Back to the first birth - Part 3: Baby #1

Little T was home, but he had not arrived in the way I had hoped and dreamed would happen.

When the birth of your precious first child is not an occasion marked with joy, but one fraught with fear and pain....

I was numb from it all, and continued to be so for at least a good six months from when he was born. Emotional trauma.

I don't remember much.

I remember struggling to nurse him in hospital.  He didn't understand how to latch on with a conventional cross-body hold.  The first time I tried to feed him he just started to get upset. He was distressed. He didn't understand, didn't want the nourishment. He was being fed through a tube down his throat. I think another little part of me died then. But I followed my instincts and just cuddled him close. Forget about feeding, I needed to comfort him. I guess I did. He settled down again.
Would he do that for anyone? Or did he need his mother - did he need me?

I remember feeling like he was a stranger to me.

I doubted if he was my child at all.

What happened to my baby?

What if they had gotten him mixed up?

I'd never know.  I certainly couldn't tell he was mine.

He was just this little strange thing I had to take care of.

I was so detached.

There was no bond.

I remember reading somewhere that mothers who had trouble bonding with their child would sometime lick them, just like any new animal mother would lick theirs. I tried it. I thought it helped somewhat.

I was still detached.

There was no connection. No all encompassing mother-heart-love.

Just him. And me. Trying to figure it out together.

At least he smelt like my husband and I.  For the first few days.

At least he seemed to recognize my voice and my touch.

At least we worked out the breastfeeding.

He fed until he was about 18 months old, and would have kept nursing, but I was pregnant with my second child, so we sort of just stopped. But I was so grateful for every time he nursed. It finally felt like we finally had some sort of a connection. I think I would have lost it completely if we hadn't have had a chance to breastfeed. It would have been beyond what I could endure.

These things I do remember.

I also remember feeling guilty that I didn't mind putting my baby down, or letting other people hold him. In fact, sometimes it was a relief to forget I was now a mother to this stranger.

But sometimes my arms would ache unaccountably to cradle my little baby son, and I couldn't bear to go another minute without him as close to me as possible, tucked up under my chin.  Those moments I would latch onto with all my might, fiercely triumphant that some part of me knew that he was mine and I wasn't letting go.  Those moments proved to me that I did love my little boy, even though sometimes I still felt like I didn't.

I felt as if we had been estranged from each other, the relationship broken before it even begun....

Oh, how it hurt.

A pain too deep to carry, tearing apart your very core as a mother, even whilst you are trying to become that very one - a mother to your son.
 
I still bear the scar, but faith, prayer and peace from my dearest friend Jesus Christ has done much to heal those terrible wounds.

Now, though He upholds me, I still struggle with what was, and knowing how much better it could have been.

In some ways the birth of my daughter helped to heal the "could-have-beens" and in others, served to make them much, much worse.

So now I struggle with the guilt of comparison. Of feeling like I neglected my son, and didn't love him fully as a baby as I should have done.

I struggle feeling like I somehow deserted him because I was so constricted by my own pain; a pain I couldn't fully recognize or even comprehend at the time.

Nothing about Little T's birth made sense to me, or makes sense even now.  I still cry over it - the trauma is still there.  My heart still mourns for what was lost, and the bond I feel that was severed irrecoverably.

...   ...   ...

Back then there were the well-meaning words of advice.  Mental Trauma.

I was told I should be happy.

"Healthy mother, healthy baby" - I heard that phrase from my midwife, from the doctors, the nurses, and worst - my closest family and friends.

No one knew at first how those words stabbed.  Happy?  Happy that I had just been through the most traumatic event of my life?  Happy that I felt like I was about to die after being chopped up like a steak on a butcher's tray? Happy that I felt completely numb inside?

And then I couldn't hold it back any longer - no.  I was not ok. I was not fine. I was not healthy. What had happened to me and my son was not ok.

I poured it out to my husband first. He didn't understand, though he tried his hardest.

I got angry with my family when they said I should be happy.

I held my tongue when other mothers would recount their birth stories, knowing that I would burst into tears if I said anything more than "He was born by emergency c-section."

I hated using the word 'born'.

It felt like it was a lie, because he wasn't born.  He was yanked out of me, severed from my body in the cruelest way possible. They had gutted me and stolen my son away.

No. I was not happy. Not healthy.

I was so jealous of any mother that had their baby naturally. I tried to be happy for them, but my own pain would intrude. I knew I couldn't continue to let it be that way.  I had to find healing. I had to face it all - the pain, the grief, the fear.

I had to find a way to forgive myself, to forgive those that did this things to me, to forgive those that failed to support me when I need them too, and to forgive God for allowing this dreadful thing to happen.

I learned that I had done the very best for my baby that I knew how - it was because I loved him that I surrendered to this horrible experience. I did it all to save him. So I forgave myself for allowing it all to happened.

I forgave the doctors, but I don't trust them at all any more.  They did what they had to at the time, but it is because they did what they did in the beginning, that they had to do what they did in the end. I still don't believe they knew what was right or best for my baby and I.

I forgave those I felt had failed me, and I knew it was partly my fault for not communicating my fears and wishes better. I also learned not to listen to advice that I felt was wrong, or went against my instincts.  Sometimes it's so hard to stand up against the outside pressures, or emotional and mental exhaustion, but when it comes to your baby - it is not worth giving up as long as the decision is in your hands and you know what is right.

I surrendered my will into God's hands, though I still don't know why it had to be how it was.

But as with all things pertaining to unfathomable matters of the heart - matters in which I cannot fully understand my own feelings, thoughts or emotions - I lean on the One who is greater than I, the One who understands all the pain of humanity, and yes, even the pangs of a mother-heart that has been broken.

Jesus carries these pains for me, all I have to do is ask.


xxx,

b.