Were You Disappointed In Your Labor?

How to change the way you think about your birth story

If you are anything like me, you like to plan and organize. To have everything fall into neat little checkboxes and go smooth sailing. I love my checklists and to-do lists. I love my plans. And so, when it came to creating our birth plan, I was in heaven.

Plan A. Check

Plan B. Check.

Plan C. Check.

In reality, my first-time labor did not go according to any plan. Not A, B, or C!

I vomited for 12 hours; I cried. I yelled and swore a bit too. I am pretty sure I probably pooped.

It was nothing like I had visualized or planned. And speaking to many people, this seems to be quite common when it comes to labor. All my plans went out the window, and in the end, I was begging the doctors and midwives to get the baby out however they could.

The second time around, I was more realistic in my expectations. I wanted to do it without pain relief but was open to options. And I didn’t have any concrete plans except for “get the baby out safe and healthy.”

I felt traumatized by my first labor. So the second time around, I felt scared, petrified even.

It got me thinking about how disappointed I was the first time around.

I am sure on the general scale of birth stories; my first-time labor was not that traumatic. I did vomit, ended up with an epidural, episiotomy, and an instrumental birth (vacuum and forceps), I had uterine exhaustion (where my uterus stopped contracting ), and postpartum hemorrhage.

Whist all these things sound horrific, I birthed a healthy baby boy at the end of the day. It took me a good 8 weeks to fully recover from labor, but in the end, I was healthy as well. This is the number one thing I keep telling myself. Not everyone can say the same.

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