I had thought about writing a post about my labor and childbirth experience but never got myself around to do it. Truth be told, even at this very moment, when I find myself typing this, I am still unsure as to why approach it, what will come out of it and whether there is only one key message prevailing. Most likely, my very own account of my labor and childbirth was an amalgamation of many different factors.

Michel Odent once said that “to change the world we must first change the way babies are born“. Never before had a quote resonated so much with me than after I experienced what was childbirth was about.

A long runaway

My labor experience was an amalgamation of many different factors because it is really difficult to put into words and convey intelligibly what I went through. Pregnancy are emotion-ridden and hormones-filled events. In hindsight, I think the labor I had was the culmination of some miscalculations, misinformation and perhaps lack of confidence in myself. Or perhaps it was not. I don’t really know. I recall my pregnancy as an emotionally challenging one, because of my personal circumstances at the moment and my quest to find an obstetrician I felt somehow connected with and understood what I was hoping for. I set off on a tour around different clinics in Barcelona, where I was living at the time, only to end up confronted with the fears which some of the doctors sparked in me, for being a “geriatric mother”. Looking back, that was not only unnecessary but completely counterproductive…There I was: a completely puzzled first-time-mom-to-be.  I was 36 years old when I became pregnant and my pregnancy was diagnosed as a low-risk one, but doctors seemed unable to detach myself from the label “geriatric”. I knew I was one of them, but never thought that age was such a relevant factor. At the end of the day, aren’t women increasingly having their first child at a later age in their lives?

To set the record straight, I was only hoping for a natural birth. By this, I did not  I did not mean to give birth in a hot-water pool at home. Reading about the experiences of other women who did have a completely natural birth in the water fascinated me, but I was not confident or empowered enough to inquire into that possibility. I would consider it if I had a second child, but at the time, it was only something mystical I was mesmerized by.

In hindsight, I believe that I was so obsessed with having everything under control in order to fill up a void in my life at the time. Looking back, I also feel it was a shame I did not get to fully enjoy my pregnancy as it is, a completely natural process, instead of being in a constant state of worry and anxiety.

Labor Dream vs Labor Reality

I wanted a natural birth and end up having an assisted birth which was everything but natural. On the contrary, it was a rather traumatic experience, both for me and my son. This is how I recall it. My water broke during one of the many checkups I had in week 38 and which involved very unpleasant ( and unnecessary, as I found out later) vaginal examinations. I can recall very vividly what happened from that point: Being taken to an emergency box where I stayed for several hours until I was taken to a room where I was greeted by a stern- looking nurse, which told me that the baby had to be monitor, so freedom of movement was off the charts.  An equally harsh-looking midwife made an appearance shortly after, stating that, as contractions were very far apart, they could have to inject me Pitocin to kick off labor. I asked if it was possible to wait and give it a few more hours until contractions triggered naturally without having to resort to drugs. The answer I got was that I was not in a hotel. I had been there for 4 hours and they seem to be in a hurry to kick things off. I told the midwife I had a birth plan with me and that seemed to displease her even more. From that moment on, I had the feeling that everything was doomed.

There I was, having a non-elective and non-justified induction. My idea of having a drug-free labor was not going to happen. Epidural came afterward ( because I requested it, of course). A second shot shortly before the delivery phase. But I was already exhausted by then.

I remember being taken to the delivery room, recalling the midwife telling the obstetrician that the baby was big and I had a narrow pubic bone. The obstetrician seemed to say, ok, let’s give it a go. Pushes ensued, but I was numb. The midwife got almost on top of me to push the baby out. Later, I found that what she performed the Kristeller maneuver, an obstetric practice not recommended by the World Health Organisation due to the risks involved both for mother and baby and which is not authorized in some Western countries, such as the UK.

I knew something was not going smoothly when I was told they would have to use forceps to get the baby out. I started sobbing when I heard that infamous word: it was exactly what I was more afraid of. I was praying that my baby was OK and hoped for that moment to pass quickly. But they were the longest minutes of my entire life.

My son was born with shoulder dystocia, which I later found out that it was an unusual birth complication, whereby one shoulder gets stuck in the birth canal preventing his body from being born. When this happens, doctors need to take the baby out in order to prevent fatal damage due to not enough oxygen reaching him. I have a blurred but vivid picture of more people coming to the obstetrician side, and, after a few minutes, my son was born. We were not allowed skin-to-skin contact as I had stated in my birth plan. He was taken by the midwife to be checked upon and then handed into his father arms while I started vomiting and later went into convulsions. Then I remember getting a shot from the same anesthetist who had given me the epidural a few hours earlier. I never knew which drug was it. I did not have the strength to mutter a word. Shortly afterwards I was taken to a room upstairs, completely passed out and unable to grasp what had really happened.

24 hours within birth, my son was taken to the ICU due to respiratory distress. That was the most painful part, not even the third-degree tear, the stitches from the huge episiotomy or the mix of emotions rippling through me. It was the void and the emptiness, which hit me like a wave. During the time I was in hospital, separated from my son, I felt delusional, constantly hearing babies crying in the adjoining rooms and hoping that everytime someone entered the room it was the pediatrician in shift, coming to tell me that the nightmare was finally over.

The picture below is the only one I had with my son at the hospital – if I look at it, I can re-live that rollercoaster of emotions, and I  can’t choke back the tears. I thought I was going to be the happiest woman on earth and that labor and childbirth would be the most sacred and transcendental experience of my life, but it was not. Far from it: I felt numb, battered, shocked, mistreated, sad… I felt I was being robbed of what was supposed to be my life’s most precious moment.

It is not easy to write or talk about a traumatic labor. It is very challenging to put into words the shock, the guilt and the anger you feel if you go through such as intense experience. For a very long time, I felt – and I still have that feeling to this date – that no one could really understand the mix of emotions I felt. There was always that conclusive sentence that “in the end, the baby was OK” which made me feel like I was the most ungrateful person. Yes, I am aware that the outcome could have been worse.  But I too, like Odent, think that how we arrive into this world matters.

If you have managed to read until this point, firstly, I want to sincerely thank you for that, and also let you know that my personal account of what happened tells me that obstetric violence does exist, that sometimes things just don’t go as we had hoped for, that we have the right to grieve and that scars – physical and emotional- are also beautiful, because they tell a story of survival.

I really wish that all women, their partners, and their babies could receive a fair treatment wherever they give birth, I wish they all receive the care that such an important life event requires and that everyone experiences the childbirth they wish for. If you do, feel blessed for being given that precious gift. And if you did not have the experience you would have hoped for, you may feel blessed too, because you are a warrior and a survivor. And so is your baby.