Supporting my friend through childbirth helped heal my trauma

I didn’t realize how much emotional weight I was still carrying

I’ve written before about being pregnant and having a baby for the first time during the pandemic, and the impressions it left on me as a person and mother. So I won’t go deep into details here. Suffice it to say that more than 24 hours lapsed between when my water broke and the moment my son was born. The intervening hours brought a cocktail of induction drugs, two emergency IVs, and a placental abruption. And, most importantly, a tiny but healthy baby boy.

Recently, my friend, a third-time mother who was originally planning a home birth, learned she would need to be induced shortly before her due date. I rushed to the hospital the morning she was to begin induction, assuming (wrongly) her experience would mirror mine except in its duration. Eight hours later, having overstayed my welcome in her tiny downtown hospital room, little progress had been made. Having shared at least three hospital cafeteria smorgasbords with her fiance, we even did a puzzle to pass the time, the nurse digging out an old puzzle table from the supply closet. We learned at some point that according to hospital policy, my arrival as the second support person locked me in as a support person for the duration. Whoops.

I went home, with instructions to call me back (or not) as things progressed. I set an alarm for 5 a.m., and I awoke to a text from the fiance: “We started Pitocin…