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I have to be honest; I’m finding it hard to write about Sarah’s story. It’s not a nice story. It’s traumatic, it’s unfair and it’s still raw. Her story is like The Series Of Unfortunate Events, if the events are the most traumatic thing you could possibly imagine. When I first read Sarah’s story it was in dot point form on an email. How can you possibly tell the story of five very different, but very traumatic births in under 200 words?
You can’t.
I read Sarah’s story and cried. But when I HEARD her story, my heart broke about fifteen times over. I was shocked. I was angry for her. I continued to think that it couldn’t get any worse for her, and yet it did. And maybe nobody wants to hear these stories. The hard ones, the F’d up ones, the ones that leave you in a puddle of hormonal tears. We don’t want to hear them because we want to paint birth as this beautiful, perfect experience.
But it’s not always. Birth is dangerous. Birth is unpredictable. Birth is potentially life threatening, for both you and your baby. This doesn’t take away from HOW amazing it is. In fact, it makes it more amazing. To make it out alive is a miracle in itself. There is no PERFECT birth story; there are just a shit-load of different ones. But because we shelter ourselves from the not-so-nice birth stories, we do ourselves a disservice.
Birth is hard. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it until my pubes are grey. Birth is so hard. Even if it goes perfectly ‘to plan’, it is still SO hard. But because we don’t paint birth for what it is we set ourselves up for failure, guilt and shame when things don’t go to plan. This doesn’t mean you should be scared of birth! It just means that you need to surrender to the experience. It means that you should be educated about the realities of childbirth.
Sarah’s story touches on some of the hardest topics, both birth related and not.
- Miscarriage
- Anencephaly
- Stillbirth
- An epidural gone wrong
- Eclampsia
- Gun laws
Just to name a few. Yeah I know, heavy. But Sarah’s story deserves to be heard. There is so much healing in sharing. Not only for the person sharing their heart, but also for everyone listening. The more we connect, the more we share, and the more authentic we are the less we feel alone. Everything becomes less scary once it leaves the confines of our mind. Knowing that we’re heard, knowing that we’re supported and ALLOWING ourselves to be- is the greatest healer.
This episode is NOT to be missed. Share it to your socials if you’re listening (and tag me, so I can see OBVIOUSLY). And if you love my shit make sure you subscribe, rate and review the podcast so that I can brag and what not.
Thank you again to Sarah, for sharing her heart with us. This episode is dedicated to her first baby, her Mum and her Dad who are now her Angels.
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