This isn’t talked about enough in the birth world.

It’s always recommended to decompress after a birth. To talk with other birth workers to process a birth if it was difficult. This blog is going to be discussing some difficult stories (both personally that I’ve experienced as well as stories from friends who are also birth workers).

If you are not in a good head space, or are currently expecting a baby, please keep your space safe and either do not read or read after you’ve given birth.

sometimes that’s not enough.

Sometimes you’re messaging a client who’s being induced, talking them through things, and waiting. Only to get a message the following morning as you’re out in public grocery shopping from their sister from their account that they passed away the night before while giving birth to their child. The child you’re supposed to photograph.

Sometimes as you’re supporting your client bedside, baby’s heart rate drops dangerously low and they’re rushed out of the room, put under general anesthesia and you’re left to wonder what’s happening or if baby is alive.

Sometimes another client’s baby is having deep extended decels and they’re rushed out of the room again to the OR after they had been pushing. Only for a nurse to run back into the room, throw a gown at partner and both of them run back out and leave you alone in a darkening hospital room wondering what’s happening.

sometimes I cry.

I cry because I’m scared. I cry because it’s not what my client wanted and I mourn their experience for them. I cry because they lost their life.

Birth work is SO HARD sometimes. It’s hard to bear witness to other’s trauma only to take your own trauma from the event home.

I cry because I wonder if I could have done more. Said more. Been more. Only to realize that I did literally everything I could, and all I can do now is support them and help them process the events.

And so many birth workers are afraid to say they were scared of something. That they couldn’t handle the event that unfolded before their eyes. I’ve heard from birth workers who watched their clients severely hemorrhage before them, where their client loses consciousness and they had to be rushed back for a full hysterectomy to save their life. I’ve heard from birth workers attend births who have had baby’s heart beat stop while pushing and baby didn’t survive. I’ve heard from birth workers who have watched an OB yank so hard on an umbilical cord that they actually pulled their clients uterus outside of their body (and then blamed it on the client).

birth workers need therapists.

We don’t just need to decompress with other birth workers to process traumatic births. We need proper professional help. We need to see a therapist regularly, and then increase the amount of times we see them after a traumatic event. This needs to be common knowledge and/or promoted in the birth world.

I understand processing births with other birth workers, trying to get your bearing on understanding a situation that happened or asking for feedback if there was something you could have done differently. But your friend or another birth worker, isn’t enough to properly process a traumatic event.

It’s the same when we recommend seeing a professional to our clients after their traumatic birth or any traumatic event. Why don't we afford ourselves the same support? Why don’t we take care of ourselves just as much as we try and take care of our clients?

We need to take care of our mental health. If we don’t, this work isn’t sustainable.