Healing From Birth Trauma and Reclaiming Motherhood
**Originally published on July 20th, 2020. Names have been changed.**
A few days before I had Luca, my midwife asked me what I envisioned his birth would look like. I told her he would come in the evening or night and that it would be cloudy or raining. This feels fitting since it rains on, or around, Luca’s birthday every year.
Over the last 6 years, I’ve found myself crying the entire week leading up to Luca’s birthday due to the circumstances surrounding his birth. This year has been different. It’s the first time that I feel I am not carrying the overwhelming weight of birth trauma and feel that I am finally in a place to share my birth story and the trauma associated with it.
After finding out I was pregnant (I was 24), I decided that I wanted to give birth at home. After reading and learning how hospital’s view births as a means of generating profit instead of a sacred experience between a parent and child, I wanted agency in how and where I brought my child into this world — at home surrounded by love and not in a cold, bright room where he would immediately be taken away from me. I did not want to be bullied or scared into a c-section because it’s more convenient for doctors. I wanted to let my body do what it naturally knows how to do; give birth.
Luca’s dad and I looked into local birthing centers and interviewed local midwives. We eventually decided on two midwives who worked as partners. Aside from other midwives recommending them, I genuinely liked them. I also felt that having two midwives was better than one. (**For the sake of not getting this post removed, I will be referring to them as Lee and Ale. Which are made up names.**) We had weekly check-ups throughout my pregnancy and held meetings with family members to educate them on what the home birth would look like to ease their concerns.
Aside from the usual pregnancy pains and all the emotions that come with it, I would say that my pregnancy went fine. In order to pay for their services, I got a job and worked the night shift until a few days before my due date.
A week before my due date, Lee informed me that I tested positive for GBS (Group B Strep), she told me that this was “normal for up to 30% of women” and that it was a “normal gut bacteria that was out of balance.” She assured me that they would take precautions to protect me and Luca from transmission which was “very rare.” She told me that if I were to go to the hospital they would have me on antibiotics during labor, but that they would be able to provide an alternative during home birth that would suffice.
That alternative ended up being Hibiclens, an antispectic that fights bacteria. I was instructed to use this during labor. I didn’t question it since at the time I had full trust in both of them. It wasn’t until recently that I found that Hibiclens is not an effective treatment against GBS and most likely did nothing to help prevent Luca from contracting it.
My due date came and went. One day turned into two, then into three, until a full week passed. I was starting to get nervous, but I was assured it was normal. As we approached the second week, I was advised of multiple options I could try to jump start my labor. I tried acupuncture and drank castor oil twice, which was the most disgusting shit I’ve ever had. I never want to see castor oil in my life again. Nothing worked. During all of this, I also got a sonogram to make sure everything was okay. The sonogram did not show Luca was in distress, so we decided to keep waiting for him to come.
In Texas, you can not have a home birth past the 42nd week of pregnancy, so as we were approaching the cut off, I became more and more anxious. I broke down at one point because I was devastated that I would have to deliver at the hospital. I was positive I would have to have a c-section due to the 42nd mark and that terrified me. This has filled me with guilt since.
My midwives told me that one of them, Ale, would be going out of town and would not be able to be present for Luca’s birth but would have someone fill in for her. I was heartbroken because I wanted both of them to be there. I always felt a deeper connection to Ale and felt uncomfortable having someone I’ve never met be there. However, there wasn’t much I could do.
On the last day of the 42nd week (Thursday the 18th of July), I started getting small contractions around 3PM. It wasn’t full on labor, but Lee told me it was fine, and since the contractions started on the last day, I was not required to deliver at a hospital.
Throughout that afternoon, night, and into the morning I labored alone. Lee showed up with the new midwife early the next morning, Friday, July 19th. I don’t remember this woman’s name, but I know she was from out of state. Looking back now, I don’t think she was licensed.
The labor was exhausting. I was in and out of sleep while in-between contractions. I hadn’t ate and did not have an appetite. I was also in and out of the water tub, walking around while trying to find a comfortable position. Finally, at around 5pm as I got out of the tub, Lee noticed I was leaking meconium. I had no idea what meconium was so I thought this was just some type of birth fluid. Lee did know, but did not tell us what it was or how dangerous it was for Luca.
All she said was “I don’t want to scare you, but we might have to go to the hospital in a while if he doesn’t come soon.” I didn’t think much of this because I wasn’t even fully alert and figured that if it was something big she would have told us.
Finally, after 30+ hours of labor, Luca was born at 10:54 PM on July 19th, 2013. This means that for almost five hours, maybe even more, Luca was inhaling meconium into his lungs.
Luca did not cry when he was born. He whimpered and seemed to be having trouble breathing. He looked tired and distressed. But again, because I had just given birth, I had gone from pain and exhaustion to being completely alert, happy, and filled with so many emotions. I was so focused on meeting my baby for the first time that I didn’t think anything could be wrong.
An hour after Luca was born he stopped breathing. Lee started CPR with a pump as a family member called for medics. They were able to get Luca breathing again and then said something like “It’s fine!” implying that we should not have called for medics. When the medics arrived they immediately took Luca to the hospital. I was advised to wait for the next ambulance to be able to admit myself so that I could be with him. As we were waiting, Lee said that she and the new midwife would not be going with us. She said that they needed to clean up.
Once I got to the hospital I was taken to get stitches. Something Lee had failed to do. Before and after this procedure, doctors came into the room to ask me questions about what happened. At this point I didn’t really know except that I had my baby and he had stopped breathing. They seemed very confused about the whole situation and made me feel as if they didn’t believe me. Eventually I knocked out from exhaustion. I woke up the next morning to family and friends checking in on me as well as multiple doctors coming in and out of my room with updates and more questions.
Everything still felt surreal. I was told that Luca was not well and that the midwives eventually showed up the night before but seemed hesitant to talk to the doctors or provide detailed information. At this point, still trying to grasp what was happening, I told myself that I wasn’t going to blame the midwives for this, that “Things just happen.” When I was finally able to see Luca later that day, the enormity of it all set in. I broke down crying. He did not look anything like the baby I had given birth to hours before.
To make this part as short as possible, Luca was in the hospital for four months. We were told that he had a 5% chance of survival and at some point we would have to talk about taking him off the machines keeping him alive. After two weeks, Luca was taken to a hospital in San Antonio, TX. This was terrifying in itself because they said there was a chance he would not even make the flight.
Aside from extensive lung damage from meconium aspiration, Luca also did contract GBS through me which lead to pneumonia. At one point, they had even suggested it was best to remove one of his lungs, which I was ready to accept. Fortunately, Luca is a fighter. He got healthier and stronger each day. Once he was out of the woods, he was brought back to the hospital in El Paso. I remember nurses and doctors being shocked to see him alive and healthy. One nurse cried, telling me the night Luca arrived she was the one who took him in and was sure he wasn’t going to make it. She was overjoyed to see him back looking like a brand new baby. Although Luca was doing much better, he had to remain in the hospital for a few more weeks because he needed to learn how to feed.
Since he had had tubes down his mouth for such a long time he did not know how to suck a bottle. Luca did not make any progress, so we finally decided to take him home with a feeding tube and work with him there instead of having to spend any more time in a hospital.
We were finally able to take Luca home on November 6th, 2013. The happiest day of my life.
During all of this, I was never truly able to process everything that had happened. There were days where I was hopeful that Luca would get better. Other days I felt hopeless and tried to prepare myself for the possibility of Luca not making it.
It took me months, maybe years, to fully understand the extent of the medical negligence that almost caused my baby to die. These women knew about the meconium and didn’t tell us about it. Not only should I have been made aware of this, but I should have been trusted to make a fully informed decision on whether or not I wanted to go to the hospital.
There was still another opportunity for them to tell us after Luca was born. They could have advised us to take him to the hospital just to make sure he was fine. Anything at all! Even after he stopped breathing they seemed so nonchalant. They didn’t even have the courtesy to go with us to the hospital or give full information to the doctors asking questions.
Throughout the following days, Lee kept texting me, offering me postpartum care and asking if she could see me at the hospital. I believe Ale also started texting me once she was back. They both approached me as if everything was fine. I had to tell them to stop texting me because I did not have the capacity to deal with any of it at that time.
Once Luca was home we tried to get his birth certificate. We were told we had to contact the midwives in order to start the process. I did not want to contact them. As harsh as it sounds, I didn’t even want them to know Luca was alive. I felt that they didn’t deserve to know. I wanted them to have to wonder forever.
I decided that if I did have to contact them it would be via email and I would contact Ale instead of Lee. Although Ale was not present during the birth, I felt that she was still a part of what happened because she was my midwife throughout my pregnancy and was Lee’s business partner. I do not know if Ale knows what happened or what version of it Lee gave her. I didn’t ask. I made it clear in my first email to her why I was contacting her and that I did not want to discuss anything else. In her response, Ale happened to mention that she had moved out of state and so had Lee. How convenient.
That was the last time I had any contact with either of them. I never got any sort of accountability or genuine concern from either of them. I’ve always felt, and KNOW, that Lee knew exactly what she did. She knows that her negligence caused this. I could tell by the way she acted after it happened and said they “Needed to clean.” I could tell by the way she would text as if she was my best friend, trying to act as if nothing had happened. Everyone saw how she showed up at the hospital and tried to withhold information from doctors.
So why didn’t she own up to any of this? Why not apologize? Why not talk to me about what happened? They didn’t even have the decency to give us back the money we paid them, knowing we were a young couple who didn’t have money and obviously needed it then more than ever. While in San Antonio, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House to be close to Luca and we are forever grateful to their org for helping keep us afloat. It took us months to get back on our feet after Luca was home. Not to mention taking Luca to check-ups and therapy.
This is what hurt the most. The “nothing” I received from them. Which leads me to constantly ask myself, why?
This is something I always have to ask myself in certain situations as a working class Latina. I had never thought about how my class and ethnicity may have played a role in this, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it does.
Bias in medicine is real. It exists in hospitals — why wouldn’t it exist outside of it? Do I know for sure that Lee (and/or this other woman that was present) are racist or biased? No. But would this be out of the norm? No.
I was a young, first-time mother with no knowledge of how birth worked. I trusted these white women with my life and with my baby’s life. Why didn’t they care about our lives? Did they think they knew what was best for me? Did they see me only as a young Latina who was disposable, or someone they didn’t need to put much effort into? Would things be different if I was white, or older, or had money? Or are they just bad people with no conscious? I will never know.
What I do know is that they caused Luca, me, Luca’s dad, and our families immeasurable amounts of pain. I know that they stole precious moments from me and my son. I did not get to experience the first four months of Luca’s life outside of a hospital. I did not get to breastfeed him. I did not get to hold him until he was one month old.
I still find myself envious of people who post their newborns on social media. Not because I have ill feelings towards them, but because it’s a regular reminder of what I missed out on as a mother.
There are still long term effects to all of this. Luca is delayed in certain areas. Luca is still in therapy. Luca has to live with lung damage, which is extremely scary during this pandemic. None of these things matter because Luca is alive and healthy and happy, but these issues will continue to affect him, and us, for the rest of our lives.
For almost six years, I’ve had to carry this trauma with me. Every time certain dates came around, or I saw an ambulance, or had to share this story with anyone, it would send me spiraling to a dark place.
A few years ago I thought I saw Lee at an event. This lady smiled at me and I froze. I felt as if I had left my body. I ended up running out of the room and all I could do was cry. My friends comforted me and were willing to ask her to leave. After calming down a little bit I realized that this woman was not Lee at all. I was so embarrassed by my reaction that I never told my friends it wasn’t her. Unexpected things like this always triggered me and I thought it was going to be the norm for the rest of my life.
It wasn’t until two years ago that I discovered the term “birth trauma” and “postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder.” I felt that everything I had been experiencing finally made sense. The whole time I felt as though I needed to “get over it” because Luca was alive, when in reality I had actually been suffering from PTSD.
This realization lead me to getting into therapy. My therapist didn’t know exactly what birth trauma was either, but she educated herself on it and was able to help me work through these feelings.
I carried an overwhelming amount of guilt. Even though I knew that Lee and this other woman were at fault, I still blamed myself for a lot of what happened. Me feeling angry and devastated when I thought I was going to have to give birth in the hospital has always made me feel selfish. I kept telling myself I should have just gone to the hospital that night instead of “forcing it.” I felt guilty about having a home birth to begin with. Especially when I had to mention this to anyone, even Luca’s doctors, they always made a face that said, “Oh, you had a home birth…” Having people ask me, “Well, why would you have a home birth?” didn’t help either.
I felt guilty and full of regret for not doing anything in regards to Lee and this other woman. I was advised a few times to sue them or file a complaint against them. Half of me wanted to, but after Luca got home from the hospital I did not have the energy or the desire for any of that. Years passed and by the time I was truly able to begin to process and heal, I felt I had missed my chance to due so. I felt as if I had failed to get any kind of justice for my baby, or for me.
I’ve worked hard to unpack all of this and I am grateful for my therapist who made me feel seen, and reassured me that I did, and have done, everything for Luca that I could. My therapist suggested that I write a letter to Lee and not send it to her (unless I wanted to) in order to help me get all my feelings out. From there we would decide if I wanted to go public with this on a forum, a blog, or file a complaint. Unfortunately I had to stop going to therapy before we got to do any of this.
This isn’t a letter to Lee. This is just my story. My trauma. My healing.
I don’t know if Lee, Ale, or the other woman will ever read this, but the thought of them doing so still makes me feel scared and nervous. I’m not sure why. I try not to dwell on them anymore, although sometimes they do cross my mind. Last I saw, Lee was doing well. I saw she even did a talk about “race and birth” at a University a few years ago, which makes me angry thinking that they have just gone on with their lives. I don’t know if they ever think about me or Luca and all the trauma and pain they caused to us and our families. I don’t expect anything from them at this point. I just hope that they never do this to any family ever again. That’s the only thing that I can hope for.
Aside from not being ready emotionally to share this story, I have always been hesitant to talk about this out of fear that the only thing people will take away from this is an anti-home birth narrative. This did not happen because I chose to have a home birth. This happened because of these women’s medical negligence. I know many people who have had successful and joyous home births. While this isn’t an anti-home birth story, it isn’t necessarily a pro-home birth one either.
I want people who are pregnant to be able to chose where and how they want to give birth. Whether that’s in a hospital, a birthing center, or at home. I want people, especially doctors, nurses, and midwives, to respect people giving birth and the birthing process itself. People giving birth shouldn’t be scared and terrified out of fear of something happening to them or their babies. We see this with Black women at an alarming rate in this country, leading to Black mothers and their babies dying during birth. This is violence. This is medical racism. All people giving birth deserve to be cared for, listened to, and treated with respect, even well after their babies are born.
Although I still cry occasionally (I cried writing this), I am in a much better place than I was two years ago. This is something that is always going to be a part of me, but I have healed and will continue to do so. I’ve realized that I can not go back in time, only forward. And forward for me is into the future with Luca.
