Let's get personal, shall we?

There are many reasons why I got into this business of supporting moms - a number of which are directly related to my own experiences of entering motherhood. And it all started when I gave birth to my eldest a little over 9 years ago.

I did all the things right in pregnancy and had a pretty enjoyable pregnancy (wouldn't say I was glowing but minus the hip pain, it was pretty lovely). I hired a wonderful Doula team to support me and my husband and for the first 8 hours of labor, everything was going according to plan. The music was playing low, the lights were dimmed, I wasn't hooked up to a thousand IV's, and I mainly chilled out in warm water or on the bed. Then it came time to push. And push I did - for 3 hours. Nurses and my doctor started to come in and there was worried chatter about how exhausted I appeared. The mood shifted from calm empowerment to "we might need a C-section real soon". Now let me be clear - I have nothing against C-Sections. If that's what a mom wants, more power to her. But that was not what I wanted.

A little after 3 hours, my doctor came back and said that we had to do something differently. My son was stuck and his heart rate was starting to drop from all the effort. She presented me with a consent form that I barely had energy to read let alone understand. My team knew I didn't want a C-Section unless absolutely necessary so she offered to give me a vaccum assisted birth.

"Sure." I said.... as if I even knew what that was.

As soon as I said that, my room went from peaceful to the equivalent of a football stadium. The bright lights turned on, no less than 10 people filled the room, music turned off, and equipment started rolling in. My doctor told me in no uncertain terms, that she was giving me 3 pushes with the vaccum. If that didn't work, they would need to move to surgery. So I gave it my all.

It didn't work for the first two. My doctor could see how scared I was and she asked if she could perform an episiotomy. Again I consented (didn't know what that was). One cut, one pull (with the doctor putting her leg up on my bed no less), and one massive push later, and my son was born.

I did it. And I was so frigging proud of myself.

And for months that was the story I told everyone. It was a story of empowerment. Of achievement. Of pride.

And then PPD hit.

Birth Trauma is More Common Than Anyone Tells You

No one mentioned trauma when I was recounting my birth story. There wasn't a whisper of it until my therapist (literally a year later) told me that it had the "potential" to be traumatic. And that maybe having my birth turn upside down and feeling like I lost control of something I really really wanted was a contributing factor to why I was feeling so "irritable". That, and the fact that no one told me about how hard breast feeding would be - but that's for another blog post another day.

When most people hear "birth trauma", they picture Greys Anatomy life or death situations. Those absolutely count and they are unfortunately real. But birth trauma is so much bigger than what shows up in our charts. It can also look like,

• Feeling unheard, dismissed or steamrolled by your care team
• A moment where you genuninely feared (whether rational or not) for your life or your baby's life.
• An experience that went nothing like the birth you had prepared for (#me)
• Being touched, examined, or worked on without feeling like you had any say or consent
• A NICU stay, a seperation, a quiet that last too long before the first cry came.
• A birth that feels unsupported by the people you were counting on to be there for you.

The part that matters most here is that birth trauma isn't defined by what's on the paper. It's defined by how your body and your nervous system experienced it. Two mothers can have exactly the same delivery and walk away with completely different stories living inside of them. Your experience matters and it's valid.

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Why It Lives In Your Body, Not Just Your Memory

This is wisdom that I wish someone would have written on my hand years ago. Trauma is not a story - it is a physiological response. When something overwhelming happens that we were not expecting, our nervous system gets flooded. As the traumatic event is unfolding in real time, our bodies do whatever they have to do to keep us alive, whether that is fighting back, fleeing, or running away. The memory of this event gets stored in the body not as a memory but as a sensation (tension, hypervigilance, a startle response, a low grade sense of dread, etc.).

This is why talking about the trauma (if you feel like you can even do that) only gets you so far. You can describe the birth in perfect detail and still not feel like it's off your chest (or you shoulders or your gut). That's because insight isn't what is needed here - you already know that what you endured was terrifying and awful. What is lingering is the bodily sensations that need to be reprocessed.

Signs That Birth Trauma Might Still Be Living In Your Body

You might be carrying birth trauma if you...

• Avoid thinking or talking about birth - or you find you can't stop talking about your story
• Feel detached, numb, or disconnected when the topic comes up
• Have intrusive memories, images or sensations that surface without warning
• Feel anxious, hypervigilant, or on edge around medical settings or birth content on TV and social media
• Have struggled to bond with your baby or felt like you were just going through the motions
• Experience physical symptoms - tension, panic attacks, gut issues, headaches, trouble sleeping
• Feel guilt, shame or anger about the birth that you haven't been able to set down.

This list is not exhaustive and you don't need to check every box. I personally endured a few of these and I have met many other women who have experienced other symptoms. The point is that if something from your birth still is taking up space that feels negative in your mind and body and potentially in your relationships, that's worth paying attention to.

Healing Doesn't Require You to Relive It

One of the biggest reasons moms don't seek support for birth trauma is this: they assume healing means retelling the hardest parts, over and over, until it hurts less. The idea of sitting in a room and narrating the worst moments of their birth keeps them from asking for help.

Here's the good news: that's not how the most effective body-based approaches work.

Trauma lives in the nervous system, which means that's also where healing happens. Approaches like EMDR and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART®)* work by helping your brain and body process stuck experiences, not by reliving them in detail, but by gently completing the loop the nervous system never got to close. Many clients describe noticing significant shifts in just a few sessions, without having to narrate their story from start to finish. My ART clients in particular notice shifts literally after 1 session. Somatic approaches work similarly. They help your body release what it's been holding through movement, breath, and sensation rather than just conversation.

This isn't about forgetting what happened. It's about your body no longer responding as if it's still happening.

You Don't Have to Keep Carrying This Alone

Friend, if you have gotten this far in the post I want you to know that I see you. It took me a solid year, the first year of my sons life, to realize that I needed help. I wish that I had asked sooner and that I would have known how different life could look. There's a particular kind of loneliness in birth trauma. It's the loneliness of looking at your healthy child and not feeling like you're allowed to still be hurting. Of not knowing how to explain it to your partner. Of feeling like everyone else moved on and you're somehow still stuck in that room.

You're not stuck because something is wrong with you. You're stuck because something happened to you and your nervous system, doing its job, held onto it so you could keep functioning. It kept you going. It just doesn't know it's safe to let go yet.

That's the work. And it is possible.

If you're in the South Bay area, (Los Gatos, Saratoga, San Jose, Willow Glen) or anywhere in California or Florida via telehealth, I'd love to talk. You deserve the same care and attentiveness you've poured into everyone else in your story.

Book a free consultation today! 

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