Like so many mothers, I have a birth story about what didn’t ‘go to plan’.  I didn’t suffer major trauma and left hospital, eventually, with my perfect (if tiny) baby.

So, what’s my point?

Well, I realise now, after 16 years, that I had not acknowledged or processed the fear, shock, pain, anger and guilt of those weird weeks in January 2003.  Busy being grateful that we were both ok, I put all that stuff in a box and didn’t open it.

My daughter was nearly born 7 weeks early.  Premature labour led to a weekend in a hospital two hours from home, the closest hospital with incubator space in the neo-natal unit.  She didn’t come then.  But it all kicked off again two weeks later at 35 weeks, and I was taken by ambulance to hospital direct from the local pub. Meanwhile, my husband, well over the limit, sprinted home, grabbed my bag, hailed a taxi and beat me to hospital dripping with sweat on that January night.

What followed was largely medical – monitors, pethidine, being told what to do (‘calm down, your baby needs you’ was one comment that sticks in my mind), catheters, birth, more needles and finally surgery to remove my placenta. It was keen to stay put as it had five weeks more work to do.

The care was largely good, although there were moments that still make my toes curl when I think about them. And I was gutted that despite a natural birth I was still bound for the operating theatre and post-natal surgery.

I don’t remember if I held my baby the moment she was born.  Paediatrics took over to check she was OK, and then off she went to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). We visited her there for the next two weeks as she gained the energy to feed, and was deemed safe enough to come home.  The staff in SCBU were true angels, but it is a tough environment to be in, even when we knew our baby was getting stronger.  Many babies were not.

And so we came home, feeling grateful.

But it took an EFT session with a lovely practitioner called Mirjana to help me, 16 years later, come to terms with the distress of it all. The fear of being totally out of control. The guilt at failing my baby by not keeping her inside me and putting her in danger. The fear of being ‘done to’ by medics. The sadness of not having the ‘perfect’ birth.  Emotions that have been triggering me since.

How many mothers have similar memories?  Most is my guess. We don’t feel it was ‘traumatic’ or tragic, but nevertheless have unacknowledged, emotional wounds. We have every right to re-visit these. To process & accept them as part of our rite of passage into motherhood.  

Do I feel better now I have processed mine?  Yes, I do.  And, weirdly, it has gently shifted my relationship with my daughter too.  

Or maybe not so weird after all.