On this blog we deal a lot in the ‘sad truth’ about traumatic birth…but we are pleased to say that there are some ‘happy’ truths out there as well. One of these happy truths is that women who have had a traumatic birth CAN go on to have wonderful, empowering births. We have seen many women move through their traumatic birth experience to a place of healing, and then birth again, this time with much better emotional outcomes.
We want to make it clear that it is NOT necessary to have another baby to heal previous births. Many women who have finished their families come to our “Healing From Birth” sessions, and undertake the healing process, with the goal of moving back to their families more present and complete.
However, other women attend Birthtalk because they DO want more children…and desperately need to hear that they never have to go through something like their previous birth again. And we are happy to say that it IS possible to have a positive subsequent birth after a traumatic birth. We know this from our own personal experiences, & we see it month after month, via our work with the women of Birthtalk…which brings us to Emmy’s story.
Introducing Emmy
Four years ago we met Emmy – a woman wanting to work through her birth experiences and perhaps, just perhaps, have another baby. Recently, we posted a photo of her beautiful vaginal birth after two caesareans (VBA2C) on our Facebook page, and received some lovely comments of congratulations, excitement, and women sharing how she gives them hope for their own upcoming births. We wanted to share more of Emmy’s photos and story, but did not want to ask Emmy for her birth story yet, as she has a 5 week old baby as well as 3 young children!
We began to look back through our records, and in doing so, we realised that the series of communications between Birthtalk and Emmy over the past four years tell a beautiful story in themselves. Each email reveals more of Emmy’s personal journey as she faced her previous births, and wrestled with the urge to have another baby.
With Emmy’s permission, we have put together a very personal ‘paperchase’, dating from her first contact with Birthtalk in 2007, through to her triumphant email sharing her news of her amazing VBA2C last month (complete with some gorgeous pics!)…
