When I think of my experience giving birth I think about all that went wrong or the things that didn’t go as planned and the idea that you are just supposed to forget all of that because you now have a baby. I did all the reading, and tried to hear all the birth stories and hired a doula to support me. I felt like I did everything and more to be ready and yet, it was beyond anything I could have prepared myself for. There is no book that you can read that prepares you for listening to your baby’s heart rate continuously dropping over a full day of being in labour, or the continuous medical interventions that are given to you without even asking, or the doctors asking why you are crying after having been in labour without working pain meds for so many hours while they are stitching up your tearing. There just isn’t anything that gets you ready for that level of physical and mental pain and worry.

My husband and I both felt traumatized by the birth of our son and I don’t think we realized it until we really talked it through many months later. We were both sitting with so many emotions but trying to just get through the day in front of us with a newborn. At the end of a traumatic experience you are handed a baby that feels foreign and completely overwhelming but you have no choice but to put all of your attention on them. And your needs as a person or as a partner really are no longer a priority. I will never forget my doctor walking into our room the morning after our son was born and her saying “it sounds like everything went really well!” In that moment, it was such a disrespectful thing to hear, I felt the complete opposite. But in her medical opinion, I had a healthy baby and didn’t need a c-section, so everything went well.

I wish I had felt seen by my medical team, I wish someone had told me that my labour was really long and really hard, but I was going to be okay again even if it was going to take a long time to recover. I wish someone had validated my experience and my feelings and allowed me to be overwhelmed and upset and not have to pretend that I was okay. I didn’t want to be strong, I had been strong my whole labour. I wanted to be me and feel what I was feeling. I wish someone had checked in on me, and not just the six-week postpartum check boxes, but really checked in. I wish someone had supported my husband and recognized his trauma, listened to him, and supported his emotions when I couldn’t.

We don’t talk about what actually happens, and as a society, we don’t ask. We think about giving birth as a joyous time, and we don’t make space for people when it isn’t. I now often think about what I’m not hearing or not being told when I meet a new parent and their baby. What was their experience? And even if they say everyone is happy and healthy, is that really everything they are feeling and experiencing. How can we collectively hear the real stories and let parents know it’s okay to feel something other than joy during this time?

—T.O.