My Story

Trigger warning: Birth trauma is discussed in the post. While it can be upsetting to read, this is the reason behind starting my practice and its mission

I never knew that April was C-section awareness month. I was recently reading a post by the Birth Trauma Mama and I thought, I’ve done enough work that I can publicly share what I personally went through because in all honesty, I don’t know that I would be building my practice had I not experienced the trauma I am about to share with you.

Have you ever had a nightmare where you wanted to run or scream but something was weighing you down? That sums up my experience giving birth to my first child.

Thirty six hours in labor. Two hours of pushing. While I was ending my second hour, I knew what my midwife was about to say. She told me it was time for a c-section and I said, “Just get him out safely.” The timing was minutes from that decision to being wheeled into the operating room. As I lay on the operating table I knew what was coming. I’d attended enough births as a NICU nurse that I tried to focus on my husband and stare at the drape in front of me, waiting to see my son. Then I felt the scalpel. No, not pressure, I felt the sharpness of the blade slicing me open. “I feel it,” I mumbled to the CRNA who was massaging my temples in between monitoring my meds. “Yes, you will feel pressure.” “No…scalpel.” I’m not sure what she did next, then the pain was gone, but the pressure remained. Soon my son was lifted above the drape for me to see, and then he disappeared.

Then, silence. I waited for him to cry but there was nothing.

“Is he okay?” No answer.

“Is my baby okay?” No answer.

“Is he okay?” Someone to my right said, “They’re working on it.”

I never heard him cry. He was never brought over for me to see him. I’d find out later that unfortunately behind the drape, someone had panicked and was doing chest compressions that were not needed.

As I drifted in an out consciousness and hemorrhaged onto the floor in front of my husband, semi-conscious state took that silence and switched into nurse practitioner mode. I had been the provider or nurse in these situations. I knew when no one responded to the mom that was because there wasn’t good news to give. He was whisked off to the NICU and I spent the next hour, or maybe it was several hours I’m not sure, thinking my son was dying in a room of strangers. Why else would they not tell me what was going on?

Before I go on, my son was and is a strong little mischief maker and you would never know what he’d gone through when he entered into this world.

This began a journey of a year a long recovery, both physically and mentally. I blamed myself for everything that happened. I kept questioning every move I made that led me to that operating room thinking it would help move things along and yet, I still ended up in a c-section. I had spent so many years holding mother’s hands, hugging them as they sobbed when they got bad news about their children and telling me that it was there fault. I’d hug them back or squeeze their hand and reassure them that it wasn’t. Yet when it came to my own trauma, it took me a while to take that advice myself.

Trauma is a funny thing. Not a “ha-ha” moment but more funny in that it works in odd ways when it comes to where your life goes because of it. I can actually laugh about some parts of it now when I tell the story, even though the person hearing it looks at me and says, “Wait, what happened to you?” If someone told me what I was about to go through with my son, I would have said okay, now how can we go back in time to prevent that. But now, almost three years later, it has changed my life in so many ways, and some are for the better.

My postpartum depression led me to leave a job that would have continued to tax my health.

I became dual-certified as a Pediatric Mental Health Specialist to open up new career opportunities while I was still on maternity leave and running on two hours of sleep a day if I was lucky.

It led to late night discussions with my husband, one of which was, what was the reason I couldn’t just open my own practice?

But most importantly, it gave me my son. My reason for everything. He made me a mom. He’s made me a better practitioner. He’s made me realize that other people who go through similar experiences themselves or with their kids need someone to stand up and fight for them.

I met my son lying on a stretcher, holding his hand through an isolette door. I didn’t get a beautiful experience with giving birth for the first time, but I gained perspective. I knew how the healthcare system worked and still, this was my outcome. The silence I received may have been deafening, but it would never stay that way.

The reason I wanted to share this, is to let parents and families know that the lack of communication, the treatment my son received, and even some of the ways I was treated afterwards should never have happened. I should not have had to beg for answer or explain to an attending that I was a former NICU nurse and no, chest compressions aren’t “just how things are done.”

When I finally began to heal and realize that if I wanted to see a change, not only for healthcare, but for my family, then I needed to take this step. I needed to create a practice that fostered trust and communication that gives families the quality care they deserve.

I do want to end on a high note. The picture with this blog post? This was the view from my room after giving birth to my second child which was an unmedicated VBAC. My husband noticed that the room across from us was the room I was in the first time. Oh, how different this experience was. When he told me this I cried. Not tears of sadness but happy, thankful tears. I remembered how much pain I was in, how hard the postpartum depression hit me during that time, and how I truly thought I would never be able to give birth naturally, or if at all again. Yet here I was, snuggling both my kids and staring at my past directly knowing that despite everything, I truly don’t know if I’d change what I went through if I knew it would bring me here.