the final time before his arrival.

At the appointment, the doctor noticed a slightly elevated heart rate in the baby, so we participated in some quick monitoring to observe him in utero. I was assured that this was just a precaution, so we waited as the machine recorded our son’s heart rhythm. Eventually, a nurse came in to discuss the results. The news was less than ideal.

“The doctor said the baby’s heart rate is slightly elevated, so she’d like for you to be admitted tonight to be induced,” she said matter-of-factly, as though this was something as simple as a dinner order. I was blindsided. The doctor knew of my extensive birth plan, and supposedly supported me in its execution. The number one thing I most wanted was a naturally-induced labor. Research had revealed to me that women who are induced are more likely to require a cesarean, which I felt put me and the baby at unnecessary risk.

“Is it really needed,” I asked, “Because the doctor knows I’m really wanting to avoid induction.”

The nurse looked over at me coldly, annoyed that I had any questions at all.

“Do you want your baby to die?” she spat. I was stunned.

“Of course I don’t,” I choked out.

“Well, good. The doctor highly recommends this induction and if you don’t do it then we can’t guarantee anything. Your baby could die.”

I stood embarrassed, somehow ashamed that I’d been arrogant enough, stupid enough to question the doctor. How could I put my baby at risk like that? I decided in that moment that I would trust the doctor implicitly from that point on, even if it meant it would be to my own detriment - I couldn’t bear the thought of anything bad happening to my sweet boy.

From then on, the birth plan was picked apart like a raccoon carcass on a remote country road. My husband and I argued who would be allowed in the delivery room, with me relenting to letting my in-laws remain at his mothers demand, despite my then rocky relationship with the pair. I required several rounds of IV pain medications due to the forceful and painful contractions brought on by the unwanted induction drugs. The single request I had while in labor was that no one eat in the room, as I was starving and unable to eat for over a day. My own mother broke that rule when she thought she could explain away her behavior because she thought I was asleep. As the pain became unbearable, I began to gutturally groan in agony. The pain medication was gone. Instead of being met with support, my mother-in-law sobbed while my husband quietly pretended it wasn’t happening. What could he do? I could see my mother eyeing her, visibly annoyed, wondering if she should intercede. Praying that mother wouldn’t cause a bigger scene, I remained agitated suffering in pain, losing the only elements of this terrifying situation under my control. The stress I experienced in the weeks leading up to the birth and the birth itself must’ve had a profound negative impact on myself and the baby. No single person in the room respected me or my wishes, and it was proven in those moments through their actions. Not one person listened, not one even attempted to hear me. What should’ve been a beautiful moment for me and my son became a circus side-show of who could create the most dramatic act. I would have been livid had I not been completely incapacitated by drugs, literally attempting to move a child through my birth canal.

Next came the awkward intervention from my parents advocating for an epidural, which I also did not want. Stress filled the room as 15-year-old unaddressed tension between my parents brewed and that ugly energy subsequently flooded me. Everyone found my pain intolerable, as it was a major reminder of their own discomfort. Begrudgingly, I felt I had no choice once again other than to agree.

The anesthesiologist sauntered in, introduced himself, and got a fast start, barely explaining the procedure. The anxiety I felt was apparent, as I asked him questions. Regardless of my apprehension, he began anyway. I was asked to hold still, even though I was having contractions every minute and a half. Knowing how important it was to stay still, I spent all of my energy attempting to remain steady, but with each contraction my stomach lurched forward.

“Hold still!” he yelled at me, “You cannot move!”

“I know,” I said in a worried tone, “I’m trying. I keep contracting and it’s pulling me forward. I need help.” He ignored me. I couldn’t keep still; the contractions kept coming.

“Will someone help steady her or something? STOP MOVING!” he said, intimidatingly. The fear I felt grew by ten fold. It’s just another thing I can’t do right, I thought to myself. First I couldn’t go into labor on my own, then my baby was in danger, I couldn’t handle the pain of birth on my own, and now this.

The epidural was eventually placed, but it wasn’t working properly. Everything was numb except for my cervix which ached horrendously. It was by far the worst of the pain.

“The baby is attempting to push through without your cervix being dilated,” the doctor said as she checked my progress.

“Can’t we stop the induction drug causing the forceful contractions then? Or at least lower it from the maximum level?” I begged. The doctor refused on the grounds that it wasn’t the drug causing the problem.

“You haven’t made much progress. If you don’t make significant progress in the next hour and a half, we’re going to take you to the OR for a cesarean,” she said.

Tingling spread from my lips through the rest of my body as my spirit went cold. The notification of her seizing control of the final circumstance under which I’d been most desperately trying to avoid crushed any lingering hope. By the end of the birthing process, not one thing I had asked for had come to fruition. Not only that, I perceived that my body had failed to protect me, to protect us in abandoning its duties.

At a little after 4pm the doctor came to check me for the last time before making the decision to wheel me into surgery. As I travelled down the lonely hall with the doctors and nurses going on about their normal, insignificant conversation, I went into freeze mode, survival mode. Past trauma had taught me to shut down when the circumstances became insurmountable with no way out. Hiding inside the depths of my mind, embracing the numbness brought on by the violation of my soul felt like my final act. The need for self-preservation overrode all others. Beaten, broken, battered, and labored, for a solitary moment I didn’t care whether the baby survived because I wasn’t certain that I would survive.

The surgery began and I attempted to rest between bursts of agonizing pain in my cervix. The anesthesiologist wouldn’t allow rest, and I began to sob. The physical pain I was experiencing was the final blow to my humanity, and it broke me. I sobbed on the table, begging him to give me more drugs, even if it killed me.

“Can you feel them cutting?” he questioned startled, stopping the surgery.

“No,” I squawked, “It’s my cervix, the baby is still pushing on my cervix.”

The doctor smirked.

“I don’t think it’s your cervix,” he said in a saccharin voice laced with condescension. “You can’t feel your cervix.”

“I can, I can, and it’s agonizing.”

He informed me I had already been administered the maximum amount of drugs. I continued to quietly sob as my humanity and my body continued to be ripped apart.

The doctor warned me they were about to start dislodging the baby and that I might feel a lot of pressure as they were pulling him away from the birth canal. As she pulled, the baby’s head abruptly dislodged from my cervix, instantly relieving 80% of the pain I’d been feeling. That small gift of relief was the first I’d received in the entire birthing experience. I began to cry tears of relief as I thanked God aloud.

“Your pain is better now, like right as they pulled the baby?” the anesthesiologist asked, astounded.

“Yes,” I whispered nodding my head as my teeth began to chatter.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he thundered. “I guess you really could feel pain in your cervix.” When I tell you that I desired nothing more (aside from seeing my baby’s face) than to punch this guy right in the testicles, I emphatically mean it. As a note for men and male doctors everywhere, women do not require mansplaining of their own bodies, fuck-you-very-much.

The rest of the hospital stay got no better, and in fact continued to wear me thin. I developed fever and diarrhea shortly after delivery. The baby was unable to sleep longer than an hour at a time, attempting to feed every 40-minutes on empty breasts. The nursery staff complained that the newborn cried too often because he was hungry. I was 23 and knew nothing about babies, breast feeding, or parenting. Did I also mention I had a major surgery less than twelve hours prior?

Feeling as though I’d just been ran over by a truck, I was struggling with just caring for myself. Lactation specialists were sent to help me breast feed over 3 days. All three couldn’t identify the problem. The harder I tried to feed him with no milk, the harder and louder he screamed. They diagnosed me as having hypersensitive nipples, recommending that I just ‘stick with it’ as both myself and the baby cried from different types of pain. The nursery would only take him an hour at a time, even in the night. On the morning of day four, I called the nursery to tell them I’d made the difficult decision to end my breastfeeding journey with my son. I had so longed to do the right thing for him, to do the first most important thing a mother can do for her child. I felt like a failure on the other end of the phone, fighting back tears of shame. Expecting a brief and straight forward conversation, I was surprised when the nurse began berating me for my choice.

“I can’t just give him a bottle when you don’t feel like breast feeding. You can’t switch back and forth,” she barked.

“I know,” I said startled by her hatefulness, “unfortunately I can’t breastfeed so I need for him to start getting formula.”

I forget the middle of the conversation, but it was laced with cruel barbs, adding to my already overwhelming shame of feeling like a mothering failure.

“My baby is waking up every forty minutes crying, screaming because he is starving and I can’t watch him suffer anymore,” I say forcefully.

“If I give him a formula bottle, he’s staying on formula,” she retorted.

“Yes,” I replied, “that’s what I’ve been asking for.”

She quickly acknowledged my request and hung up the phone. Was it not enough that my body couldn’t bear the boy naturally, that I had to be drugged and sawed open, alive and conscious? Must I be dragged, humiliated for finally putting myself and my child first during this birthing fiasco by ending this breastfeeding torture for us both? When would this constant crucifixion of my spirit end?

Late into the first night with our son, my husband crumbled into my left arm, sobbing, as my son lay cradled, screaming loudly in my right. Through tears my husband communicated his uncertainty on his journey of becoming a father, not sure he could cope with the massive responsibility of being a dad. Looking back, I appreciate his honesty, as I had the same feelings of doubt. His secret affirmed my own internal apprehension as normal. Yet, in the moment, his admittance felt like another abandonment, leaving me stranded on an island all on my own. Unsupported, forced to hold all of my own feelings and trauma deep inside, I continued to disocciate.

The days came and went. More visitors would arrive without invitation and my resentment boiled into a rage. I required rest, yet no one abided by my request for solitude. I desired to bond alone with my son, but others felt they had more of a right to be with him. The trauma I’d just endured left me raw, aching for a soft, safe space to process. No safe space existed.

Even though my husband and I did our very best to please, and honored every visitor, allowed all of them to cross all of our boundaries, many left offended anyway. A few sent pages of text messages explaining how they were unhappy with the way we treated them, leaving them with hurt feelings which they weaponized against us by attempting to invoke feelings of guilt. One used our special time together to announce their own pregnancy. Several visitors viewed their time spent visiting as precious ‘alone’ time with the baby, until, of course, he needed something, leaving me or my husband to tend to his need. Only one visitor offered to really help us, to give us a reprieve from the burden of becoming sleepless new parents.

Society paints a sickeningly beautiful, dishonest picture of childbirth, an unrealistic portrait in a one-dimensional perspective of the singular most complicated event in existence: the creation of life. This story of my birth isn’t here to tell you that joyous birth is all bullshit, but rather so that we can all finally acknowledge that the birthing process is so much more intricate, that the creation of life brings joy, excitement, anxiety, relief, terror, overwhelm, and grief and all of these feelings are valid.

The fact of the matter is, this birth story left me traumatized. Two years after my sons birth, I was diagnosed with PTSD. Intensive therapy began as I found out about the second child I was carrying, otherwise the therapist wouldn’t have caught it. The doctors missed it for years, even though I’d been advocating for myself, telling them something wasn’t right. Birth is the creation and bringing forth of life, the most complex of processes. It’s not surprising that in this time women experience a substantial range of emotions, but it is surprising to me that we still live in a time where we still punish the mother for any emotional expressions aside from happiness.

Flashbacks still happen now and again, though they don’t haunt me as they once did in the past. Used too, I couldn’t look at a sweet baby without feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread. Their shrill shrieks sent shivers down my spine and waves of nausea that invaded my belly. Tears would well in my eyes as I’d have to make up an excuse to leave the room; anything to escape the prison of panic induced by the baby’s presence. As one can imagine, this PTSD also impacted my ability to bond with either of my own children. To this day, I still can’t remember much of their young childhoods due to the heightened state of my post-traumatic baseline.

Not all births are joyful. Not all births end in PTSD. One certainty remains: every birth culminates in an array of feelings and those feelings are valid. It’s okay to be okay. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel everything and still come out elated or devastated on the other side.

What mothers need is not our praise, our congratulations, or our admiration, but they do require our support. Each mother deserves to have her basic needs met, to be treated with decency, and to have her humanity preserved. Every mother needs another to simply listen, validate her experience, and love her through to the very end. Grant us our humanity and we will find our own freedom.