Birth regret

I didn't quite know what to say in this post. I feel like I still have a lot that I need to say about my birth experience, things that I didn't feel were appropriate to put in my actual birth story posts. I'm not sure why I felt like this. But now that they are done I feel like I need to explain myself. To a lot of people who have spoken to me about Betsy's birth, I have been very negative about it. I have said how much it traumatised me and how I could never go through it again. Yet from the outside looking in, as in to everyone except me, there wasn't anything that stood out about it all that would have me feeling this way about it. I'm sure if any of those people have read my birth posts, they will be wondering what on earth I am going on about. So I feel like I need to explain a little. I feel like this is going to be a bit of a rambly post, as I have so much to say on this subject. So bare with me.

Yes it was painful. Yes it was long. It was both of those things to the max. I was completely and utterly unprepared for all of it. I know I have mentioned this before, but I feel like I need to emphasis my point, because I was really unprepared.
Ridiculously so. I was petrified, I had no clue what I was doing. I cannot remember large chunks of it. I was pushing for a long time. In my posts I said I couldn't remember how long for. After speaking to Ashley about it he has said it was an abnormally long time. The midwives were apparently talking about having to intervene as they were concerned Betsy was stuck. I don't remember any of this. I vaguely remember noticing the urgency in the midwives voice when he was telling me to push, but I didn't think anything of it. It was and will forever be the hardest thing I have ever experienced and something that I would never willingly go through again.

But worse then the pain, worse then any of that, was the feeling I had when Betsy was born.

I didn't love her. I didn't have my "One born every minute" moment with tears of happiness cuddling my beautiful bundle. Instead I had my baby taken from me, because it was quite clear to everyone that I did not know what to do with her, I did not want to hold her. Ashley, her doting Daddy who should have been enjoying his first cuddle with his baby, was instead looking at me, studying me, looking to see whether or not I loved our daughter. His own words. I hate that. At the time I was oblivious, I was selfishly wrapped up in my own world of pain and exhaustion.

It is so hard to explain how I felt towards her. There was something there. I felt protective of her. I have nothing to compare it to so I'm not entirely sure how it is 'supposed' to feel. And maybe if I hadn't of struggled so much with my labour, I may have felt differently. I don't know. I so desperately wish I could go back in time and change everything. I feel guilt everytime I look at Betsy. Overwhelming guilt.

I barely acknowledged her for the first day in the hospital. I held her a couple of times, but mostly she was in her cot. I was too exhausted, too shell shocked by what I had been through to accept my new role of being her mummy. I just couldn't come to terms with it. I was so overwhelmed by everything.
Luckily it didn't take too long for this to sort itself out. A day or two. I know of so many poor parents who have struggled on like this for days, weeks, months. Which sometimes makes me wonder if I should just let it go. "It could have been so much worse" I tell myself. Those parents for whom things were a lot worse will probably be willing me to shut up. To stop whining. And maybe they are right, maybe I ought to. I really wish I could. I wish I could accept it and move on, but I cant. 

I still feel so much regret and sadness about it all, even now 15 months on. I am beyond devastated that I didn't get my OBEM moment, as I refer to it. I don't think this feeling will ever go away. I will always feel sad about it. Whenever I think about it. I will always feel jealous and envious when I do catch episodes of that wretched programme, the programme I used to loved to watch. Or when I hear about other peoples birth stories, the ones that I wanted. The love at first sight they felt for their baby. That I should have felt for mine. I wonder if it is to blame for how much I struggled, how low I felt, how much I cried during those first few months of her life.

It is so hard for me to type those words. And I worry about what Betsy will think of me should she ever read this when she is older. It isn't something I have really discussed with anyone properly, I have touched upon it in older blog posts, but that's it. I feel I failed at the first hurdle, I feel ashamed, that I don't deserve to be her mother sometimes. A lot of times. And I'm not entirely sure how to finish this post. There is no positive note to end on. There never will be. There is nothing I will ever be able to tell you about that day that will change any of this.