sharing some of the letter I wrote my midwife (LONG)

Some of you have said that you don't understand how or why I feel the way I do about HOW Molly arrived. I have decided to share with you, some of my most trusted friends, a portion of the letter that I wrote to my midwife. My midwife actually asked me to write a letter to her about my experience at the hospital because of all of the problems that I had. I decided to include some thoughts on the emotional side of what was happening to me the last month of my pregnancy and the day Molly was born.
I am a bit nervous to post this since it is VERY private and some very difficult emotions for me to share but maybe, just maybe someone will better understand my feeling or if they have them, know that they are not alone.----

I would also like to address one area in which, in my opinion, all of my medical caregivers failed. Not one person ever even brought up the fact that, here I was preparing for months for a natural, calm, private birth. I spent close to $600 on childbirth classes in order to avoid a medicated birth. My husband and I practiced hypno-birthing techniques for months. I tried multiple techniques to get the baby to turn from the Breech position. I did my own research to find ways that had helped other women avoid a c-section. When it became apparent that I would most likely need a c-section I fell into a deep depression. I was crying every day, often for hours. I became desperate to find ways to cope with what “should have been.” My husband and I believed we were not being given much information by anyone. We did not met with ANY of the medical staff of NUMC until one week prior to the operation. So, here I was, after having carefully chosen a medical caregiver, being told to trust a doctor that I met for 20 minutes. I realize that most OB/GYNs consider a c-section operation routine and “no big deal”. In fact, many people I know feel that as long as the baby and I were healthy that it was ‘great to be able to avoid a painful natural labor”. I began to feel very isolated from friends and my family. I stopped answering my phone because so many people wanted to talk about the “big day”. Everyone was so excited about the baby coming and yet, I, the baby’s mother, felt no excitement, no joy. I was afraid- actually terrified. I felt that I had no control over what was happening to my body or my baby. The idea of lying on a table naked with strangers cutting into me…it was very overwhelming to me then and still is now.

Thankfully I was able to find multiple websites of other women who felt as I did and continue to feel. Through these women I was able to learn that there were some choices that I could make. Without these women I would NEVER have known to tell the doctors that I didn’t want my handed taped down during the operation, that I could wait to have the cathedrae inserted AFTER my spinal was given. Not one of my own medical professionals even discussed any of these options with me.

Imagine you have memories already planned for nine months; those first photos of your baby, naked lying on my belly; the photo of me holding my baby only seconds after she was born; keeping her close as she cries for the first time. Imagine putting your heart into learning how to cope with the pain of labor so you don’t have to medicate your unborn child only to have a ton of it pumped into your system. Yes, things happen everyday during childbirth that no one can control but when multiple medical professionals are scheduling an operation they have the ability to help a patient transition from one “dream” to another. My husband and I have been left to figure this out on our own and I think that is a very sad statement about medical professionals- only treating the physical body and not the heart, soul or mind of a patient.

I still cry often over the birth of my daughter. I go through that day over and over and wish that I had I insisted on my husband holding the baby before all of the medical staff and there are so many other things. I was not shown her before she was taken to the bassinet, somewhere behind me I could hear her crying and lots of people were telling me how cute she was but I couldn’t see her for myself. I didn’t hold her until after 2 p.m. that day- more than five hours after she was born. I feel incomplete as a woman. I actually wanted to feel her being born. I wanted to know what it felt like to go into labor. The problems that happened during my recovery, the lack of breast-feeding support from the on-staff pediatrician, the laughter of a nurse trying to fix my medication while I was in pain, all of that just adds to difficulty of my recovery- both physically and mentally.