Birth Can Be A Form of PTSD - Part 1

Hey all you mommas out there!

As I explained in a previous post, I had my first experience with post-partum depression (PPD) after the birth of my son. One of the reasons I believe I dealt with this form of depression was as a direct result of the trauma I endured while bringing my son into this world. And this sort of trauma is not something that is uncommon to mommas-of-color in the United States.

Study after study has proven that minority women in the U.S. – specifically Black women – have worse outcomes when it comes to childbirth. According to the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html) “Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women”. And it gets worse the older you get, rising to four and five times higher than white women after the age of 30. And for those who think that making it economically can help these outcomes, the studies show that even with my two advanced degrees I’m still more at risk than a white woman with only a high school education.

But I’m not here to debate or spew a lot of data at you, what I wanted was to explain just what these facts can look like in real life. If I’m being honest, I had no idea that these statistics existed when I was pregnant with my firstborn. While I went into the birth with the usual apprehensions and nerves, I had no real concern about my safety, or the safety of my little gentleman. In fact, my first pregnancy was fairly easy. You can read more about the adventures and discoveries I made during both of my pregnancies here, but overall it was smooth sailing up until our son’s arrival.

Going into the delivery, my doc was worried about how big our son was getting. I’m all of 4 feet 11, so having a 7 or 8 pound baby typically looks like a difficult feat for me. With him measuring on the bigger side for the entire pregnancy, my doctor determined it would be best for me to be induced at 39 weeks, or risk needing a cesarean.

The Friday before my induction was scheduled I felt really good. I was dilated about 1 centimeter and we felt excited about our growing family. All was well. We went home, I had a measly meal of milk and cereal for dinner, and I took a long, warm bath. Settling down for bed, I began to wonder if I needed to go to the bathroom. I had found a good way to check on this was to do a quick tightening of those muscles. If I had to go, it would quickly become apparent. And I’d be fine, thanks to one of the best pieces of advice I received from my mom upon discovering I was pregnant, which involved the importance of investing in pee pads.

I did a quick pull of my muscles, a flow of water let loose...and confusion took over. Had I just peed myself? Like, for real peed myself? Sure, in the midst of my usual pee checks I’d have the scant trickle that might escape due to the extra weight my body was adjusting to, combined with the fullness of my bladder. So, I knew what it felt like to pee myself (oh the joys of pregnancy)...this wasn’t that. Shit, had my water just broken?

With a thousand thoughts rushing over me, I woke my dozing husband and we jumped in the car. We got to the hospital, confirmed that it was go time (to my husband’s chagrin as he just knew that the kiddo and I had interrupted his sleep on purpose to mess with him...lol), and were assigned a room. The night nurse gave me meds for nausea – I hadn’t eaten more than that pettily bowl of cereal and when my blood sugar drops I start to feel sick – and my progress was checked through the night.

The next morning when I was checked for what felt like the millionth time the nurse found that I’d made little progress. After some discussion and teeth gritting, we all agreed that I needed a little medicinal assistance to help me along, because once your water breaks they only give you 24 hours before they officially evict the little one. With that one decision, our fun and free journey hit its first rough patch.

In the next post, I’ll tell you all about what happened to me once the Pitocin hit. How did your births start? Did you find you were minimally, adequately and overly worried before your first birth?