C-section Parents - Coping with Grief
This article may bring up strong emotions if you’ve recently learned of unexpected changes to your birth plans or if you didn’t have the birth you wanted to have and are experiencing a sense of loss. In this blog I’ll focus on unwanted changes to an upcoming birth but you may still find the information and resources helpful.
Applying Your Mindfulness Practice in the Real World
You’ve had your heart set on an unmedicated birth. You have TENS machine to help you labor at home as long as possible before heading in to the hospital. Your doula is getting ready to go on call. You’ve been listening to your hypnosis sessions for several months and are feeling excited about labor and the next part of this great adventure as parents.
You have done everything possible to stack the odds in your favor of having a positive birth.
At your 36 week visit your OB recommends a planned cesarean is the safest option for you and your baby. You sit in silence, too shocked to speak as you watch your dreams dissolve in front of you. That night (and for the next few nights) you toss and turn. Your brain insists on displaying frightening scenes of a cold sterile operating room, surrounded by masked strangers as you lie paralyzed on the operating table…you can’t bear to listen to your hypnosis tracks. It’s all so unfair, unjust…you are grieving the loss of your dream of a empowering positive birth experience. Not everyone will get why you’re upset which makes it even harder.
So what can you do to support yourself mentally and emotionally?
It’s less about what you can do - but how you can be during this stressful time.
Rather than fighting these thoughts and emotions we make space for them. We begin to notice that they are present and we offer ourselves compassion, and kindness as they pass. Those feelings of disappointment, grief and pain might feel like that’s all there is right now but they will pass and the sooner we allow them to be the better we feel.
“Every storm runs out of rain”
You might be thinking how on earth is mindfulness going to help me right now? I totally get it - it seems a bit ‘fluffy’ and all ‘love and light’…but the meditation practices in the GentleBirth App change how your brain and body react to grief (you are grieving the birth you had envisioned, the unfairness of it all and so many other uncomfortable emotions).
No amount of ‘think positive’ will change that. If someone you loved was grieving right now would you tell them to put on their hypnosis recording they’ve been using to prepare for their baby’s birth for the last 5 months and they’ll feel better? Absolutely not. This is the advice of traditional hypnobirthing approaches instead of offering real life meaningful tools and resources to help parents process this feeling of loss.
It’s so important that birth professionals acknowledge this grief, offer your support and hold space for those parents. Mindfulness practices allow you to access your inner resources to grow your capacity to meet these powerful emotions without becoming overwhelmed.
Grieving Your Potential Birth Experience
There are several stages to the grief process and they aren’t linear (anger, denial, bargaining, depression and eventually acceptance). It’s not easy to turn and face these emotions as they bubble up. Most of our lives we’ve avoided experiencing painful feelings. Instead we distract ourselves by overworking, over exercising or numbing them temporarily with alcohol, food etc etc. It can feel like if we even crack open that door a little we’ll drown in a tsunami of pain. But when we push away pain we suffer more, as the saying goes ‘pain is inevitable - suffering is optional.’
Life is hard enough without adding more fuel to the fire. Mindfulness invite us to choose another way to relate to these difficult circumstances. It’s simplicity is so deceiving…noticing what’s arising in our inner world and acknowledging those feelings/thoughts without any judgement. Acknowledging that this really hurts right now. What we resist persists. There is a part of you that has an awareness of the scary thoughts of an unplanned cesarean - but that part isn’t scared. It’s called the witness or ‘observer’ in mindfulness practices. By stepping back and really seeing what’s going on in your mind, being curious about the experience you give yourself more space.
But you can’t let those dreams go - until you let that pain in.
It is not easy. It takes courage to let sadness in and to sit with the pain but like all emotions they are transitory…they will change…you can feel better, you can move through this stressful time and come out the other side feeling feeling more whole.
I’ll say it again - this is not easy to do. But imagine the freedom on the other side if you could let the anger, fear and grief pass and start looking forward to meeting your baby. A stressed brain isn’t a brain that can explore the possibility of a gentle cesarean or other intentional actions that can make this experience more meaningful and more positive for you and your baby.
The Bad News Brain
The negativity bias of your brain wants to keep those scary images of operating rooms front and center of your experience now but as you’re learning with the GentleBirth approach thoughts are not facts and we don’t have to believe everything we think. You can notice those thoughts and feelings without engaging with them and adding to this frightening ‘story’ your brain is determined to share with you. When they come up - you acknowledge them saying “I’m having frightening thoughts about ……” be curious about where those feelings show up in your body. Send your breath to that area inviting it to soften….to soothe….to allow. But as tempting as it is don’t give those thoughts any more airtime than necessary or the suffering continues. These Mindfulness practices are an intentional training of the mind not the passive of listening to a hypnosis recording that continues to remind you of the unwanted changes to your birth.
If you are experiencing similar circumstances as you prepare for your upcoming birth I would recommend the following mindfulness training found in the GentleBirth App.
Compassionate Being
Self Compassion Break
Sitting with Grief
There are also additional relevant hypnosis resources in the playlist - Courage for Unexpected Changes (the ‘birth rehearsal’ hypnobirthing sessions you have been listening to may provoke more sadness).
Mindful meditation is not a relaxation technique. By adding this skill to your hypnosis preparation you’re training in the most profound approach to birth preparation available to you in this very moment. It can shape the way you parent in ways you can’t imagine as well as your relationship with yourself and others. It can be a sanctuary, a refuge for your heart and mind during difficult times. As you come to terms with the changes you can begin to cultivate the courage and acceptance to meet your birth experience with hope and optimism as you look forward to meeting your baby.
Be gentle with yourself.
PS
If you are a traditional Hypnobirthing Instructor please consider that parents going through these unexpected change in circumstances can benefit greatly from additional tools in their toolkit to support their mental health.
PPS - I prefer the term cesarean birth personally but SEO doesn’t so for the article to be found I have to use commonly used words….same goes for c-section ‘parents’…you are not defined by your birth experience - but google search terms are weird…