The Birth of Rebirth
Rebirth: A Birth Trauma E-Course is a labor of love, 13 years in the making. 13 years ago, on September 25th, my oldest daughter, Madeleine Allison Mae, was born 4 weeks and 6 days too early after 28 hours of Cervidil, Cyclotec, Pitocin, and an epidural, I felt made me a failure. She came out screaming and pink and perfect, but also 5 lbs. 1 oz., and all skin and bones. She was so small that some people wouldn’t hold her. Her mouth was so little that the best latch she could handle on my breast brought me excruciating, toe-curling pain. She didn’t gain weight for two weeks, and I did nothing in those two weeks but feed her and cry and not sleep. People told me that “at least” she was healthy, “at least” I didn’t have to be pregnant for 40 weeks, and “at least” I didn’t have to deliver a big baby. I felt invisible in my pain, drowning in the guilt of a mother who felt traumatized despite having a healthy baby.
I told my birth story over and over to anyone who would listen— my husband, my mom, my sister— even though they were all there. In therapy, we often say that when a person repeats themselves, it’s because they still feel unheard, they still have more they have to say. I felt so unheard, not by my family, but in my experience. I couldn’t accept all that had happened to me. I felt all the feelings all the time, even when people told me not to, even when people told me to feel grateful for my healthy baby. Of course I was grateful! But I was also so sad, so disappointed. I was in mourning, really. Mourning for the birth experience I desperately wanted but didn’t get, mourning for a labor full of excitement and not dread, mourning for a “normal” baby that people would want to hold and who would gain weight when I fed her, mourning for what I felt was unjustly taken from me.
This course is for the mother I was 13 years ago.
Which is to say, it is for you, mama. You trying to piece together what has happened to you, you trying to figure out where you fit now, why you feel the way you do, and why no one quite understands how that is. You trying to forgive your partner, forgive your provider, forgive yourself. You trying to navigate isolation and anger and guilt and sadness and shame. I see you. Your pain is real to me. It is ok for it to be real to you too, even (and especially if) you are grateful. Even if your baby is healthy.
It is fitting that I am releasing this course on the anniversary of the most traumatic thing to ever happen to me. My daughter’s birthday is a joyous day— for her and for me!— but it’s also a hard day, a sad day… and it’s ok for it to be both. I am grateful that after 13 years I can take that trauma and that pain and mold it into love, mold into something that will help another mother just like I was.
It is my hope that throughout this course you are able to gain a better understanding of what happened to you and feel validation and acceptance for all of your feelings, even the really hard, yucky ones that you haven’t admitted to anyone yet. I want you to develop a more thorough understanding of how you did not fail but were instead failed by multiple societal systems and a lack of proper support and information. And most of all, I want you to realize that your mental health and well-being matter so much and affect your ability to be a present mother, and more than that (because we are so much more than mothers), a present and content person. A person at peace with yourself.
That’s my ultimate wish for you, mama. Peace. Peace when you hold your baby, peace when you look at your partner, peace when you remember your birth story. Peace and love and acceptance. I am honored and blessed to take this journey with you.
Rebirth: A Birth Trauma E-Course launches September 25, 2021. Interested? Join Erin for a Live Q&A on September 14 @ 6 p.m. ET to Learn More.