My birth trauma cost me far more than a physical injury.
It cost me my mental health, with nights spent lying awake replaying the birth in my mind and blaming myself for not getting it right. Months of pain, repeated hospital visits, surgeries, and feeling unheard left me reliving the trauma over and over again.
It cost me precious time with my first baby during his first year of life when I should’ve been focused on bonding, healing, and enjoying motherhood.
Instead I was crying through breastfeeds because it hurt so much to sit down. I was sitting in waiting rooms, recovering from procedures and managing an open wound.
It also came with financial and practical costs.
Multiple surgeries meant taking time off work when I had only just returned. It meant countless appointments, dressings, and home nursing visits.
Birth trauma cost me my confidence in my own body.
It cost me my dignity, my self-esteem, and my trust in the healthcare system that repeatedly dismissed my concerns.
It cost my husband the sense of joy, excitement, and reassurance that should accompany the birth of second a child. He was unable to be fully present during our subsequent births, because he was carrying the fear of seeing me suffer again.
The trauma became something our whole family lived with, shaping experiences that should have been filled with anticipation, connection, and happiness.
When my third baby was born, it cost me again.
The scar tissue from multiple surgeries broke down and I suffered a more severe tear.
The trauma from my first birth came flooding back.
The PTSD was so overwhelming that I began hyperventilating, I couldn’t think clearly, and found it impossible to make rational decisions about my care. Instead of being present in those first precious hours, days and weeks with my baby, I was trapped in fear, reliving what had happened before.
The greatest cost was not just the injury itself, but the ripple effect it had across years of my life.
