Healing my own Birth shock after 30 years.
My Shock : Epidural, interrupted bonding, 3 months breastfeeding.
I was a surprise pregnancy, but not an unexpected one, my parents and my 4 year old sister were happy to welcome me into their young family, like many others, with many challenges including lack of economic security, no job, no car, no apartment + debts, but I had/have two hard working parents and a strong, supportive extended family. Pregnancy went as it supposed, not too much attention to it when you have to focus on making a living.
On December 17th, 1989 my uncle Paco was getting married, my parents left the party early, my mom was looking “gorda” while my dad was “handsome”, as my dad describes the scene. Around 9:30pm contractions started, my grandma came to take care of my sister around midnight and my grandpa took my parents to the hospital, they put us in room 310.
At 2:30am they took mom to the “birthing room”, dad had to stay behind because two days before at another birth the dad killed the doctor during labor because his wife was in too much pain. (wait, WHAT!? Please help me find this kid, now 30 year old, to do some birth healing on him!)
In the birthing room, they put the epidural (WHY?! I was almost out!), epidural causes a disconnection between mom and baby, suddenly I am alone in this, where is mom now?!
Pushing stage starts. I am making my way down, with less power because of the anesthesia, but I know I can still make it, suddenly I feel something external pushing me, the nurse is pressing into my mom’s belly from above!
IMPACT TODAY: I can’t explain to you how I hate to be pushed to do something, the more people “push me” or “encourage me” to do things the less I move, I freeze, until the moment people stop talking or looking at me then I can move forward. I can do it on my own thank you.
I made it out at 4:05 am, (feel free to use this information for our 💜 astral chart), yes! I can finally meet mom, HI! … wait what? Where are you taking me! “You can only see your mother every 3 hours, she needs to rest.”
There I go, and fresh newborn taking to the nursery, this is call Isolation shock from interrupted bonding, this is an emotional and body-based response to heartbreak of losing connection with mom, newborns don’t know they exist separate from the mother, babies that experience this lack of skin-to-skin, tend to dissociate under such stress and lacks their regulatory system at the time, mom.
IMPACT TODAY:
Fear of being alone, For my first 21 years of life, I hated being alone, and I would experience extreme sadness when witnessing people that are lonely. This changed when I lived in NY for a summer and had to face this.
Touch, I currently need skin to skin touch or surround myself with a thousand pillows to fall asleep.
Dissociation, I just recently (thanks to a 1000 therapy sessions) realized that I do dissociate when in stress or difficult decisions need to be made, Fabiola in wonderland does exist, and it’s pretty awesome.
Difficulty self regulating, thanks to Yoga I learn how to self regulate, but for my first 20 years of life I would be more explosive, but I am also a Saggitarious…
Isolates during stress, yup, I do that, let’s leave it there, currently isolating.
Oh my, my poor mother will hate this post, but lets keep going, 3 months breastfeeding! First question my psychologist asked me when I started therapy last year, we have an idea of the impact of interrupted breastfeeding, it creates emotional and physical implications, but MOST moms don’t know this, is really not their fault, is the lack of knowledge and information around it.
IMPACT TODAY, I am not a fan of Freud, but Oral fixation might be a thing…
PREGNANCY & BIRTH MATTERS, the imprint during 0–18 months will basically guide our life patterns and reactions, all of this can be resolved, the sooner the easier.
If you have a baby 0–18 months, attend to all their needs in a timely manner, connect with them physically and emotionally, allow yourself to feel your emotions and help them recognize their emotions. This is all information based on my own work and studies on perinatal psychology, early attachment and somatics, I am just a newby working on myself so I can support others.
