As a doula, I recently attended a 30-hour birth that turned the mom’s birth preferences on their head (or maybe into the breech position). The mama was elated to end up with a healthy baby but is moving through deep regrets over certain aspects of her experience (about 90 percent of her preferences had to be scrapped for medical reasons.)
It can be really deflating when you put in months of preparation to have a particular type of birth, and then fall into having the opposite type of birth. It totally sucks. But “it’s not allowed to suck” — or so everyone says — if you and baby end up healthy.
“Well at least you have a healthy baby.”
Ugh.
Yes, you had your healthy baby, and obviously you’re thrilled with that ideal outcome, but what about all the yuck in between? The dashed expectations? The missed opportunities to move through certain experiences you had prepared for? The residual trauma of moving through experiences you hadn’t prepared for?
Bailey Gaddis Blog 