The Birth Trauma Mama

I’ve had several of you reach out asking me to create a post where people can comment to connect with another survivor in their area. And honestly, I feel like we could all really use community and connection, especially of the in-person variety!

✨So, this is that post!

📍Please feel free to comment where you’re located (general locations- since this is a public post) and any parts of your story that may help others connect with you!

☕️ 👩🏽‍🍼Let’s get these coffee dates and nap time hang outs rolling.

And if you do hang out- don’t forget to take a picture and tag us so we can share it 📸😊

And the cycle continues. Leaving us with over a million traumatized families a year, blaming themselves for what they were told their body should “know how to do.”

We’ve discussed at length the harmful impact of blanket statements such as “your body was made for this.” We have several posts sharing alternative approaches.

But, I think one of the most difficult parts about the people and communities that push this messaging is when something doesn’t fit that narrative, when birth does go wrong, when our body doesn’t work “as it was meant to” they often dismiss or ignore it. They don’t change their approach, they don’t adjust their words. Instead, they dismiss your experience as an anomaly and double down on this messaging. Only to set up an entire new wave of pregnant individuals for the same feelings of shame and brokenness.

They pump people up to believe their body was made to do this no matter what and then they turn around and discount their experience when it doesn’t fit the narrative. The problem is that over a million families a year fall into this category. Yes, that is a systemic issue with the very high incidence of birth trauma. Yes, we need to pay attention to that (as this account is dedicated to doing), but we also need to adjust this narrative and we need to honor and hold space for the many stories and voices of those with a different narrative.

I genuinely believe that the intent of this statement is a good one, but the impact, not so much. We want people to go into their birth feeling empowered, which I think is the intent of this statement, but we also have to consider the impact for the many who feel their birth did not go smoothly. ⁣
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Those who end up on the other side of their birth (whether it was traumatic or not) feeling like it didn’t go the way it was “supposed to” remember this statement and often think, “well I guess I did something wrong, because my body didn’t do what it was designed to.” ⁣
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The feeling of shame is then further exacerbated when it’s made clear that our stories shouldn’t be told, so as not to scare those who are pregnant, the ones who are being reminded over and over again that their body was made to do this.

I’ve always believed that there’s a part of me I lost on the day Cal was born. The moment my life changed for ever, was also the moment a part of me ceased to exist.

Sometimes, in the quiet moments I think about her and how excited she was to give birth. I see her in the smiling pictures as she gripped her big round belly. I feel her when I read the texts I sent during my labor. And I grieve her and all that she lost that day.

And while I grieve her and her unbridled joy and innocence, I also know how proud that part of me is to know that I survived this, to know that there was so much joy to be found amidst the trauma.

There was a part of me I lost that day, but also many more I’ve found along the way 💜

Your patient is crying because she just found out she will need a c-section instead of the vaginal delivery she expected. You have a choice for how you respond.

I want you to choose the second option. I want you to fight the urge to offer blanket reassurance in an attempt to get rid of the feelings. Their feelings won’t go away. Instead, they will just feel that they’re not okay to have. They will likely feel shame, the opposite of the comfort you’re aiming to provide.

This kind of response changes outcomes. This is the difference between feeling supported and heard and being dismissed and invalidated. I know the first response is meant to be reassuring, but I can promise you that for most patients it has the opposite effect.

This then creates a domino effect in that patient’s care. Feeling invalidated and unheard can lead to patient withdrawal and diminished confidence in their ability or desire to self-advocate in future interactions, leading to more trauma and/or undesired outcomes.

As a provider or nurse working in L&D you have the ability to literally change patient outcomes with your words. This exchange above is just one example, but most are this simple. Just changing a few words, validating feelings instead of dismissing them. It’s that easy. It’s that simple to be the hero in someone’s story instead of the source of trauma and grief.

As a reminder, you might not always get it right and that’s okay, you can always repair, you can always try again. Thank you for your efforts to prevent and mitigate trauma in your patients. You are changing lives.

🩸🚘Please join us for our annual blood drive at Paoli Hospital on November 1st from 7a-5p.

This is my annual effort to give back in honor of the 140+ units of blood product I required during my AFE. I’d be so grateful if you considered stopping by to donate and say hi! 👋🏼

In honor of the incredible premiere of 24 𝑫𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒀𝒐𝒖 this weekend, I’m sharing the story of my friendship with for those who don’t already know it.

It’s such a complicated feeling to hate amnitoic fluid embolism and the way it destroys families with every fiber of my being and simultaneously have such fierce love for those who it’s brought into my life.

Annie, this weekend was truly a testament to you and your story, to your strength and your vulnerability. It is going to impact so many who watch and realize that it’s okay to not be okay after birth trauma. That they deserve to get the support they need. That they can get better. That this will not be there forever.

So grateful to know and love and beyond proud of her for sharing her story in this way.

If you streamed 24 𝑫𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒀𝒐𝒖, it would mean so much to us if you shared your thoughts in the comments ⬇️

Words & photo: .to.anna

From her book - Girl (Remastered)

I have not seen a better or more beautiful description for the push and pull of life after birth trauma, or any loss/trauma for that matter. It’s almost like the words jumped up and grabbed me into a big hug when I first read them.

It felt too powerful not to share, especially that last line.

“Don’t try to pull me one way or the other, because one can’t exist without the other” ❤️

A letter of sorts to those who have just experienced thier birth trauma (or anyone who needs the reminder).

There are so many things I wish I would have heard, or been able to tell myself after birth trauma. One of my goals for this community has always been to share those words and affirmations with those who come after us in hopes that we can at the very least soften thier suffering. We can at the very least take away the isolation and loneliness.

These are just a few thoughts. I would love to create a comment section full of birth trauma survivors who have been there, offering support to those who are just coming out of the fog 💜

What would you add? What words would you share with a new birth trauma survivor? ⬇️

I often hear “don’t let fear run your birth” from so many different birth education spaces. I somewhat understand it, in theory. However, when it comes to birth trauma, of course, your past experience(s) is going to affect your future decisions around birth. That is okay. That is valid. You are asking your body and nervous system to revisit an experience that was one of the worst days or times of your life.

If you’re able to have more children, we know that birth trauma experiences weigh heavily in the decision to even have another child. Then, if you decide to move forward, there are so many different decisions within pregnancy and birth that are impacted by your previous experience(s).

It’s wild to act like birth trauma won’t or can’t have an impact on future birth experiences. Of course, the goal is to work toward integration of trauma in an effort to decrease your risk for feeling retraumatized, but that doesn’t erase its impact. Treating trauma does not erase your traumatic birth.

We grapple with our fears and anxieties for daily decisions. We don’t ignore it. What makes birth different? Why are so many willing to write off fear as “not belonging in the birth room?” We cannot think away our fear; we cannot erase it. But we can accept it. We can get curious about it. We can work with it as we make future decisions.

For some, these decisions may look like a planned C-section. For others it may be a vaginal delivery with a very specific plan for communication if there is a complication that requires a C-section, or if you decide you want to switch to a C-section. This is just one example of the many decisions birth trauma can impact.

While we know that we cannot control birth, there are some things we can do to help provide a better sense of autonomy and control within birth.

Trauma, loss, mental health, etc. are all valid factors in making your subsequent birth decisions.

Fear is not running your birth. You are making informed decisions based on past experiences.

* As always if this isn’t a choice you get to make or an experience you get to have again after birth trauma. I’m so sorry and I hate that you’re a part of this club too 💔

There were so many nights like these postpartum where I found myself whispering apologies to Cal as tears slid down my cheeks. I hated that this had happened to him, to us. I felt the desperate need to fix it, to finally make it “right.”

Sometimes, birth trauma convinces us that we need to be the perfect parent in order to make up for trauma of their birth. That we somehow let our kid down by something that was completely out of our control. That if we had just tried harder or done more, it wouldn’t have been like this.

So, we convince ourselves that we just have to try harder and do more to make up for it. That we have to parent perfectly to undo the trauma. But, this is the trauma talking. We can’t undo what happened and it wasn’t our fault.

As I often share in this space, I will always hold grief for the way Cal was forced into this world, I will always feel badly that it couldn’t have been different. I will always wish that he got to have his mom there.

But, I no longer hold fault for what has occurred. I no longer whisper apologies from the place that I or my body somehow did this to him. I apologize for what we were forced to go through together. I apologize for the sh*tty circumstances we were dealt. And I reiterate my gratitude for the ways he reminded me to fight, for the ways we both helped each other survive.

If you are still navigating these feelings, please know you are not alone. It is so common to feel this way after birth trauma. In previous posts, I’ve discussed the way that self-blame can actually offer us a perception of control and therefore serves us. Self-blame after birth trauma is common and multifaceted. Bottom-up therapies like EMDR, brain spotting, somatic-experiencing etc. can help to disentangle these negative self-beliefs that are so inherently tied to our trauma.

I’m sorry that we had to endure this together and I know that I did the best I could with what I had at the time. I was and am the best possible mom that I can be for Cal. And that is more than good enough.

You are the best mom/parent for your child. You are more than good enough.

This week marks the beginning of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Pregnancy and/or birth trauma do not always result in a living baby. As this awareness month begins, I want to hold space for those who not only endured trauma during pregnancy, birth, and/or postpartum, but who were also forced to bear the grief and trauma of losing their child. I am so sorry your baby doesn’t get to be here and that you don’t get to watch them grow up. It’s not fair, but I know you’re already intimately aware of how unfair it is. Your stories and your babies deserve to be honored this month and always in whatever way feels good to you.

And for those of us who have not had to face the devastation of child loss, let’s hold space and empathy and refrain from the platitudes and toxic positivity. Let’s show up, not just this month, but every month. Check-in with friends and loved ones who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss. Ask them about their babies. Send them a reminder that you’re thinking of them.

For those in this community who have experienced the death of a child through pregnancy, birth, or infancy, we would love to hear about your babies and their stories if you feel comfortable sharing.

Also, please feel free to share your favorite pregnancy and infant loss account below- I’d love to be able to share them.

After our most recent podcast episode, I found myself reflecting on my journey of having an only child after birth trauma. I stumbled upon this comment on a previous post from a follower who grew up as an only child.

I hope this offers some relief or lightness to those of us who struggle either with making this decision or having this decision made for us by birth trauma.

As always, there is grief in what we have lost and joy in what we get to keep ✨

Trauma is encoded in fragments with sensory information attached- images being the obvious, but also sounds, smells, touches, etc.

For birth trauma survivors, these sensory reminders are often some of the most intense triggers.

Unlike typical memories, the sensory information (and feelings attached to it) processed with our trauma does not fade. It stays stuck, unchanged in its intensity, just like the trauma memory itself. It’s the moment when you grab a random hand sanitizer and the smell puts you right back in the NICU or when you hear the song that was playing in your L&D room before delivery and you’re back in that room.

I will never forget the specific alarming sound of the monitors, the smell of the alcohol before each shot of heparin, or the literal taste of the ICU air. It brings me right back to that bed in that ICU.

When I hear the specific sound of the “shusher” yes that orange and white one, or see the slow pulsing green light of an owlet, I’m brought right back to the devastation of postpartum, of barely surviving myself while watching others enjoy my newborn.

One of the most intense and surprising sensory triggers for me was the smell of lavender essential oils. I didn’t realize it, but it had been used in the ICU to help me calm down. The first time I smelled it again was when I returned to work (in a therapy office) and my coworker had it diffusing in her office. I started to panic and it took me a minute to realize why. One of the hardest things is to be so blindsided by certain triggers, to be taken by surprise by the intensity of the activation related to such a seemingly small thing.

There are so many different sensory reminders and triggers in all of our different stories. This is a such common experience after trauma. You are not alone in it 💜

What have been some of the most intense or surprising sensory triggers for you? ⬇️

There’s a myriad of reasons I choose to share my own story and others’ stories through our listener story series podcast. But this message right here, this is the biggest “why” I could ever imagine.

I will often hear “what’s the point in raising awareness through your story if AFE can’t be prevented or even technically treated. It only serves to scare people about something they can’t predict of prepare for.”

This is why.

Preparedness saves lives.

If this space, if sharing my story and its impact did nothing else ever again, it did this. And that is more than enough. Our stories can change lives. They can change outcomes. They can heal.

I shared this in my stories last week to highlight the call to medical providers to be prepared and I received lots of responses from others explaining their beautiful “whys” for sharing their own traumatic birth stories.

I want to use this post to provide a permanent space in this community for everyone to show up and share their why.

We are so often told to keep quiet, to not scare others by sharing our stories, and yet we see the good it can do. There are so many different ways to share your story, all equally important.

For those who’ve felt ready and called to do so, how do you share yours?

What’s your “why”? ⬇️

When I met my baby for the first time after birth trauma, I thought they had given me the wrong baby.

I didn’t realize how common this was until I started talking about it in this space. So many others in this community have reached out to share that they had a similar experience during their birth trauma, especially those who weren’t conscious or didn’t feel present in their body during their birth. I thought there was something terribly wrong with me. But, it was just that there was something terribly wrong with my birth experience.

Because we convince moms and parents that bonding is automatic, that when your baby is placed on your chest you will have an instant connection, we feel like something must be wrong when that doesn’t occur. A lot of us wonder if this is our baby. If it was our baby, wouldn’t we feel that overwhelming love and connection that everyone talks about? Is this really our baby?

It felt (and still sometimes feels) hard to admit this. It feels awful to consider that my son would ever think that I didn’t believe he was my baby. But, then I remind myself, and everyone else who has experienced this that it’s a result of trauma. It’s a result of your birth experience being fractured in a way that made it impossible to connect to, impossible to process. Your nervous system was still in protection mode it was doing everything it could to help you survive. How is anyone supposed to feel connected in that context?

You were just doing the best you could. Those initial feelings are not indicitave of your long-term bond with your baby. Bonding takes time. Be kind to the version of you who was just trying their best to survive. They’re the version who got you here, to a place where you are able to build or continue to build that connection with your child.

If you’ve experienced this or anything similar, we’d love to hear from you in the comments. Thank you for helping others in this community feel less alone with these feelings and experiences 💜

Just as our trauma begins to seep into our very being and take deep roots in our lives, it begins to fade from the memory of others. ⁣
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Just as the birth trauma journey begins for us, it ends for those around us. They see a ”healthy” mom and baby. They see you enjoying your baby and they feel nothing but gratitude because you’re here, you survived. They agree to all move past this horrific event, wash their hands of that awful day. ⁣
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Except, you can’t. You’re stuck with the memories. You’re stuck with the trauma. Surviving doesn’t erase it. Oh, how we wish it did. ⁣
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There’s an apprehension that occurs as you’re slowly left behind with your trauma. Knowing that your trauma is staying, even as you watch everyone else move on. ⁣
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It feels like you’re watching as they all board the ship to immediate healing without you, and you’re on the shore watching as they slowly fade further and further away. ⁣
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But then, you find your own ship, albeit a much slower, more difficult to steer ship, but a ship full of wonderful humans who have walked the same journey as you. And you eventually realize it’s okay to stay close to the shore. You don’t have to leave it completely, but you can take longer and longer trips away from it, with the support of these wonderful humans. ⁣
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It’s not about forgetting our trauma occurred, it’s about learning to cope with it as a part of our lives, learning how to grow around it, rather than getting rid of it. ⁣
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I’d love to hear how this has looked for you.💜⁣

I also want to acknowledge that not all birth trauma ends with a living baby. And yet we still see this same experience. The loneliness of holding their death and the trauma of their birth for the rest of your life while others slowly move on. I’m so sorry for everyone who is holding this as their story 💔

This is not an us v. them post. It’s a room for all types of birth stories post. Positive birth stories, challenging birth stories, distressing birth stories, traumatic birth stories, let’s hear them all!

I find it odd that there’s a shaming term for birth trauma survivors sharing their stories, but not for those who are super excited to share how well their experience went. Sharing your birth story is not “trauma dumping” just because your birth story is a difficult one. Just like someone sharing their positive birth story isn’t done maliciously to brag or rub salt in anyone’s wounds who didn’t have a similar experience. It’s wild that people initiate sharing their birth stories in a social setting and only the one with the traumatic story gets labeled as “over sharing” or “trauma-dumping.” We’re not talking about chasing down pregnant people and holding them down while we force-feed them our stories, we’re talking about sharing a birth story in a conversation about birth stories (or when someone literally asks).

It’s difficult to walk around holding an experience that completely changed your life and no one knows. It’s difficult to be told you have to censor your story or that it shouldn’t be allowed because it harms or scares others. Your story deserves to be told if you’re comfortable sharing it. Your story is just as meaningful and deserving of space as others.

Positive birth stories can be difficult for this community to hear, but we also don’t tell others to shut up about them, because we know that’s our own stuff coming out not theirs. All we ask is the same. Our stories will absolutely scare people, but that’s about their stuff and how they cope with the fact that scary things CAN happen during birth. It’s their responsibility to create individual boundaries for themselves and the content they consume (just as it is ours), but not to shame others because our stories are scary.

Yes, it must be scary to hear, imagine how scary it was to live through.

I wanted to share this reminder as we head into sick season.

I have had several bouts of illness since my AFE and it always feel a twinge of panic when it comes on. The increased heartrate, the fatigue, it all feels a little too familiar to my time in the ICU. It’s improved with treatment and time, but I will never forget how terrifying those first few sicknesses were.

I was convinced I was going to die, because that’s what my nervous system believed. It was reexperiencing our birth based on the physical sensations of sickness and it felt like I was just along for the ride. I couldn’t avoid or escape the trigger, because the trigger was my own body. The more sick I felt, the more I would panic and the panic would just lead to feeling more sick. It was a never-ending cycle.

And then there was the reminder of the helplessness. The feeling so sick and out of it that I can’t take care of my own child. Feeling so weak and brain-fogged that l can focus only on the needs of my own body. A reminder of the weeks and months sitting in that corner of the couch, watching the world pass me by, watching as my baby grew up without me.

I know there are many in this community who also experience these same feelings related to their baby and their baby’s health whenever they get sick.

You may have been told that you’re overreacting, making a big deal out of nothing when it comes to your or your child’s health, but I’m here to remind you that you’re not. You’re not overreacting, you’re reacting to what your nervous system is experiencing as a life-threatening situation.

When we find ourselves or our kiddos sick, we not only play out “worst-case” scenarios, but our brain often convinces us we are currently living one.

Health anxiety after birth trauma is common and shows up in so many different ways, too many ways to cover in this one post. But, if you’ve experienced this please know you are not alone. Treatment and time can help shift these feelings and responses.

Be kind to yourself as you navigate this cold and flu season.