Moms, It’s Ok To Grieve Your C-Section

When I got pregnant with my first baby I didn’t have a clue what I was in for. Sure I had read every ounce of literature I could get my hands on, but I had no idea what MY journey would look like. (affiliates included)

I watched The Business of Being Born and read about a bunch of other triumphant women who had given birth naturally and wanted to do the same.

I sat down and wrote out my birth plan carefully, noting all things that I did NOT want happening in the delivery room. No drugs, no monitoring, no interventions…

I had dreamed up this beautifully incredible pain that I wanted to experience.

It was this combination of gorgeous births I’d seen acted out in movies and words I’d read from others and it just seemed so magical.  I was scared of the pain but willing to walk through it. Eager, even.

It would hurt, absolutely, but I would conquer the pain, rise above it and do what women are supposed to do: birth babies.

Then one day during an ultrasound every dream I had in my mind was shattered when I saw a tiny butt down baby on the screen.

He was born via an emergency c-section a few months later and my daughter was born the same way.

I never got to experience real contractions or the feeling of pushing. I never got to ride the roller coaster of labor and delivery that ends with a screaming baby being laid on my chest.

The beauty of birthing a baby would be something I’d never experience and it made me sad.

I had to take some time to let myself be sad about it, to grieve the fact that there is something I wanted to do in my life that I will never get the chance to.

But here’s what is important: I delivered those beautiful babies to the world. How I did it doesn’t matter, I still got them here. I still went through pain (a lot of pain) to sacrifice for them. I still rode a very crazy roller coaster, it just wasn’t called Labor & Delivery. It was called The Cesarean Section. The name is irrelevant.

If you had a c-section and it wasn’t what you had hoped for, know this: you are still just as triumphant as the woman who gave birth naturally. You are no less of a mother.

Take a moment to let yourself grieve it and then remind yourself what a rock-star you still are. After all, with everything we can let ourselves feel guilty about, the way we birthed our babies should never be one of them.