My guilt about Cara’s birth

I have to admit I felt a bit guilty after I found out Cara ended up with a cesarean.

When she talked about changing care providers, I certainly said she should change if she felt like it.   I even shared ideas of good care providers.

But I also nodded my head when she said something along the lines of , “but they are usually only there to catch, so they can’t matter that much.”

It is this delicate balance I walk as a childbirth educator, moms have to make their own choices.  But I learned from this that if a mom has a gut feeling her care provider isn’t a good fit, I need to really reinforce that idea.  If you don’t feel it is a good fit, you SHOULD change!

A mom’s intuition is powerful, listen!

I also felt a little guilty, because when I called at 9AM, I felt I should offer to come to the hospital to be with them. Because of that impression that if she hadn’t had her baby by 5, I knew that it was possible a cesarean would be pressured on them, I wanted to be there to help prevent that.  But I didn’t offer and I feel bad about that.

So, there is my guilt.  I have learned from it and really stress the power of intuition to moms.  I will be better are following my intuition as well!

I was thrilled to find out that Cara is happy with how her birth turned out.  It wasn’t a traumatic experience for her.  She didn’t feel pressured into any choices, and she has had a good recovery.  She was able to breastfeed and it was a positive birth overall (she really feels being able to see him be born, is a huge part of that.)

Knowing that she was ok, helped me to let go of my guilt.  But I did learn from the experience!