Almost 11 months later and I can safely say that I am not over the fact that I ended up with a c/section. I felt disempowered by my doctor, DH (although bless him he was doing his best) and the midwives and I am not sure today whether I will ever "get over it". I hate the fact that my body didn't do what it was supposed to do and I hate the fact that I didn't meet my son until 2 hours after he was born.
wow, i relate to that Shellbell.

i prepared for a natural home waterbirth, laboured at home for 29hours, ambulance transfer to nearby children's hospital, 6 hours of medical intervention to hurry labour up, then emergency c-section, baby arrived with apgar score of 2, whisked away, no skin on skin for us, dh stopped any formula being given to our baby.

My recovery took months of being like an invalid, so at the very time i needed to be very active in my newborn's life, i was not well enough to do it, and i was on my own with her when dh wasn't at work or sleeping.

i wish i had explored ALL ways of labour, not just natural waterbirth, cos when i had to make huge decisions, with medical people i had never seen before, about concepts i knew very little about, after being in labour for 30 hours already, it was not a good time to be ignorant.

i was glad i got to experience labouring in a waterbirthing pool at home, that was good, proved to myself i can labour without drugs, but when a weird medical phemonena happened to my uterus during labour (bandl's ring), i do realise and comprehend that without the c-section, both me and bilby would have died.

the disconnect for us was pretty intense
at 29 months old, she is very unaffectionate, adn i find it impossible not to blame myself, for the way she entered the world, and our delayed meeting. Bf-ing did happen, but it took four months to establish, i also blame that on the delayed meeting.

i cannot use the b word, i refer to her "arrival" instead.

i don't feel this way about other mums and their c-sections, it's just a personal thing for our situation.

the long recovery also meant i could not use slings/baby carriers, another thing i really wanted to do, another way of connecting with her that we didn't get to do.

my child took a very long time to learn how to smile - again i relate that to the amount of pain i was in after the c-section, i doubt my baby saw enough smiling around her in those first few months.

I think a c-section COULD be much more empowering IF
- you had read up about it
= made some choices yourself
- at least met someone who was going to be in the operating room with you
- could have the skin to skin after it
- got physical support after it, so all you had to do was look after your baby (e.g housework, meals, food shopping).

if i had another child, i would aim for a waterbirth at home again, but would ALSO school up on the other alternatives. Anything can happen when you go into labour.

i had virtually ALL the things i was against
- two epidurals
- fetal monitoring
- labouring on my back, hooked up to machines, numb
- being in an operating room with lots of strangers adn bright lights in my eyes
- forceps

the vermix was cleaned off my baby IMMEDIATELY, when i wanted it left for three days.

hospital staff were SO KEEN to give my baby formula - all those "breastfeeding friendly hospital" posters are just for show i think. I had to fight to make sure her first drink was my milk. (whilst recovering from 37 hours of labour and major surgery).

i don't know if i can get over this. no-one really wants to hear it (except places like this thread), so i just keep quiet about it in real life.

"but you have a lovely child now"

not many people "get" or "acknowledge" the grieving of it.

the bottle of champagne, that we had in the fridge, for dh and the midwives to drink, once baby had arrived (in our lounge), has never been opened.