My After-Birth Story

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I dreamed of how our delivery would go. I pictured what I considered at the time a “normal” “natural” delivery (maybe with an epidural). I could just picture helping pull my daughter out, seeing her right away, hearing her cry, and being immediately placed on my chest as my husband and I both weep with joy and bask in the beautiful moment we just experienced! I mean, these are the kinds of things you hear about more often than not.

But if you read our birth story, you know that I ended up needing an emergency C-Section after a very hard, very long, and very traumatic labor. I wasn’t going to be able to physically hold or touch this precious baby girl I waited so long to meet, and this crushed me. Not being able to have that immediate skin-to-skin made me feel like she wasn’t mine.

Every time I looked at this beautiful baby, I felt like someone close to me just dropped her off for me to care for right after I had major surgery. I felt extremely guilty that that overwhelming sense of love you hear of mother’s talking about just wasn’t there as much as I wanted it to be. And this put me in a VERY bad place, Yes, I LOVED her, but it broke my heart every time the thought of “is she really mine??” came to my mind. PPD had kicked into full gear.

I had been waiting to be a mommy for God knows how long. I prayed for this child. And when she came, I felt I was robbed of the joy that I’ve been hearing so much about... because things didn’t go MY way.

After leaving the hospital, I couldn’t even say the words “I gave birth.” Because I truly felt that I didn’t, due to so many people making cesarean births sound like "the easy way out." People see them as less than. Therefore, it made me feel less than.

When it came time to shower, I refused to see myself naked because I was SO ashamed of my incision. In my mind, I knew it looked like the Joker’s (from Batman) smile. I was just ripped open, sewn shut, and at any moment, I was going to spill out everywhere. I did show my mom and my sweet husband, because I couldn't bear to look at it and needed to make sure it was really sealed. Over and over, they told me how “good” it looked.

But I was convinced otherwise.

I made Michael turn the shower up super hot so the bathroom would fog the mirrors before I got undressed, and then I needed him to be the one to wash me so I wouldn’t have to even touch it. The whole time, every time, I just stood there bawling my eyes out because in my head, I had become completely unattractive to him (though he said he loved it).

Not only was I ashamed of the way that I looked, I felt my body completely failed me and I didn’t deserve to be Ever's mother.

I was furious because MY birth plan went out the window.

I felt so ALONE in my thoughts. I didn’t tell anyone in fear of what they would think of me.

But when I did open up? I found out I wasn’t alone, and was assured several times over that the overwhelming sense of love will hit me out of nowhere. I trusted in that. I prayed for that.

And you know what? God did grant me the desires of my heart. His ways are SO much higher than mine. He gave me freedom from all those crushing thoughts. He gave me a perfect, healthy baby girl. He allowed me to fall HEAD OVER HEELS in LOVE with my daughter. Instead of weeping in tears of exhaustion, shame and pain, I began weeping tears of JOY—something I have never done in my entire life!

She is mine, and I am her mama.

You know what else? I am PROUD of my scar. In fact, I LOVE my scar and I pray that it never fades away. I look forward to the day I can show her where she was pulled from and telling her the story of how this scar helped save both our lives. That this is where I GAVE BIRTH FROM. That this mark on my body is my absolute favorite. And that God gave me the answer to my prayers, my greatest joy and blessing, through the hands of the surgeons who needed to create it.

I will forever be thankful for this scar, because it gave me you, my sweet Ever Mae.

—Hey Mama's, if you are feeling alone in your thoughts, don't keep them to yourselves. Reach out and tell someone. Seek help. Seek counsel. Our mind can be a dangerous and damaging place if we leave it to soak in negativity, ESPECIALLY after giving birth, however way that is, when all those crazy hormones are flooding our bodies.

Do not let anyone make you feel less than for not giving birth a certain way.

You are a great mama. A strong mama. You are not alone.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine." Isaiah 55:8