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“I couldn’t think of myself as mom, I called her ‘the baby’.” Méloée, mother of a 10 month old baby boy
“I live expat in Peru with my husband who is Peruvian. I thought it would be hard to get pregnant naturally because I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome when I was 20 years old. In the end, this pregnancy happened without even planning it. I have never felt so good in my body. I loved to feel his blows, to see my stomach move. Truly a dream pregnancy! I did a lot of research on breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping … in order to be as caring and mothering as possible. I gave birth in much more precarious conditions than those we are lucky to have in France. I had read hundreds of stories, taken all the childbirth preparation classes, written a beautiful birth plan… And everything turned out the opposite of what I had dreamed of! Labor did not start and the oxytocin induction was very painful, without an epidural. As labor progressed very slowly and my baby did not come down, we had an emergency caesarean. I don’t remember anything, I didn’t hear or see my baby. I was alone. I woke up 2 hours later and fell asleep again 1 hour. So I met my baby 3 hours after my cesarean. When they finally put her in my arms, exhausted, I didn’t feel anything. A few days later, I quickly realized that something was wrong. I cried a lot. The idea of being alone with this little being worried me terribly. I couldn’t feel myself to be a mother, to pronounce her first name, I was saying “the baby”. As a special education teacher, I had taken some very interesting lessons on maternal attachment.
I knew I had to be physically present, but also psychologically for my baby
I did everything to fight against my anxieties and my doubts. The first person I spoke to was my partner. He knew how to support me, accompany me, help me. I also spoke about it with a very good friend, midwife, who knew how to approach with me this subject of maternal difficulties without any taboos, like something normal. It did me a lot of good! It took me at least six months to be able to talk about my difficulties without being ashamed of it, without feeling guilty. I also think that expatriation played an important role: I did not have my relatives around me, no landmarks, a different culture, no mother friends with whom to talk. I felt very isolated. Our relationship with my son has been built over time. Little by little, I liked to watch him, to have him in my arms, to see him grow up. Looking back, I think our trip to France at 5 months helped me. Introducing my son to my loved ones made me happy and proud. I no longer only felt “Méloée the daughter, the sister, the friend”, but also “Méloée the mother”. Today is the little love of my life. “
“I had buried my feelings.” Fabienne, 32, mother of a 3-year-old girl.
“At 28, I was proud and happy to announce my pregnancy to my partner who wanted a child. Me, at that time, not really. I gave in because I thought I would never have the click. The pregnancy went well. I focused on childbirth. I wanted it natural, in a birth center. Everything went as I wanted, as I did the majority of the work at home. I was so relaxed that I arrived at the birth center just 20 minutes before my daughter was born! When it was put on me, I experienced a strange phenomenon called dissociation. It wasn’t really me who was going through the moment. I had focused so much on childbirth that I forgot that I was going to have to take care of a baby. I was trying to breastfeed, and since I had been told that the beginnings were complicated, I thought it was normal. I was in the gas. In fact, I didn’t want to take care of it. I had like buried my feelings. I didn’t like the physical proximity to the baby, didn’t feel like wearing it or doing skin to skin. Yet he was a fairly “easy” baby who slept a lot. When I got home I was crying, but I thought it was the baby blues. Three days before my partner resumed work, I no longer slept at all. I felt I was wavering.
I was in a state of hypervigilance. It was unimaginable for me to be alone with my baby.
I called my mother for help. As soon as she arrived, she told me to go and rest. I locked myself in my room to cry all day. In the evening, I had an impressive anxiety attack. I scratched my face screaming, “I want to go”, “I want it taken away”. My mom and my partner realized that I was really, really bad. The next day, with the help of my midwife, I was taken care of in a mother-child unit. I was hospitalized full time for two months, which finally allowed me to recover. I just needed to be taken care of. I stopped breastfeeding, which relieved me. I no longer had the anxiety of having to take care of my baby on my own. The art therapy workshops allowed me to reconnect with my creative side. When I got back, I was more at ease, but I still didn’t have this unwavering bond. Even today, my link to my daughter is ambivalent. I find it difficult to be separated from her and yet I need it. I don’t feel this immense love that overwhelms you, but it’s more like little flashes: when I laugh with her, we both do activities. As she grows up and needs less physical closeness, it’s me now who seeks her hugs more! It is as if I am doing the path backwards. I think motherhood is an existential adventure. Of those that change you forever. “
“I was angry with my baby for the pain from the cesarean.” Johanna, 26, two children aged 2 and 15 months.
“With my husband, we decided to have children very quickly. We got engaged and married a few months after we met and decided to have a baby when I was 22. My pregnancy went really well. I even passed the term. In the private clinic where I was, I asked to be triggered. I had no idea that an induction often results in a cesarean. I trusted the gynecologist because he had given birth to my mother ten years earlier. When he told us that there was a problem, that the baby was in pain, I saw my husband turn white. I told myself that I had to keep my calm, to reassure him. In the room, I was not given a spinal anesthesia. Or, it didn’t work. I did not feel the cut of the scalpel, on the other hand I did feel that my entrails were tampered with. The pain was such that I was crying. I begged to be put back to sleep, put back on the anesthetic. At the end of the cesarean, I gave the baby a little kiss, not because I wanted to, but simply because I was told to give him a kiss. Then I “left”. I was completely put to sleep because I woke up a long time later in the recovery room. I got to see my husband who was with the baby, but I didn’t have that flow of love. I was just tired, I wanted to sleep. I saw my husband moved, but I was still too much in what I had just experienced. The next day, I wanted to do first aid, the bath, despite the pain of the cesarean. I said to myself: “You are the mom, you have to take care of it”. I didn’t want to be sissy. From the first night, the baby had terrible colic. No one wanted to take him to nursery for the first three nights and I didn’t sleep. Back home, I cried every night. My husband was fed up.
Every time my baby cried, I cried with him. I took care of it well, but I didn’t feel any love at all.
The images of the Cesarean came back to me every time he cried. After a month and a half, I discussed it with my husband. We were going to sleep and I explained to him that I was angry with our son for this cesarean, that I was in pain every time he cried. And right after that discussion, that night, it was magical, a bit like opening a storybook and a rainbow escaping from it. Talking has freed me from a burden. That night I slept soundly. And in the morning, I finally felt this immense surge of love for my child. The link was made suddenly. For the second, when I gave birth vaginally, the deliverance was such that love came immediately. Even if the second childbirth went better than the first, I think we should especially not make a comparison. Above all, do not regret. You have to remember that every childbirth is different and every baby is different. “