I have "The Business of Being Born" on DVD now, and I finally got around to watching some of the bonus footage. There is a conversation between Ricky and Abby that I found especially compelling.
(Spoiler Alert!) As we know, Dr. Michel Odent claims that mothers who give birth by c-section do not experience the natural oxytocin rush that permanently bonds a mother and baby. He talks about how Chimpanzees that give birth by c-section will not take care of their babies. He fears what will happen to the world if mothers continue to give birth without experiencing this "love cocktail" as he calls it.
In this conversation between Ricky and Abby, Ricky asks Abby if she, having given birth by cesarean, was offended at Dr. Odent's assessment. She said she was not offended, because she understood it. Now here comes the great analogy. She said that she did not feel like she gave birth (as many of us don't.)
Instead she said she felt like she was in a car accident, had surgery, then somebody handed her a baby.
That makes sense to me. My surgical birth felt the same – like a car accident – scary, out of control, hard to remember the details.
Now, of course we love our babies. Having a surgical birth does not take away a normal woman's ability to love her baby. However, there is a part of (many of us) us that will always feel a little bit of pain and sadness when we look at our child and think about their entry into the world. There is a part that was taken away that we can never get back. We learn to work around it. But that doesn't take it away.
Having had a surgical birth and a vaginal birth, I can tell you that my feelings toward my children are very different. I love them both more than my heart can stand, but there is an invisible wall between Jonas (my cesarean baby) and I that I am constanly trying to compensate for. Jules (my vaginal baby), on the other hand, feels like an extension of my soul. I also thank the breastfeeding for my bond with Jules – something I didn't get to do with Jonas largely because of the way the c-section complicated breastfeeding.
After Jules was born, I felt alive. I felt like I could mother him like nobody else.
After Jonas was born, I felt like a beached, bloated whale carcass. I felt like I had failed right from the beginning.
I spend a lot of my time wishing that Jonas had a do-over… that he and I didn't have to experience the "car accident" as Abby called it. We'll both get over it and be fine, but this needs to be talked about so other women don't have to learn about the "car accident" feeling the way I did; the hard way.
I really wish they had put that bit in the movie. I actually think it was the most powerful message of Abby's birth.
For the sake of a balanced perspective, I would like to let moms out there know that a lack of bonding isn't always the case with a c-section.
We had planned on a completely natural labor, but my daughter was breech. After efforts to turn her in the womb failed, we delivered by c-section, the one thing I'd dreaded during my pregnancy. I cannot stand the idea of a c-section. However, that was our only option.
I honestly don't feel robbed of my perfect birth experience. We know that what was done was best for the baby. After my daughter was born, they brought her to me as the doctors were sewing me up, and I knew then that she was the most perfect thing I'd ever seen in my life. As they cleaned her up and I was brought to recovery, I craved that baby, longed to hold her. She was quickly brought to me, and I've been in love with her since that first moment. For us, there has never been a wall between us. In fact, I was on a complete high after "giving birth," even though it was a surgical birth. I couldn't sleep that night and I didn't nap the next day either. I went nearly 48 hours without sleep, because I had just given birth, and I had a baby. Anytime my daughter was brought to my room, I felt no pain from surgery.
Nursing was incredibly difficult, so I won't minimize that. A medicated body will not respond the way that it should, so it took us 2 weeks to teach my daughter to properly latch. It was an uphill battle, but we fought it and ended up with 17 months of sweet breastfeeding.
I hope this encourages anyone who is like me and has no choice in their form of birth. You can still bond with your child after a c-section.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like