CD3 - And WARNING Birth Trauma Talk

Cd3 Bloodwork today - no results though because I am not in a "treatment cycle." If I was trying this month the clinic would have phoned me by 3pm with results. I can call in on Monday if I want results - if not then I will find out more on the 24th when I go in for the HSG.

Trigger warning: Please stop reading if you are sensitive about complicated birth/ labour.

In the waiting room today I was reading an article in some magazine, can't remember, I was called pretty quickly for the blood draw. Anyway, the article was one woman's story about PPD. Her story was so similar to mine, right down to the complicated labour/delivery with the baby in NICU. Man I could relate to what she was writing. Time has passed and I do feel so differently about what happened the day C was born - and the days and weeks that followed. But I could relate. The writer really took me back there. She happens to be pregnant with baby #2 and this was important to the story she was telling... she closed the article with the idea that it isn't how you give birth that matters, it was what you do afterwards - in the years and years that follow as you raise that baby up. She was like me in that she was really focused on giving birth and that giving birth had to happen a certain way. I think for me that was how I coped with the unpredictability of mamahood/welcoming a new baby into my life - I coped by almost fixating on the fact that labour/delivery were complicated. I don't know. But I was stuck and sad and that led to depression, in the beginning. Which led to not asking for help and turning inward.

Prior to giving birth I fixated on how I will give birth as a way to cope with how scared I actually was about giving birth; I was trying to be in control of something that by nature is not something one can control. I know now that it is what it is. But there I was with all these expectations and judgements. My birth plan was verrrrrrrry specific.

We are getting ready to put our house on the market... and one night before bed we were talking about all the memories we've made in this house over the 9 years we've lived here. We were taking turns almost. On one of my turns I said, "my water broke on the kitchen floor..." It did. And it was filled with meconium and followed by a 2 minute drive (literally) to the hospital just up the road. Labour became fast and painful after my water broke. 45 second contractions that were about 1-2 minutes apart. I've come to associate the pain of labour with the fear that something is wrong with my baby - and something was wrong her lungs and stomach were full of meconium when they emergency c-sectioned her out.

I worry that I will be scared the next time I give birth (if even there is a next time) because I will associate that pain with being afraid. Labour pain means good things - baby being born, body doing what it needs to do, etc. But I don't know if I will be able to be zen like that.

I don't know what I am trying to say. This just feels like stuff I need to write out. And I will say this - remembering all of this has not been a bad thing at all - and that woman's article was a good thing to read on my CD3 bloodwork day.