Amelia’s story; Birth Envy, a Real Thing
A quick google search confirms exactly what I thought – birth envy is a real thing. Except for me it’s so much more than envy, it’s a genuinely horrible feeling of hatred, jealousy, anxiety, panic, inadequacy, and leaves me feeling awful.
A close friend of mine is (hopefully!) just days away from giving birth to her first baby. I’m so happy for her, I genuinely am. But hearing about pre-labour, making it to full term, and plans for a vaginal birth make me feel really fecking inferior.
See, I didn’t get to full term. I didn’t get to experience labour, and I wouldn’t have a clue what a contraction feels like. I didn’t have a natural birth, and I actually can’t remember anything from my caesarian except for the first little cry that I heard from both of my boys (and the pain of having a spinal block administered with no local anaesthetic). All I can remember is being terrified, devastated, and crying through the whole thing, which probably isn’t what you’d expect to hear from somebody who ended up with two healthy babies at the end of it.
Now every time I hear that somebody has had a baby, I have this moment of instant resentment and jealousy. I find it really hard to be happy for people, no matter how close to me they are. Like oh, it hurt to push out your baby? Cool. I’d love to know that pain, but instead I know the pain of being cut open and having your babies removed whether they are ready to come out or not.
Every time I read an article online about the benefits of a vaginal birth I sit there thinking about all the benefits my boys missed out on. Every time I look at photos from the first moments of their lives I notice how they were wrapped up before I even got to see them or hold them. I didn’t get to see my little new naked babies at all because they were double wrapped straight away to keep them warm because they weren’t ready to come out yet, and they stayed that way until the midwife put nappies on them. There was no moment of midwives grabbing a baby and putting it straight on my chest. Instead, they were taken straight to the resus trolley to be assessed by the paediatricians. Joe got to cut the cords, but only after they were already cut from the placenta.
Instead of giving birth in one of the birthing suites in the hospital, they were born in a cold, sterile operating theatre that was full of strangers. There was two midwives, two obstetricians, two paediatric teams, theatre technicians, two anaesthetists, and various other people there for various other purposes.
Instead of being able to bond with my babies straight away, they were taken out while I got stitched up and I was too high on all of the drugs to hold them properly for the first couple of days. After that, I was too sore from having every layer of tissue and muscle cut through to hold them for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
It’s been nearly 10 months since my boys were born, and I still feel this way. I feel as if all of this could have been avoided if I was properly informed from the start. If I had of known it in fact was NOT hospital policy for identical twins to be born via caesarian (contrary to what we were told for 8 months), if I had of known the correct statistics and risks vs benefits for methods of twin births, I might have been in a position to fight for what I wanted. I hope that one day I don’t feel this way every time I hear about a baby being born naturally. But for now, this is how I feel.
Written by Amelia
A member of All About Prems
