Growing up I didn't have many fears. I was a tenacious child (still am as an adult) who ran head first into everything put in front of me. I remember convincing my sisters to play bee-keeper in our backyard and we'd catch the bees with our hands and a plastic cup. Then we'd listen to them buzz around inside the cup, with our hand being the only thing that kept them in. How at 29 I've never been stung by a bee, I never quite understood. Until last night, when I was contemplating the power of fear. I never feared the bee. I was curious and inquisitive, but never fearful.
And now as an adult, I fear far too many things. But forget to recognize the fear itself. Fear can effect us in ways we never imagined, especially if we push it down and ignore it, pretending it doesn't exist. I fear my children getting abducted, I fear getting in a car accident in our tiny little car, I fear that I'm not homeschooling well enough for my children to thrive, I fear that my marriage isn't as good as it should be due to my own shortcomings, I fear that the child I birthed via surrogacy is not in the best of homes, I fear that I will die suddenly and leave my children motherless. The common theme amongst all these fears? I cannot control a single one. I protect my children and raise them to not talk to strangers, I drive as carefully and abide by all the laws. I home school with all that I have, with the best tools I can find. I do the best I can, but every single one of those fears can happen regardless of my best intentions. Why oh why do I waste time on fears that are not with in my control? Why can I not just surrender and realize I am doing the best I can, and I am equipped well enough to deal with whatever is thrown my way?
I believe the answer is because as long as I focus on the fears beyond my control, I don't have to focus on the fears I can overcome and take on headfirst. What happened to the person of my youth? The child who never feared and took everything on, as hard and scary as it was? And the biggest fear currently un-named at the back of my head and heart? The birth trauma from the surrogacy labor and birth, happening again with this birth and delivery. Now that, that is absolutely something I can take head on and work towards acknowledging.
My first birth was full of birth trauma. The ob had me feeling powerless and with absolutely no faith in my body within an hour of checking in. I believe this was the first shock in my life of being able to put my mind to something and not accomplishing it it in the end. I had never failed at anything, until I gave birth. Forced to have AROM (artificial rupture of membranes), forced pitocen, forced epidural, forced episiotomy. . . the list goes on. I left feeling weaker than I had ever felt in my life, just thankful to have survived and be taking my dear, sweet firstborn child home in my arms. Never did I realize that I hadn't failed, but I had been paralyzed by fear. 40 hours of labor is no joke, and its even worse when your body refuses to dilate on its own.
I thought I'd never birth again. Between 40 weeks of hyperemesis and a horrible birth that traumatized me, I was done. Except my OB refused to give me a tubal, I was only 23 and she deemed me too young. Yet another example of not being in charge of my body. So a year later when the fear and memories were fully buried and far from my heart and soul, we talked about one last child so that our oldest wouldn't be an only child. We decided 3 months later to ttc, I gave dh one month to get me knocked up. If he failed he was getting a vasectomy and we would adopt. Well a few weeks later when I ovulated, it only took one night and bam we were expecting our 2nd child.
I assumed we'd birth in a hospital again and I began dreading it. I began focusing on the fears of every day life. Little, stupid fears which seemed pointless to focus on. After my first appointment with the local OB (we had moved by this point) I realized I was not going to be seen by a man who's c-section rate was almost 50%. I was in a group of AP moms and many mentioned their home births. I naively stated I would never home birth, I am OCD about cleanliness and didn't want to have to clean up after my own birth. The women laughed and educated me about the role of midwives and what home birth is really about. That single conversation sparked every light in my soul, and suddenly I had hope again.
So, DH and I met with local midwives who had been recommended to me. I knew it was right, I just prayed they would convince DH about the safety. He went into the meeting with the attitude he'd never allow his wife to foolishly choose to birth at home and risk her and his child's life. An hour and a half later, his eyes had been opened and we both knew this was how our last child was to entire this world. We went through a whirl-wind few months of self education and sharing our experience with our midwives. I only allowed myself to touch on the edge of the emotions of my first birth experience, still keeping my pain and fear closely guarded. Instead my brain decided to focus on the fear of my episiotomy scar tissue and the fear of it ripping worse and causing more damage to my perineum. So my midwives spent many appointments reassuring me and giving me great books and info to go over to assure myself, my body would be ok.
October 20th arrived and I had the most beautiful birth ever. 2 hours of that birth were hard, painful and downright scary. But they weren't traumatizing. Instead they were eye opening. I finally learned the power of fear, and the power we willingly give it as women, when we refuse to acknowledge that fear. When we stuff them and hide them and cover them with other fears, we do more harm to ourselves. I never had to experience 2 hours of transition like that, but my refusal to acknowledge my birth trauma from my first dd's birth, ripped my soul wide open. My body went back to the fight or flight mode, and i was fighting it. Instinctively my brain tried to take over, and I tried to stop labor from progressing. It would be months later till i would be able to connect all the pieces. But i gained powerful insight that day. I became powerful in my own fears and the ability to take them head on.
I spent many months of thought and beating myself over the head. And finally, I realized the key. With my first dd my labor had stalled out the moment we checked into the hospital. I have never liked hospitals, they have always freaked me out and upset me. I'd always had 'white coat induced high blood pressure'. And even though my contractions were steady and close together and hard on the monitor, it was no wonder I wasn't dilating at all on my own. I was fearful, and my body could not birth in fear. And likewise for the birth of my 2nd child. I was great until, the memories and fear of my previous birth rose in my mind's eye. And I stopped progressing and started experiencing horrific pain in those moments. Once I finally confronted the fear, and acknowledged that I was terrified of another birth such as my first one, I got back on the labor highway and dd was born ecstatically.
Fast forward to four years later, I was a surrogate and pregnant with a child that was not my own. There were many bumps and misleading moments in that journey, but I took them head on because I didn't want fear running this labor. Sadly, you can only do so much. And when fear overtake other people, you are forced to pay the price for their fears. Here is the key to why having supportive people who are on EXACTLY the same page as yourself surround you in birth is so dang important. You can conquer your fears and acknowledge them, be willing to work through them. But the moment another person puts fear on a birthing woman, the birthing woman is forced to encompass it and it is her own. Such an unfair burden to a laboring woman. It is much of what many OB's and care providers do sadly. Fear of natural childbirth and then putting it on another.
This time we had hired our trusted midwives to be our doulas. Originally we had planned a home birth, but the IM became less and less comfortable with the idea the closer the birth loomed. And as I learned more about my deceitful IPs, I became less and less comfortable with the idea of birthing with them in MY home. So we all agreed on a hospital birth. I no longer feared the hospital. I knew this was the place that myself and my family would legally and mentally be best protected. We had found a lovely OB who supported home birth and surrogacy and once I filled her in on my IP's manipulations, she understood and was 100% on my side. So we had a wonderful birth plan to birth naturally in the hospital, my midwives would be my doulas and would check my dilation to make sure I was truly in labor and they would help me decline offered drugs and epidurals.
But as labor started and people showed up, I realized things weren't going as planned. I had complete trust in my body and no fears of the hospital or birth trauma. I had a team that I trusted and I knew as soon as it was time I could go to the hospital and let IM know it was time to show up. My water broke that morning, but no real labor showed up. I called the midwives and they decided to come out and check me. I ended up only being about 2 cm. I knew I had a few hours before we would transfer so we called to have my girls picked up and I packed my bag for the hospital. Little did I know that the 3 key support people I had chosen, had already changed their minds about birthplace. Labor picked up and started to become a bit painful, but I was managing, I knew I needed to walk that baby out. And then one of my midwives asked me where I'd give birth if it were my own. I responded, "At home, but this isn't my child, so we're going to the hospital". That single moment instilled my midwives fear into me. And the pain started hitting me. The more and more they pushed for me to birth at home and reassured me that my IM had changed her mind and told them the night before that she wanted a home birth now, the more my contractions began to kill me. Before I knew it they were so horrific, I was having back labor AGAIN, with a baby who was NOT posterior. They were worse than the contractions I experienced with my first DD in the hospital on a full pitocen drip.
I went through 2 hours of pure hell, barely dilated, not in active labor but my body behaving as if I were in transition. I was getting no breaks between contractions and my labor pattern clearly said I would give birth soon, but my cervix said I was only a 3. I demanded to go to the hospital, only to be turned down by my mw's and my DH, repeatedly. None of them wanted to birth in a hospital and ignored every word that came out of my mouth. By this point I was in so much pain I could not drive, so I realized this pain was from others' fear. Not my own. It was my DH's fear of me giving into an epidural and having a horrific recovery and post partum depression due to the issues with my IPs. It was my midwives fear of one of their clients giving in to drugs and birthing at a place they deemed unsafe. It was my IM's fears of me not giving her her baby. All rolled into one, and it hurt me a hell of a lot more than I had ever felt in my entire life. So I took that fear and told it, "bring it on". I acknowledged that I was scared as hell at this child's future life, that the unknowns of her future with batty parents terrified me. That I was scared to have been manipulated and used by people who simply and selfishly wanted a child. I told myself that not a single person in that room would help me and the fear would only kill me from pain and stop my labor. So I welcomed the fear in, told my body it was not my own but we were being sabotaged. And I pushed. I pushed with all my might those 2 hours of killing pain. I realized my body was frozen in fear, but that I had gained the power with my previous births to overcome it. 3 cm and I was pushing through the fear, the pain and the negativity of all those surrounding me. Not a soul believed I was in active labor until the moment I walked out of the bathroom, told everyone to get the heck away from me and got on my hands and knees on my bed.
I remember my ecstatic birth of my last daughter and prayed I would at least be rewarded with that and if not to please just let it be over. My body naturally got into the position I used to birth my posterior dd. And I pushed her out into this world. I was done with fear, I was done with pain and I was done with surrogacy. In those 2 hours, I was done with allowing others to cage me in with their fears and I was fighting mad. I believe it is the only thing that got me to birth. No one could believe how quickly the birth went, having been checked and at a 3 literally 15 minutes before the baby crowned. But I knew. I knew deep down my body, my fears and my mindset. I just didn't know that I would be fighting the fears of other people that day.
I gave birth on my 29th birthday. I joked that it was the worst birthday and gift of my life. My IM hated that I had given birth on my birthday and I have been carrying around much negativity and depression from the whole experience. A month after giving birth we moved out of that home, I couldn't stand to sleep in that room that I had birthed in. I couldn't handle the emotions that walking around the house brought up in me. And I hated that one of my midwives told me that I had created the back labor without a posterior presentation on my own, she was unwilling to take any accountability for her fears that day and the role they played in my labor. And for 9 months I have been focusing on the fears that are meaningless. Ignoring the big red elephant in the room that has been lingering over me. My fear of a repeat of this birth. My fear of my DH, the only man I have trusted my entire life, failing me again as he did that day by weighing me down with his fears. I have been refusing to face my fears. And today, I have decided it is time to face them.
I have not rehired those midwives, and never will. I have had no contact from IM and know nothing about my surrogate child, and I never will. I have experienced the pain and agony that others can cause me, BUT I also conquered it and fought through it. I am tired of being a victim. I am tired of allowing the pain to linger. I have a power within me that not even the fear others have can strip from me. So, I must put one foot in front of the other. Acknowledge my fears for this birth and be willing to put into action a plan that enables me to be fear free on this child's birthday.
I'm pretty sure I can.
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