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…